Scenes in Record Suffragette Demonstration in London

London
1910-06
Silent
3m

Multitudes of women protest on the streets of London in a demonstration organised by the Women's Social and Political Union on 18 June 1910.

This was one of the earliest mass marches organised by the suffrage movement, and up to 15,000 women marched from the Embankment to the Albert Hall to hear speeches from Christabel Pankhurst and other suffragette leaders. Many of the women in the film are carrying arrows on poles which represent the "broad arrow" symbols used on prisoners' uniforms at the time; the women carrying them had all been imprisoned for their suffragette activities. The three imposing figures on horseback glimpsed at the end are 'the General' Mrs Flora Drummond and two of her associates, Mrs Evelina Haverfield and Miss Vera Holme.

NB Correct title is SCENES IN THE RECORD DEMONSTRATION OF SUFFRAGETTES

Make More Noise: Suffragettes on Film

"You have to make more noise than anybody else!," cried Suffragette pioneer Emmeline Pankhurst. But how to make more noise in silent film?

Pankhurst's strategy was simple but clever: at every public meeting or gathering, Suffragettes should stand up and shout "votes for women!". But how to make more noise in silent film? With moving images becoming increasingly important, the suffragettes needed to be not just heard, but seen. Newsreels were noticeably more neutral in their reporting than newspapers, so their cameramen were invited to big demonstrations, where banners and placards were carefully placed for the cameras.

Suffragettes (often played by men in drag) were common objects of ridicule in film comedies. But some characterisations were more ambiguous, and comedy could even - sometimes - give its female protagonists the freedom to make one hell of a noise.