On Saturday 13th June 1908, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) held a great procession. Its intention was to display the mass support for women’s suffrage. Ten thousand women marched through the streets of London, carrying over 70 banners. These banners were designed by Mary Lowndes, the founder of the Artists’ Suffrage League, and were sewn by the organisation’s members, which included several notable artists, including Marianne Stokes and May Morris.
Lowndes founded the Artists’ Suffrage League in 1907 to bring together professional artists to create material promoting the cause. Although it is the WSPU’s militant tactics that are most often remembered today, the suffrage campaign was also notable for its widespread adoption of visual propaganda.
Artists played an important role in counteracting negative stereotypes of feminists as hysterical and masculine. The banners created for use in their processions demonstrated women’s achievements and their contributions to society. More significantly, by employing the traditionally feminine craft of embroidery, these banners demonstrated that women could be politically active without sacrificing their femininity.
The League’s own banner, with its motto: ‘Alliance Not Defiance’, was sewn by the artist Christiana Herringham (1852-1929), using silk she had brought back from her travels in India. Herringham was one of the earliest members of the Artists’ Suffrage League and, with Lowndes, served as a representative for the Artists’ Suffrage League on the committee organising the NUWSS’ procession. Although her name is now forgotten, she played a significant role in the fight for women’s right to vote. Her support of the movement was wide-ranging; covering numerous organisations and taking many forms.
Christiana was married to a successful medical doctor, Wilmot Herringham. Yet, she was also independently wealthy, having received a significant inheritance from her father. Herringham used her money to help many causes, including to establish the National Art Collections Fund (now known as the Art Fund) in 1903. However, it was women’s rights that attracted her most sustained and significant backing. Herringham’s support of women’s education also influenced her husband; he later become chairman of the council for Bedford College for Women.
Herringham’s earliest recorded involvement with the suffrage movement was in 1889, when her name appeared on a petition demanding the vote. In the same year, she was also listed as a member of the Central Committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage. This was the first national organisation to campaign for women’s right to vote.
However, she was probably a supporter of the cause even earlier, as she appears to have already been acquainted with Millicent Fawcett (the leader of the NUWSS) and her family. In 1880, the Herringhams moved to 22 Bedford Square in London. Millicent Fawcett’s sister Agnes Garrett, and their cousin Rhoda Garrett, lived metres away at 2 Gower Street. A portrait which Herringham drew of Rhoda before her death in 1882 demonstrates the connection between the two families at this time.
Herringham became further involved with the cause in the early years of the twentieth century. By 1907 she was a member of both the NUWSS and the more militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), led by Emmeline Pankhurst. In addition, she assisted in the establishment of the Women’s Freedom League (WFL). In 1907 internal disagreements within the WSPU came to a head and led to the split of the organisation. In September 1907 Emmeline Pankhurst cancelled the upcoming annual conference and announced that the governing power of the organisation would in future be in the hands of a committee chosen by herself. In response, several members withdrew from the WSPU and formed their own organisation, which they named the Women’s Freedom League. Herringham appears to have been one of these members. The new organisation had no offices and few resources; Herringham helped by renting out offices she owned to the organisation. The following year, she also donated furniture when the WFL moved to new offices.
Herringham was incredibly active during the WFL’s first year. She presented badges, designed by the Artists’ Suffrage League, to members on their release from Holloway Prison. She helped to organise the Women’s Freedom League’s Bazaar, held at Caxton Hall in London in 1908. She also lent her collection of ‘Chinese and Japanese Antiques’ for a special exhibition held during the event. Bazaars were often held by women’s suffrage organisations to raise both money and publicity for the cause. Herringham further contributed to the WFL by co-writing a play for the organisation entitled ‘Granny Bopeep’. An advertisement described the play as, ‘setting forth why women need the vote and pointing out the various ways in which the public work of women is of benefit to the community.’
Although Herringham appears to have withdrawn from the WFL in later years, she remained committed to the cause as a member of both the NUWSS and the Artists’ Suffrage League. She also regularly donated money to help cover the publishing costs of several suffrage publications. In 1906, she even became the managing director of her own short-lived feminist periodical, entitled Women’s Tribune. The weekly journal aimed to publicise the efforts and achievements of women in fields such as art, literature, and politics. It also aimed to provide a platform for women to share their views on ‘all subjects of interest either to themselves specially or of national importance’.
Herringham remained devoted to the suffrage cause even as she began to descend into a mental breakdown. In June 1911, suffering from paranoid delusions, she was committed to an asylum. Soon afterwards, she asked her husband and son to sell ‘three valuable rugs’ and donate the proceeds to the suffrage movement. Unfortunately, her incarceration continued until her death in 1929. It is unknown how she reacted to, or if she was even aware of, the eventual success of the campaign to which she had devoted so much of her life.
By Michaela Jones.
Michaela is a PhD student in the Department of History at Royal Holloway, University of London.
