Dicing with history... Suffragette game highlighted battle for votes
THERE’S Monopoly for property developers and Cluedo for armchair detectives. But 100 years ago, women in the know were playing... Pank-a-Squith.
The incredibly rare board game for Suffragettes has been unearthed in Warwickshire, and dubbed an “incredible find” by experts.
It was devised to support the Votes for Women movement, which recently celebrated its centenary, and features figurines in period costume.
The dice game is called Pank-aSquith after Emmeline Pankhurst – leader of the British Suffragette movement – and her adversary Herbert Asquith, British Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916.
Essentially, it mirrors snakes and ladders, with the figures having to avoid numerous pitfalls that would consign them to prison.
There are six Suffragettes and players follow the instructions printed on the squares their figure falls on.
The game, uncovered in Stratford-upon-Avon, will go under the hammer at Hansons Auctioneers, in Etwall, Derbyshire, on Tuesday, March 27.
The board is missing, but the pieces are still expected to realise more than £100. A complete set once sold for almost £700.
Pank-a-Squith was among a number of toys, games and puzzles manufactured to publicise the Suffragette movement.
The board game was first advertised in propaganda flysheet Votes for Women on October 22, 1909, and was sold in high street shops run by the Women’s Social and Political Union.
Jon Keightley, valuer for Hansons, found the game at a valuation event held in Alveston, near Stratford.
“It’s a wonderful find,” he says. “The game isn’t complete because it is lacking the board. It dates back to around 1909 and is probably German. A complete game has sold in the past for £660 but, as this one is incomplete, it may only make around £100. Pank-a-Squith was made to entertain supporters of the Suffragette movement while raising funds for them and promoting their cause. It is essentially a glorified version of snakes and ladders where Suffragette figures have to negotiate the board while avoiding arrest.
“Objects like this show how advanced the Suffragette movement was in terms of making merchandise to back their cause.”
The movement produced toys and games to popularise its ideals and activities. There were dolls, books and a more popular game called Suffragettes In and Out of Prison.”