Suffragette treasures to go under the hammer
RARE suffragette memorabilia found in a shoebox is expected to make up to £1,500 at auction.
Sisters Edith, Florence and Grace Hodgson, who joined the fight to get women the vote, accumulated the souvenirs more than 100 years ago.
They kept them tucked away under the stairs, where they remained for more than 60 years before being discovered. The box contained items including badges, sashes, postcards and leaflets.
One card has a sketch of a man and the words: “Types of Anti-Suffragists – The man who thinks women are not sufficiently intelligent to vote, don’t you know.”
A Women’s Freedom League pennant featuring Holloway Prison and the words “stone walls do not a prison make” is also in the collection. And five hand-written postmarked cards urge women to support the cause in different ways.
There is also a collection of 101 postcards of leading suffragettes including Emmeline Pankhurst and Lady Constance Lytton.
The sisters lived in Dartmouth Park, North London. According to the 1901 census Edith was a milliner, Florence worked for the Post Office and Grace was 13. They are missing from the 1911 census, in what is thought to have been a protest.
Grace appears on the role of honour for suffragettes who were jailed for their beliefs.
The owner of the collection inherited them from her late husband, who was the sisters’ great nephew. The auction is on July 2 at Hansons, in Etwall, Derbys.