Display will honour county suffragette Alice Hawkins
A NATIONWIDE programme of events to mark the centenary of the first British women getting the vote continues this summer with the opening of a major exhibition in London.
Voice and Vote: Women’s Place in Parliament will trace the history of women in Parliament and will include the story of Leicester’s own suffragette, Alice Hawkins, the shoe factory machinist who led the women’s suffrage movement in Leicester in the early 1900s.
Items belonging to Alice, including her Votes for Women sash, her hunger strike medal and a letter of commendation signed by Emmeline Pankhurst, will be among the exhibits on display at Westminster Hall.
The exhibition will also feature rare and previously unseen objects, pictures and archive material from the Parliamentary collections.
The exhibition opens in Westminster Hall on June 27 and continues until October 6.
Admission is free, but places must be booked online or by calling 020 7219 4114.
School parties are also welcome and on most days visits to the exhibition can be combined with a tour of the Houses of Parliament (fee payable).
Melanie Unwin, cocurator of the Voice and Vote exhibition, said: “It should really give the public a sense of the barriers that women had to overcome to participate in democracy.
“For the first time, we are able to recreate the sounds and atmosphere of those spaces which women were confined to – it is incredible to see how much campaigners and early women MPs achieved, despite the limitations placed on them.
“We are delighted that items belonging to Leicester’s suffrage campaigner, Alice Hawkins, will be included in the exhibition.”
Anyone unable to visit the exhibition in London will also be able to see memorabilia from Alice Hawkins’ life at Leicester’s New Walk Museum from the end of October.
Leicester’s exhibition – Alice Hawkins and Votes for Women – opens on October 27 and runs until 24 February 2019.
As well as items that will help tell Alice’s story – loaned by members of her family – the exhibition will also show how the suffrage movement crossed social boundaries and brought women from all backgrounds together.
A number of Alice Hawkins’ possessions, including her Holloway brooch – designed by Sylvia Pankhurst and awarded to members of the Women’s Social and Political Union imprisoned for the cause – will be loaned to New Walk Museum by her greatgrandchildren.
Great-grandson Peter Barratt said: “There’s been a huge amount of interest in my greatgrandmother during this centenary year.
“I’ve been sharing her story with children at schools across the city and county, but these exhibitions in London and Leicester will take Alice’s story to an even wider audience.”