Suffragette exhibition opens at town museum and library
TUESDAY, February 6, was the Centenary of the Royal Assent to the Representation of the People Act 1918, which gave (some) women the vote.
It was also the day of the highly successful opening of the exhibition organised as part of an Heritage Lottery Funded project in Charnwood Museum and Loughborough Library.
The exhibition celebrates the events and people associated with the Suffra- gette movement in Loughborough.
The first public meeting calling for votes for women was held in 1875.
The first Suffragette speakers came to Loughborough soon after the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was formed. Noting that the route of reasoned and responsible argument and debate was not working, a local group was established in early 1909.
The exhibition in the Museum shows a figure of a woman wearing the clothes of Mrs Scoffield-Coates (said to be those in which she was arrested).
The exhibition in the Library traces the movement from its earliest days, with newspaper reports, photographs and artefacts of the time. It includes Kathleen Corcoran’s account of her arrest.
The exhibition was opened by Lord Bach, Leicestershire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, but more importantly in this context, the great-nephew of Emmeline Pankhurst, who spoke at two rallies in Loughborough in 1908 and 1910.
Lord Bach spoke movingly about his great-aunt and about the long fight by women, and some men, for suffrage and proper representation in public life.
The Suffragettes exhibition continues until March 24.