28th Jul, 2021 10:30 GMT/BST
Suffragettes. Album of autographs and sketches, 1910-15. 4to (226 x 176 mm), contemporary maroon roan album, marbled endpapers, gilt edges, 75 varicoloured paper leaves (many blank), containing autograph quotations signed by Teresa Billington Greig (1877-1964; quotation reads 'Dare to be free/Aspire, break bounds, I say', dated 14 January 1910), Alison Neilans (1884-1942; 'The woman's cause is a man's. They rise and fall together', from Tennyson, and a longer quotation, apparently original, 'Woman should be the comrade of man and not merely his amusement [...]', 10 November 1910), Charlotte Despard (1844-1939; ' 'Can man be free and woman be a slave? [...]', from Percy Shelley, 10 November 1910), Keir Hardie (1856-1915; 'Were half the power that fills the world with terror [...]', from Longfellow, 27 October 1910), Victor Duval (1885-1945, husband of Una Duva; 'Stand fast and let your tyrants see/That fortitude is victory'), and various others (unrecorded), the album illustrated with some 15 caricatures and sketches in pen-and-ink, watercolour and other media), including a suffragette haranguing a crowd from a rostrum with a 'Votes for Women' banner (signed Geo[rge] Reith Sutherland, 14 May 1910), and several depicting humorous scenes of golf, hockey and cricket, spine defective, front inner hinge broken between front free endpaper and first leaf (qty: 1) The year 1910 was of great significance for the suffragette movement. On 18 November Emmeline Pankhurst led a group of 300 women to the Houses of Parliament in protest at Asquith's announcement of a general election and apparent intention to shelve the first Conciliation Bill, which would have granted limited female suffrage for the first time; the ensuing scenes of violence became known as 'Black Friday'. The names of many of the contributors to this album and the content of some of the illustrations suggest a Scottish provenance. The author of the 'Votes for Women' sketch, George Reith Sutherland, is recorded as an officer in the Gordon Highlanders, receiving his commission while a private in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (London Gazette, 24 March 1916, 3192).
Sold for £450
Estimated at £200 - £300
Auction: Books, Maps & Manuscripts, 28th Jul, 2021
Books, Maps & Manuscripts
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