The brave, risky campaign for women’s right to vote has inspired activists for more than 100 years. Here’s what we can learn from them
I was both shocked and delighted when I read that at the Women of the World festival earlier this month, Queen Camilla held up two stones that had been hurled at the windows of Buckingham Palace in May 1914. The stones had been thrown by two women, and each carried a message on which the justification for their action was written. One of these messages was “Constitutional methods being ignored drive us to window smashing”; another was: “If a constitutional deputation is refused, we must present a stone message.”
The stones broke through the glass and probably landed on the carpet inside the palace. Rather than throwing them away, as we might have expected, King George V and Queen Mary instead seem to have chosen to keep at least two of the stones, perhaps as souvenirs or mementoes, which is how Camilla came to share them with us when she paid tribute to the women behind the protest. It was a brave move that ran the risk of criticism from conservatives and misogynists. Camilla spoke of the suffragettes’ ambition to “make this world a better place for women”. I don’t remember any other royal endorsing the actions of the women’s movement, especially one as provocative, controversial and risky as the Women’s Social and Political Union, which led the campaign for suffrage.
Diane Atkinson is a historian and the author of Rise Up Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes
