Vote 100: The Journey to Democracy

Meeting starts at 11.00am. Welcome refreshments from 10.30am.

As we celebrate the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which ushered-in a new era of democratic rights for women, journey through the British Library’s unique collections on a day of talks and debate.

You'll hear from a range leading researchers and Library experts and learn how the remarkable stories of suffrage and women’s liberation are represented in the Library’s collections, and sound and vision archives.

Explore diverse themes including the militancy of the suffrage movement: its exponents, targets and consequences; how men supported the fight for women’s rights; and the legacies of the suffrage movement throughout the 20th century.

There will be 5 leading researchers and Library experts speaking at the study day and these will include ;

Dr Claire Eustance, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Greenwich – Claire will share her research around masculinity and male support for women’s suffrage, thereby giving wider social and political context to the movement.

Dr Fern Riddell, cultural historian and an expert in militant suffrage who appears regularly on TV and Radio, is consultant for the BAFTA award-winning BBC and Amazon drama Ripper Street and author of the Victorian Guide to Sex (2014) and forthcoming Death In Ten Minutes: Kitty Marion. Actress. Arsonist. Suffragette. (2018) – Fern will look at the militancy of the suffrage movements: its exponents, targets and consequences.

Dr Polly Russell, Lead Curator of Contemporary Politics and Public Life at the British Library – Polly will look at the legacy of suffrage, and explore the Library’s oral history project ‘Sisterhood and Beyond’ that captures the memories of women who powered the Women’s Liberation Movement in the UK during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. This will include exerts from the Library’s sound and vision archives.

Image Attribution: By Jack1956 - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3079250