Huddersfield's suffragist banner

Having joined the local Huddersfield branch of the NUWSS, artist Florence Lockwood began to design and create their branch banner for use at large meetings and processions. As can be seen from the following extract, it took until January 1911 to be completed. 

HUDDERSFIELD - A meeting for the presentation of the new banner, kindly made by Mrs. Josiah Lockwood, was held in the Parochial Hall on January 24th. Miss Siddon took the chair. Mrs. Lockwood presented the banner, on which she had embroidered the motto, "Votes for Homes." In accepting the banner on behalf of the Society, Miss Siddon said she hoped soon the word "Victory" would also be inscribed on it. After a very hearty vote of thanks had been given to Mrs. Lockwood, Mrs. Donkersley gave a very interesting address.

- The Common Cause, February 2nd 1911

The banner was featured in an article in The Common Cause on 16th February and included an image of the banner's original design with the slogan 'Votes for Homes'. 

The A.B.C. of Women's Suffrage 

   We show this week a banner which was designed and worked and presented to the Huddersfield Women's Suffrage Society by Mrs. Josiah Lockwood, of Linthwaite. The Suffrage Societies have many such beautiful banners worked by Suffragists for love and into them have been stitched many hopes and aspirations, pretty fancies and steadfast resolves, memories and beliefs. It comes natural to women to use their clever fingers in decorating the outward and visible signs of their heart-felt faith, and when we find he civic consciousness of women expressing itself in needlework, we may be sure that this consciousness has become a part of the "WOMANLY WOMAN," and that its force is overwhelming.

Mrs. Lockwood, when presenting the banner, said that it pleased her while stitching at it to think of her work as symbolic of the national union. Buying the materials suggested the SUBSCRIPTION LIST. Choosing the foundation (good and strong) stood for FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. Choosing the motto suggested "The vote ON THE SAME TERMS as it is, or may be, granted to men." The braids, silks, and threads were the NOBLE ARMY OF WORKERS, speakers, lecturers, and organisers, all using one weapon - that of an ENLIGHTENED PUBLIC OPINION. The innumerable stitches were the MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY.

Original banner design shown in The Common Cause.

Her first efforts were quite unintelligible to most people, and many doubtless pityingly wished that her energies could be used for a better end, until the design dawned upon them. So it takes for the SPIRIT OF THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT to dawn upon some people. 

Steady application meant STEADY PROPAGANDA work. When the banner became heavy and unmanageable it meant the GROWTH OF THE UNION, which now has over 200 societies. The petty annoyances - whole days work having to be ripped out on the morrow, the needle losing itself, and getting unthreaded, the thread breaking getting knotted and twisting round unlikely objects, meant all that the poor workers, lecturers, and organisers have to go through - shouting in the cold market place making no impression, losing trains, etc.; and she was sure that the unlikely objects round which the thread would catch and entangle itself must stand for the Members of Parliament.

The banner raises the cry of VOTES FOR HOMES, and it is this aspect of our movement which must eventually find response in every heart. The homes represented here are beneath the shadow o the factory chimney, and the women who keep the homes together and bear the children have also to go out and earn the daily bread, in part or entirely. To them the silly parrot-cry of "chivalry" has no meaning. These women never meet it in their hard struggle, made harder still by heir legal and political position.

This weeks motto. "Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, She urns to favour and to prettiness."

-The Common Cause, February 16th 1911

The banner was used in the Women's Coronation Procession in London on 17th June 1911, two days before the official coronation of George V. The event was attended by 35,000 people. It had been organised by the NUWSS and WSPU. Banners were carried representing groups from across the country and many celebrated women from history such as Joan of Arc. 

The banner would also be used in the ' Great Pilgrimage' of 18-26 July 1913, ending with a rally at Hyde Park in which 50,000 people attended. 

It is unknown when Florence changed the banner's text to read 'Votes for Women', quite possibly after the passing of the 1918 Act that gave some women the vote but not all. 

__________________________________________________ 

Donation to Tolson Museum, Huddersfield

NEWS FROM SOCIETIES - The Huddersfield Suffrage Banner - We hear the Mrs. Josiah Lockwood, the originator of the Huddersfield Suffrage Banner, has responded to a suggestion that the authorities would be pleased to place it in the Museum there, and hat after the demonstration on 8th March, and the passing of the Act giving votes to women on the same terms as men, she will make the presentation. The National Union Suffrage Banner hung in a Museum as a relic of a past struggle makes us realize the long stride we have taken!

- The Woman's Leader, March 9th 1928