Museum description:
In 1896, the National Union of Women's Suffrage
Societies (NUWSS) was founded, to act as an umbrella organisation for
the many local societies, and to work with sympathetic members of
parliament. Despite some early successes, including the second reading
of a private member bill in 1897, the South African War (1898-1902)
meant that Parliament’s attention was focussed elsewhere.
In 1903, after the end of the war, the campaign
gained a new impetus, and women’s suffrage was once again debated in
parliament. In the same year, in Manchester, a more radical group, the
Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded by Emmeline
Pankhurst and her daughter. Their frustration with the NUWSS meant that
from 1905 onwards WSPU used new tactics including civil disobedience,
rallies and demonstrations.
This coin – a perfectly ordinary penny minted in
1903 – was part of this civil disobedience. Stamped with the suffragette
slogan “votes for women”, it circulated as small change, and spread the
message of the campaigners. At the time, defacing a coin was a serious
criminal offence, and the perpetrators risked a prison sentence had they
been caught. We don’t know when the slogan was stamped on this coin,
but stamping it on small change rather than a silver coin meant that it
was less likely to be taken out of circulation by the banks. The message
could have circulated for many years, until the law giving women the
same voting rights as men was passed in 1928.
More here.
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