News Archive

Mrs Pankhurst's Medal for Imprisonment to be offered at auction in London

Spink is pleased to announce that we have received instructions to offer in our April 2004 auction the Women's Social and Political Union Medal for Imprisonment to one of the most famous women of the twentieth century, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Suffragettes, militant and hunger striker and the public face of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). During the period 1903-14, the increasingly militant activity of Mrs Pankhurst and her Suffragettes focused the nation's attention on the growing demand that women be given the vote.

Mrs Pankhurst (1858-1928), born in Manchester, the oldest daughter in a large family of ten children, attended her first suffrage meeting at the age of fourteen. The founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union, she became a household name during the early years of the 20th century for her determined and passionate campaigning for women’s rights, especially the right to vote. For over thirty years she addressed mass meetings and open-air rallies, published pamphlets, led marches, and personally petitioned members of Parliament and leading public figures. Devoting her life to the cause, she became a skilled politician, a renowned public speaker, and an adroit publicist. Frequently arrested and imprisoned, she was on many occasions threatened with violence by hostile crowds, and for years her every move was observed by members of the British Special Branch. The increasing violence and feeling of desperation which gripped the suffrage movement in the years immediately before the outbreak of the Great War were reflected in the increasingly harsh treatment meted out to militant members by the authorities, and Mrs Pankhurst accepted her full share of mental and physical suffering. On one famous occasion, in Holloway in July 1914, after a particularly harsh ‘forcible’ search, she was stripped and left lying naked on the stone floor, under the gaze of prison officials. The photograph of Mrs Pankhurst, seized by a Chief Inspector of Police outside Buckingham Palace, her feet off the ground as he grasps her round the waist, has become one of the most familiar iconographic images of the Suffragette Movement.

Her campaigning and fund raising took her abroad to Europe and the United States. On one occasion, arriving in New York in October 1913, she was detained on the infamous Ellis Island, and only released on direct authority of the President. On the same visit Mrs Pankhurst played herself in a feature film, What Eighty Million Women Want, produced by the Uneek Film Company and first screened at the Bryant Theatre, New York, on 29 November 1913. She travelled widely during the Great War, visiting the U.S.A. again in 1916 to raise funds for the care of ‘War Babies’. Her home for orphans became, after the War, the War Memorial Adoption Home, the original hostel of the National Adoption Association. In 1917 Mrs Pankhurst was in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution, and in Petrograd she took the salute at a march-past of the Russian Women’s Battalions of Death.

Emmeline Pankhurst died in June 1928 in London. An all-night vigil was held at St John’s, Smith Square, before the burial service the next day in Brompton Cemetery. Her portrait, painted by Georgina Brakenbury in 1927, was purchased and given to the National Portrait Gallery. Her statue, by A.G. Walker ARA, erected in Victoria Tower Gardens, adjacent to the House of Commons, was unveiled by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in March 1930, and is now in a prominent position close to the entrance of the House of Lords.

The silver medal for Imprisonment is inscribed with the name, Mrs Pankhurst, and the figures H24, for Hospital Wing, Floor 2, Cell 4. The medal is suspended from a silver bar bearing the date Oct 8th 08, and the distinctive purple, white and green riband, the colours of the suffragette movement, hangs from a second bar inscribed Holloway. One of only three such medals known (the other two both in The Museum of London), this is without doubt the most emotive and famous of all suffrage medals, its importance and significance transcending all limits of nationality and period.

Further details about the the Honour Medal for Imprisonment

The Honour Medal for Imprisonment, the earliest known WSPU medallic award of which only two other examples have been noted, both in The Museum of London, precedes the later more frequently awarded Hunger Strike Medal. Although similar in design to the latter, the Imprisonment Medal is slightly smaller in diameter(20mm), with narrower suspension bar and riband; the top bar is inscribed with the name of the prison and the lower bar with the date of the act that led to imprisonment, in the case of Mrs Pankhurst 'Holloway' and 'OCT. 8th 08' respectively. Her medal is inscribed on the obverse 'H24' and the figures filled with black enamel - H is apparently for Hospital Wing, 2 for 2nd Floor, and 4 for the Cell Number 4; the reverse is inscribed 'Mrs Pankhurst'; the two other known examples of the Imprisonment Medal, one awarded to Lady Constance Lytton, the other unnamed, follow a similar pattern.

The inscription on the lower bar, 'Oct 8th 08', records the date of the incident that led to a charge of incitement and the subsequent arrest, trial and imprisonment of Mrs Pankhurst, her daughter Christobel Pankhurst and Flora Drummond. On 8 October 1908 the Police raided the offices of the WSPU which were then in Clement's Inn. It was here, said Inspector Jarvis giving evidence at the trial, that Christobel showed them handbills, 'which in substance formed the foundation of the charge' contained in the subsequent summons for their arrest. The Summons served on the three women read: 'Information has been laid this day that you in the month of October in the year 1908 were guilty of conduct likely to provoke a breach of the peace by initiating and causing to be initiated and publishing and causing to be published a certain handbill calling upon and inciting the public to do a certain wrongful and illegal act - viz to rush the House of Commons at 7.30pm on October 13 inst'.

The women were summoned to appear at Bow Street Police Station on Monday 12 October at 3.30pm, but they decided to ignore the summons (which in any case was subsequently adjourned until the 13th) until after the rush on the House of Commons when they would give themselves up for arrest. The three informed the police of this by letter, saying that they would be available at Clement's Inn at 6.00pm on that day, and carried on with their activities, including a large rally in Trafalgar Square, to attract support for the House of Commons demonstration.

On Wednesday 14 October the women appeared at Bow Street Court before a Magistrate, Mr Curtis Bennett. Despite their efforts, especially those of Christobel who as a trained lawyer handled the defence, to turn the proceedings into a political trial at which both Lloyd George and Herbert Gladstone, two leading Liberal MPs, were called as witnesses, the Magistrate insisted that he would not be distracted from the essence of the charge. In his summing up he declared that the defendants had admitted publishing the handbills and had gone on to distribute them despite having been warned of the consequences. He said that his job was to carry out the law in order to preserve the peace and well-being of the Metropolis and he thought that there could be no question that the handbill which was circulated was by its contents liable to cause something to occur which might and probably would end in a breach of the peace. Mr Curtis Bennett further commented that the Chief Commissioner of Police was bound to keep Parliament Square and the vicinity free and open, and he felt that it would be impossible to do so if crowds assembled to help and see the women rush Parliament. Hence the three accused were found guilty of incitement. Unwilling to be bound over to keep the peace for twelve months, Mrs Pankhurst and Flora Drummond were sentenced to three months imprisonment and Christobel to ten weeks.

WSPU awards and memorabilia have risen dramatically in price over recent years and it is expected that Mrs Pankhurst's Imprisonment Medal, not only because of its highest numismatic rarity but also because of her high profile within the Movement, will create international interest and could exceed the estimate of £20,000-30,000.

N.B. For more information please contact Spink’s Medal Department:

Richard Bishop (020 7563 4053)
John Hayward (020 7563 4049)

Email: rbishop@spink.com

A recent radio interview given by Diana Birch discusses Mrs Pankhurst's medal in detail. Click here to listen to the programme on BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour.