“A crowded and overflowing meeting in support of Women’s Parliamentary franchise was held at the… Royal Concert Hall, St Leonards on Saturday afternoon.” Hastings and St Leonards Pictorial Advertiser, 18 March 1909
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GOING PUBLIC To reach a wider audience, campaigners needed to make their views heard in public. All over the country they hired public halls and invited speakers to put the case for votes for women. Popular venues in Hastings included the Royal Concert Hall in Warrior Square. Local suffrage societies invited well-known campaigners such as Millicent Fawcett or Emmeline Pankhurst to speak and advertised all meetings though the local press. Flowers, suffrage colours and banners of the local societies decorated the halls, which were usually packed to overflowing.
Above: November 1911: Millicent Fawcett, NUWSS leader, addresses a crowded suffrage rally in Hastings. Mrs Cecilia Tubb, a local activist, stands on her left. Hastings Pictorial Advertiser
