HIVES OF ACTIVITY

THE YEARS BETWEEN 1910 and 1914 were extremely active as women intensified their efforts to gain the vote, increasingly frustrated by the refusal of successive governments to accept their demands. Women in Hastings and St Leonards stepped up their activity just like campaigners everywhere else. Suffragists and suffragettes redoubled their efforts, determined to get the vote. They launched new suffrage societies, increased the number of meetings and public events, opened offices and held more outdoor events.

BUSY OFFICES

In 1909 the existing women’s suffrage society was affiliated to the NUWSS.

Two new societies were set up. One was the Hastings, St Leonards and

East Sussex Women’s Suffrage Society, which opened an office at 29 Havelock

Road, Hastings. Miss Shrimpton ran the office, which was used for meetings and lectures.

The other society was the Hastings and St Leonards Women’s Suffrage

Propaganda League. It opened an office at 47 London Road, St Leonards.

Each office was a hive of activity, selling suffrage newspapers, displaying posters, providing information and organising meetings. 22

HASTINGS WSPU OFFICE

In 1911 WSPU organiser Dorothy Bowker set up a local branch of the WSPU in Hastings. Soon afterwards the WSPU opened a shop at 8 Trinity Street, Hastings (now Wow & Flutter in Claremont). The office was constantly busy and often used as an assembly point for marches and demonstrations. In 1912 when Emmeline Pankhurst came to speak in Hastings, the local press photographer took shots of local suffragettes lined up outside the office carrying placards advertising the meeting. They also took a fine shot of Mrs Isabella Darent Harrison sitting in a decorated car, lent to the women by a male supporter, the Reverend Hope of Bexhill (see right).

STRIDING ALONG THE SEAFRONT

Local suffragettes organised ‘poster parades’ to advertise the cause and local meetings. In 1912 suffragettes processed along the seafront advertising a huge public meeting where Emmeline Pankhurst was to speak.

In 1912 the local NUWSS opened a Women’s Suffrage Club at 7 Havelock Road. It was used for meetings, had a kitchen and a rest room where members could read, write or just rest after their campaigning activities.

“Let no one say that the Suffrage Movement is dead in this borough. On the contrary it was never so much alive.” Jane Strickland, NUWSS

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