THE POWER OF A BANNER

Mary Lowndes, a skilled stained-glass artist and founder of the Artists’ Suffrage League described a banner as something “to float in the wind, to flicker in the breeze, to flirt its colours for your pleasure.” She designed most of the 70 banners carried on the huge NUWSS procession through

London on 13 June 1908.

Above: Mary Lowndes’ banners on the 13 June 1908 procession. Left: one of her banners in detail.

LOCAL FOCUS: A LOST MASTERPIECE

In May 1908 Hastings suffragette Edith Chibnall presented the WSPU with a beautiful silk banner that had been made by local women.

It was carried on the WSPU demonstration in London on 21 June 1908. Sadly there is no photograph of the banner and no one knows what happened to it.