"The March of the Women" is a song composed by Ethel Smyth in 1910, to words by Cicely Hamilton. It became the official anthem of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and more widely the anthem of the women's suffrage movement throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Activists sang it not only at rallies but also in prison while they were on hunger strike. Smyth produced a number of different arrangements of the work.
Ethel Smyth composed the song in 1910, as a unison song with optional piano accompaniment, with words by Cicely Hamilton. [1] Smyth based the melody on a traditional tune she had heard in Abruzzo, Italy. [2] She dedicated the song to the WSPU. [1] In January 1911, the WSPU's newspaper, Votes for Women , described the song as "at once a hymn and a call to battle". [3]
"The March of the Women" was first performed on 21 January 1911, by the Suffrage Choir, at a ceremony held on Pall Mall, London, [1] to celebrate a release of activists from prison. Emmeline Pankhurst introduced the song as the WSPU's official anthem, replacing "The Women's Marseillaise". [4] The latter song was a setting of words by WSPU activist Florence Macaulay to the tune of La Marseillaise. [5]
On 23 March 1911 the song was performed at a rally in the Royal Albert Hall. Smyth was ceremonially presented with a baton by Emmeline Pankhurst, and proceeded to conduct the whole gathering in singing it. Smyth was active in promoting the performance of the song throughout the WSPU's membership. [6] It became the anthem of the women's suffrage movement throughout the United Kingdom. [7]
A famous rendering of it took place in 1912, at Holloway Prison, after many women activists were imprisoned as a result of a window-smashing campaign. Smyth's part in this had been to break the window of Lewis Harcourt, the Secretary of State for the Colonies. [8] The conductor Thomas Beecham visited Smyth in prison and reported that he found the activists in the courtyard "...marching round it and singing lustily their war-chant while the composer, beaming approbation from an overlooking upper window, beat time in almost Bacchic frenzy with a toothbrush." [3]
While imprisoned in April 1913, Emmeline Pankhurst undertook a hunger strike which she did not expect to survive. She told Smyth that at night she would feebly sing "The March of the Women" and another of Smyth's compositions, "Laggard Dawn". [9]
The march was also used during a large demonstration of American suffragists rallying in Washington, D.C., on May 9, 1914. [10] The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage sent delegates to march up the Capitol building stairs and present a petition to the U.S. Congress and accompanied by a 1,000 singer chorus. [10]
Smyth arranged the work several times. A version for choir and optional orchestra was included in Songs of Sunrise, a collection of three songs premiered on 1 April 1911 at the Queen's Hall, London. The other two songs in the collection were "Laggard Dawn" and "1910". An arrangement of "The March of the Women" for solo piano appeared in 1914 in King Albert's Book, a fund-raising publication for Belgian relief. On 6 March 1930, Smyth conducted a version of the march for military band, on the occasion of the unveiling of a statue to memorialize Emmeline Pankhurst in Victoria Tower Gardens. [1] The ceremony was presided over by Stanley Baldwin, and the performance was by the band of the Metropolitan Police. [11]
The tune of "The March of the Women" also appears in the overture of Smyth's opera The Boatswain's Mate . [12]
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women to win in 1918 the right to vote in Great Britain and Ireland. In 1999, Time named her as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating that "she shaped an idea of objects for our time" and "shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back". She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Dame Ethel Mary Smyth was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas.
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and policies were tightly controlled by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. Sylvia was eventually expelled.
Marion Wallace Dunlop was a Scottish artist, author and illustrator of children's books, and Suffragette. She was the first and one of the most well known British suffrage activists to go on hunger strike on 5 July 1909, after being arrested in July 1909 for militancy. She said she would not take any food unless she was treated as a political prisoner instead of as a common criminal. Wallace Dunlop's mode of protest influenced suffragettes after her and other leaders like M. K. Gandhi and James Connolly, who also used fasting to protest British rule. She was at the centre of the Women's Social and Political Union and designed some of the most influential processions of the UK suffrage campaign, as well as designing banners for them.
Black Friday was a suffragette demonstration in London on 18 November 1910, in which 300 women marched to the Houses of Parliament as part of their campaign to secure voting rights for women. The day earned its name from the violence meted out to protesters, some of it sexual, by the Metropolitan Police and male bystanders.
Nellie Hall, later known as Nell Hall-Humpherson, was a British suffragette, arrested and imprisoned several times for her activities with the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, which engaged in direct action and civil disobedience. In 1906, a reporter writing in the Daily Mail coined the term suffragette for the WSPU, derived from suffragistα, in order to belittle the women advocating women's suffrage. The militants embraced the new name, even adopting it for use as the title of the newspaper published by the WSPU.
Mary Leigh was an English political activist and suffragette.
The Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst Memorial is a memorial in London to Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel, two of the foremost British suffragettes. It stands at the entrance to Victoria Tower Gardens, south of Victoria Tower at the southwest corner of the Palace of Westminster. Its main feature is a bronze statue of Emmeline Pankhurst by Arthur George Walker, unveiled in 1930. In 1958 the statue was relocated to its current site and the bronze reliefs commemorating Christabel Pankhurst were added.
Jane "Janie" Allan was a Scottish activist and fundraiser for the suffragette movement of the early 20th century.
Norah Lyle-Smyth was a British suffragette, photographer and socialist activist.
Mabel Kate Tuke, born Mabel Kate Lear was a British suffragette known for her role of honorary secretary of the militant Women's Social and Political Union.
Gladice Georgina Keevil was a British suffragette who served as head of the Midlands office of the Women's Social and Political Union between 1908 and 1910.
Women's Sunday was a suffragette march and rally held in London on 21 June 1908. Organised by Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) to persuade the Liberal government to support votes for women, it is thought to have been the largest demonstration to be held until then in the country.
The 1906 WSPU march on 19 February 1906 was the first march held in London to demand the right to vote for women in the United Kingdom. Organized by Sylvia Pankhurst and Annie Kenney of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the event saw around 300–400 women march through central London to the House of Commons. It was held to coincide with the King's Speech and the opening of Parliament.
Katherine "Kitty" Marshall was a British suffragette known for her role in the militant Women's Social and Political Union and as one of the bodyguard for the movement's leaders who had been trained in ju-jitsu.
Helen Millar Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence was a suffragette and pharmacist.
Ellen Crocker (1872–1962) was a British suffragette, and a cousin of Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence.
Gertrude Jessie Heward Wilkinson, also known as Jessie Howard, was a British militant Suffragette, who, as a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), was imprisoned in Winson Green Prison. She went on hunger strike and was force-fed, for which she was awarded the WSPU's Hunger Strike Medal. In 1913, she became the Literature Secretary for the Women's Freedom League (WFL).
"The Women's Marseillaise" was the former Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) official anthem. It was sung to the tune of La Marseillaise and included words about women's suffrage written by Florence MacAulay. The song was sung by suffragists in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
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