Votes for Women brooch

Shared by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

This ‘Votes for Women’ brooch is a striking visual representation of the British suffrage movement, which New Zealand women engaged with both in person and from afar. It is possible that the enamelled panel was made in Britain, as a very similar example has been found and attributed to Ernestine Mills. The silver marks on the back indicate that the silver backing was added in New Zealand or Australia, but unfortunately we do not know who the inscribed initials ‘HM’ might refer to. The colours and slogan suggest that the wearer was aligned with the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), a militant branch of the UK suffrage movement founded in 1903. Although the brooch post-dates the New Zealand suffrage campaign, it materialises aspects of the British movement – iconography, rhetoric, awareness-raising efforts – in which New Zealand women played an important role. A Global MovementIn the late nineteenth century, a broad movement for women’s political rights developed in Britain and its colonies, the United States, and northern Europe. As Sandra Coney explains, suffragists in New Zealand ‘were not isolated, but were fully conscious of their part in a worldwide movement of women’ (Coney, 13). They corresponded with campaigners all over the world, and drew on shared rhetoric inspired by the writings of English philosopher John Stuart Mill and the missionaries of the American temperance movement.New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world to grant women the vote in 1893. Having won universal female franchise, New Zealand suffragists continued to fight for women’s suffrage in other places. Lady Anna Stout, of Dunedin, lived in England from 1908 to 1912, and used her position as a ‘possessor of the vote’ to counter anti-suffragist arguments that the granting of female suffrage would lead to the collapse of society. Frances Parker, meanwhile, left South Canterbury in 1896 to attend Cambridge University, and in 1908 joined the WSPU. She was remanded for attempted arson in 1914, and forcibly fed while on a hunger strike. Suffrage MerchandiseThe badge incorporates colours chosen by the WSPU to symbolise their mission – white for purity, purple for dignity, and green for hope. The colours were used on rosettes, handkerchiefs, scarves, banners, buttons and brooches, and suffragettes were encouraged to wear them at all times. The WSPU recognised the power of merchandising and image building, and combined fashion, consumerism and politics to great effect. ‘Votes for Women’ was one of the most recognisable slogans used by suffrage campaigners – a rallying cry devised by the WSPU for use at rallies and demonstrations. It was also the title of their magazine. The use of the slogan was reported in New Zealand newspapers from 1905, when Christobel Pankhurst unfurled a ‘Votes for Women’ banner while defending herself in court. It quickly became a common headline in local newspapers, as cable news reports from Britain allowed New Zealanders to keep up-to-date with the British movement.ReferencesAtkinson, Diane. 1992. Suffragettes in the Purple, White & Green. London: Museum of London. Coney, Sandra. 1993. Standing in the Sunshine: A History of New Zealand Women Since they Won the Vote. Auckland: Viking.Staff, Margaret. 2021. 'What is suffragette white? The colour has a 110-year history as a protest tool.' The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/what-is-suffragette-white-the-colour-has-a-110-year-history-as-a-protest-tool-158957Te Papa, n.d. New Zealanders and the British Suffrage Movement. https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/discover-collections/read-watch-play/history/new-zealanders-and-british-suffrage-movement