 On 19 September 2023, I was delighted to speak at an English Heritage event at which its 1000th blue plaque was unveiled. The plaque was installed at 1 Robert Street, the former London headquarters of the Women's Freedom League, a suffragist organisation. Below is the transcript of the speech I gave, as well as some videos of the event. Suffrage historian and author Elizabeth Crawford headlined the event, and you can find out more about her research via this link. I was meant to be looking for theatre reviews. I was browsing The Vote, the newspaper published by the Women’s Freedom League and which frequently included information about the plays that the Actresses Franchise League put on in support of their work. But, instead, my eye was drawn to a photograph of a woman in her kitchen, filling jars with homemade jam. I suppose the domestic scene - with bold floral wallpaper and stark-white apron - made this image stand out against the usual photos of suffrage processions and demonstrations. It was accompanied by a short article written by Edith How-Martyn, cofounder and honorary secretary of the League. I was intrigued to discover that her article was, in fact, a defence of jam making. ‘What has that to do with the suffrage movement?’ is a natural question to ask. Well, in the article Edith writes about the negativity she encountered from one member of the League who, upon seeing the photograph of Edith in the kitchen, stated, ‘What a fraud!’ This member felt that jam making or, rather, all activities associated with women’s domestic duties were incompatible with the work of a secretary of a suffrage group. Edith, clearly irked, uses the article to defend her love of cooking and baking. Rejecting any incompatibility, she instead pointedly laments the fact that the refusal of men in power to grant women the vote has meant that women have had to give up so many of these domestic activities in order to prioritise the fight for suffrage. The last bastion is jam-making and, she writes, ‘not even the suffrage can induce me to give up making my own jam’. When we consider the extremely restrictive, incredibly narrow notions of femininity that women have been subjected to over the ages, and when we add to that the fact that cooking was, for a long time, not a choice for women but, instead, unpaid and mandatory domestic work, it is perhaps no wonder that the person who criticised Edith was confused by the idea that women might occupy more than one space, that they can have multiple identities and that these don’t have to be contradictory. Edith enjoyed making blackberry jam and she was also one of the first WSPU members to serve time in Holloway Gaol. It was a far more radical idea back then but I‘m sure that, even all these years later, we can think of times when we have seen the damaging impact of restrictive gender stereotypes on notions of what women can and can’t do. In this jam incident, I think that Edith and the Women’s Freedom League set an inspiring example, then and for us today, not only for how to deal with such criticism but also for how to continue the important work that they started. Firstly, I think it’s significant that the League was happy to publish Edith’s article: the WFL was not afraid of acknowledging that, just because their members broadly shared the same values, did not mean that they agreed on everything. The WFL itself had, after all, grown out of the divisions within the Pankhursts’ own suffrage group. As the publication of Edith’s article shows, the League valued democracy and giving voice to difference. Also democratic is the way that Edith shows us that everyone can have a valuable role to play in progressing the work of important causes. She decided to harness for the suffrage cause her talent for jam-making. Edith writes about how her damson jam - decorated with labels that declared ‘Votes for Women, Women’s Freedom League’ (cut off old handbills) - about how it ‘did propaganda work on many a tea table.’
Find out more about this event via these videos:
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