PART 1: CONTEMPORARY WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MATERIALS

RELATING TO SCOTLAND, c1870-1920

The British Library

The largest library in the UK has a number of holdings relevant to the votes for women campaign in Scotland. Significant archives include the Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy papers, including contemporary papers relating to, among others, Chrystal Macmillan, chair of the Scottish Federation of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (hereafter NUWSS). Records are also held of the Northern Men’s Federation for Women’s Suffrage, which had many branches and members in Scotland, and papers of its figurehead Maud Arncliffe Sennett. The British Library, of course, hold copies of virtually every book on women's suffrage, and these can be accessed from its Integrated Catalogue. Website: www.bl.uk

Glasgow Women’s Library

Soon to be moved to a new home in the Mitchell Library, GWL houses a vast collection of materials by, for and about women. It comprises a lending library with books categorised and classified by subject and name. Elsewhere there are collections of books, newspapers, and newspaper cuttings, journals, magazines, photographs, posters and printed ephemera, though its suffrage-related archives are not significant. Website: www.womenslibrary.org.uk

Manchester Central Library and John Rylands Library, Manchester University

The impressive Women’s Suffrage Collection at Manchester Central Library was catalogued and published in two parts as The Women’s Suffrage Collection from Manchester Central Library, A Listing and Guide to the Microfilm Collection, by Adam Matthew in 1995. The collection includes the Annot Robinson Papers, comprising records of the Dundee schoolteacher and Women’s Social and Political Union (hereafter WSPU) member Annot Wilkie who married the Labourite Sam Robinson and moved to Manchester. The library also holds important papers of the Victorian suffragist Lydia Becker, those of Millicent Fawcett and some NUWSS papers. Additionally, Manchester University’s John Rylands Library holds a valuable collection of Pankhurst papers, and archives of the Parliamentary Committee for Women's Suffrage (1892-1901), the NUWSS (1910-1914) and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (1913-1920). Website: www.manchester.gov.uk/libraries/central

Mitchell Library, Glasgow

The Mitchell Library in Glasgow houses important memorabilia from the votes for women campaign, including the papers of Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for Women’s Suffrage (1902-1918) and the minutes of Glasgow Corporation’s women’s suffrage deputation.. The Mitchell also holds volumes of The Common Cause, the paper of the NUWSS, copies of The Vote and minute books of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. The Mitchell has a wide range of books and pamphlets relating to women's suffrage, which can be accessed via its electronic catalogues. Website: www.mitchelllibrary.org

Museum of London, Suffrage Fellowship Collection

This museum possesses some 1800 items of photographs, postcards, books, letters, press cuttings and memorabilia relating to the votes for women campaign. The core of the collection was formed by the Suffragette Club founded by Edith How Martyn in 1926, later the Suffragette Fellowship. The archive was gifted to the museum in 1950. It is particularly rich in material relating to the militant activities of the WSPU and includes many of their records and publications. Items from the collection are on permanent display in the Museum of London and the collection was listed in the catalogue accompanying the Purple, White and Green: Suffragettes in London exhibition held at the Museum of London in 1992-3. (Copy in Watson Collection, hereafter WC) Website: www.museumoflondon.org.uk

National Archives of Scotland

NAS holds an extensive and valuable range of former Scottish Record Office documents from the militant era of the votes-for-women campaign. There are important prison-related files in the Home and Health Department series, under the file designation HH. There are records of suffrage trials in the High Court of Judiciary deposit (JC), sheriff court records (SC) and in the archives of the Lord Advocate’s Department (AD). Files relevant to specific women are listed below in the Archives of Individual Suffragists section. These NAS records are housed at West Register House, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, where a leaflet is available describing the suffrage holding. Among the most important files are the following:

HH 12/22 Register of Suffragettes received into prison in Scotland, 1909-1914. This is a list of 26 women who were arrested and imprisoned in Scotland. It is also available as a scanned document. It does not encompass all militants jailed in Scotland, nor the Scotswomen imprisoned in England for suffrage-related offences.

HH 16/36 Criminal case file: Edith New, Lucy Burns and Alice Paul, convicted of breach of the peace at Dundee in September 1909, which resulted in the first imprisonments and hunger strikes in Scotland. File contains reports, correspondence and Press cuttings and includes references to the women damaging cells and the receipt by the Dundee prison of an anonymous letter urging forcible feeding "to stop these female hooligans."

HH 16/37 Criminal case file: Adela Pankhurst, Laura Evans, Helen Russell or Archdale, Catherine Agnew or Corbett and Maud Joachim – papers dealing with the suffragette militancy in Dundee in October 1909. The archives includes a letter from the Governor in which he tells prison commissioners, "They are all refusing food and have told me that they mean to do as much damage and cause as much annoyance as possible." Interestingly, Dr Stalker, the prison medical officer, considers Mrs Pankhurst's daughter "a degenerate."

HH 21 Home and Health department registers for Scottish prisons.

HH 55/323 Suffragette activity in Abernethy and Dundee (includes details of the aftermath of the arrest of the five women in Dundee, named above, in October 1909.) This is an important file in debunking the notion that Scotland was too civilised or sophisticated to follow England's example to force feed hunger-striking militants. Although women were not artificially fed in Scotland until five years after the practice had been adopted south of the border, these papers (along with those in HH16/37) make it abundantly clear that the Secretary for Scotland was readily prepared for such treatment soon after the first forcible feedings in England in 1909.