suffragettes

From militant suffragette at the beginning of the 20th century to campaigner against colonialism in Africa after World War II, British Sylvia Pankhurst dedicated her life to fighting oppression and injustice.

A Labour government would officially apologise and pardon the suffragettes for the miscarriages of justice they suffered in fighting for women鈥檚 right to vote in Britain, said Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Miss Muriel Matters
Robert Wainwright
ABC Books, 2017
376 pages

In 1909, Muriel Matters planned to rain on the parade of King Edward VII to the ceremonial opening of parliament. She aimed to drop a shower of 鈥淰otes for Women鈥 leaflets on his head from a chartered air balloon trailing streamers in the white, gold and green of the Women鈥檚 Freedom League (WFL).

Lady Constance Lytton: Aristocrat, Suffragette, Martyr
Lyndsey Jenkins
Biteback Publishing, 2015
282 pages

When Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton was arrested in 1909 for protesting outside British parliament, and went on prison hunger-strike, for demanding women鈥檚 right to vote, she was, to prevent an embarrassing political fuss, released early.

This avoided the spectacle of one of Britain鈥檚 best-connected aristocrats being subjected to the government鈥檚 policy of force-feeding hunger-striking suffragettes.

In the , published in 1762, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that, 鈥渕an is born free, and everywhere is in chains鈥. The French Revolution determined to remedy this state of affairs and its chosen instrument was a constitution setting out 鈥渘atural, imprescriptible and inalienable rights鈥.