Votes for Women, A Demonstration, outside The House of Commons

Handbill issued by the Women's Social and Political Union announcing a demonstration to be held outside the House of Commons on Tuesday 21st November 1911. This demonstration was organised in protest against the Government's intention to introduce a franchise bill that would give the vote to all men but continue to exclude women. The handbill, printed in purple, includes an address to the public from the organiser of the demonstration, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence who calls upon 'men and women in their thousands' to come to Parliament Square to protect the demonstrators from being brutally victimised by the Police, as they had been the year before on Black Friday.
Despite Pethick-Lawrence's hope that the demonstration would be peaceful increased frustration amongst the Suffragettes resulted in the mass-smashing of windows and a confrontation with the police that led to the arrest of 220 women over 100 of whom were charged with malicious destruction of property.