A Great Mass Meeting. Women's Social and Political Union

Printed handbill announcing a 'Great Mass Meeting held to welcome the Suffragettes Annie Kenney, Adelaide Knight and Mrs Sparboro on their release form Holloway Prison (Mrs Sparboro's name is spelt incorrectly on the flyer). Organised by the Women's Social and Political Union,the meeting took place at the symbolic Reformers Tree in Hyde Park on Tuesday 14 August 1906 and included speeches from the released prisoners.
The three suffragettes had been arrested on 19th June 1906 along with Teresa Billington during a demonstration outside the Cavendish Square home of Herbert Asquith who, at the time was Chancellor of the Exchequer. One of the first militant acts in London to result in imprisonment, Christabel Pankhurst later referred to the significance of the event in her 1959 book Unshackled by remarking 'Militancy had now begun in London. The first prisoners for the vote we in Holloway Gaol'.
This was one of a series of Hyde Park meetings organised by the Women's Social and Political Union during the summer of 1906. With the relocation of the WSPU leaders to London and the opening of a new London headquarters in 1906 the Women's Social and Political Union increased their campaigning activity in the capital. Regular, open air meetings in London's famous landmarks such as Hyde Park were crucial not only for promoting the Votes for Women message but also for putting pressure on the government to confront the issue and drive it up the political agenda.