A Suffragette Summer: Pride, Herstories and a Stall on Tour

Summer’s here (allegedly)! Hope you are all keeping well, marvellous Newsletter subscribers, and you’re ready to explore some herstories with us!

Our Suffragette Stall is on tour around Glasgow this month in Maryhill, WestFest and Kinning Park Complex. If Glasgow’s out of reach, never fear – we have another fab Online Gathering on 25th July, with a special guest sharing about Stranraer suffrage campaigner Jane Taylour.

We’re celebrating Pride Month with an Archive Dive on women’s education pioneer, suffragist and lesbian Louisa Lumsden – who featured on our very first mural. We’re also sharing our Gender Inclusion Statement, because when we celebrate women’s histories, we include trans women. Read on for more…

Find our Suffragette Stall around Glasgow

Explore Kinning Park Complex’s anniversary programme and WestFest.

We’ll be bringing our Suffragette Stall out and about this month, and we’d love to see some of our Newsletter subscribers, so come and say hello!

Catch us on the following days in Glasgow:

– Sat 13 June – Maryhill is Wonderful

– Wed 17 June – WestFest – special invitation to school groups

– Sat 27 June – Kinning Park Complex’s ‘Pure Dead Brilliant’ Family Festival

All events are FREE and ALL WELCOME.

We’ll be hosting activities like:

🎨Badgemaking with feminist & activist slogans

✏️Mindful colouring with designs of our STEM Suffragettes

⚡Lightning rounds of our Scotland’s Suffragette Card Game

🗣️Chats about Scotland’s herstories and why they’re so essential to protect

💜and more!

This Saturday 13th June 12-3pm, we’ll be at Maryhill Burgh Halls with our Suffragette Stall for Maryhill is Wonderful – celebrating 170 years of Maryhill. We’ll also be celebrating Maryhill’s own suffragette Jessie Stephen MBE (scroll down for more about Jessie).

On Wednesday 17th June 10am-3pm, we’ll be at Cottier’s Theatre on Hyndland Street for A Celebration of Glasgow: History, Heritage and Traditional Skills as part of WestFest. WestFest is Glasgow’s biggest cultural and community festival, and every June it captures the imaginations of participants, residents and visitors in the West End of Glasgow.

And finally, on 27th June 12-4pm, we’ll be ‘at home’ in Kinning Park Complex, for the Pure Dead Brilliant Family Festival. This will be the end celebration of KPC’s 30th anniversary programme of events, celebrating the 55 day sit-in that put KPC into community hands 30 years ago.

If you are nearby Glasgow, come and say hello! Check our socials for more details, especially as the dates approach…

Maryhill is Wonderful – Sat 13 June

Introducing Laura Brown – helping us to grow our sustainability

Read more about Firstport’s Build It funding and connect with Laura Brown on LinkedIn.

We’d like to introduce Laura Brown who is leading our Business Development! Thanks to our Build It Funding from Firstport, we have been working with Laura to develop sustainable income generation strategies.

Laura has held several senior leadership roles in audience and income development within the arts and museums, social enterprises, and third sector. She recently launched Impact Catalyst Partners where she and her co-founders work with various third sector and arts organisations to develop their income and communication strategies.

“Having started my career in the arts, it’s wonderful to be involved with an organisation which has so much artistic integrity and passion. I’m really looking forward to learning more about the fearless women of Scotland who came before us and how their protest and suffering helped shape modern society.”

Read more from Laura on LinkedIn

Our Gender Inclusion Policy

Read the Protests & Suffragettes Gender Inclusion Policy in full.

June is Pride month and it’s a good time to restate our support of the LGBTQ+ community. As her-storians we actively seek out stories of queer changemakers, though we acknowledge that within their historical context, they would likely not have used gay, trans or intersex to describe themselves.

Last year we launched our Gender Inclusion Policy. Its key themes are:

– We use the word ‘woman’ inclusively.

That includes trans women, non-binary, intersex and gender fluid folx.

– All are welcome. We aim to provide an inclusive, welcoming environment for all genders at our events.

– We do not tolerate discrimination. On the basis of a person’s sex, gender, sexuality or other protected characteristics.

Read our Gender Inclusion Policy in full

Proud Archive Dive: Louisa Lumsden

Discover SWG3 Yardworks, explore our artworks, or read more about Louisa Lumsden.

Louisa Lumsden (1840-1935) was a women’s education pioneer and suffragist from Aberdeen. She was one of the first three women to graduate from Hitchen (now Girton) College, Cambridge, known as ‘The Girton Pioneers’. She became the first female tutor at Girton, then went on to be the first warden of University Hall, St Andrews – the first residential hall for female students in Scotland. Louisa was also the first person to introduce the sport of women’s lacrosse to Scotland (having learned it from indigenous people in Montreal). That’s a lot of firsts!

“It is on understanding that the hopes of the world rest.”

While at Girton, Louisa had met Constance Maynard, another education pioneer. They became what many historians call ‘close friends,’ but in their own words they were “wife and husband.”

“Why should women not be citizens?”

Louisa also found time to be president of the Aberdeen Suffrage Association. She spoke on behalf of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies at a 1913 rally in Hyde Park and later became a VP of the Scottish Churches League for Woman Suffrage. When the Representation of the People Act was passed in 1918, Louisa, then aged 78, was given the honour of planting The Suffrage Oak Tree in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow.

In 2022, we featured Louisa in our first temporary mural in Glasgow

(pictured), commissioned by SWG3 Yardworks. More images of that mural are available on our website under Artworks.

Read more about Louisa Lumsden

Join our next Patreon Gathering – 25 July

Learn more about Stranraer Suffragist Storms Scotland and join the P&S Patreon community.

June is such a busy month, we’re double booked for the last Saturday in June (we’ll be at KPC’s Family Fest), so our next Patreon Gathering is 25 July 2-3pm. We’re excited to announce our special guest is Margie Ferguson, author of a new book about Jane Taylour, a suffragist lecturer and women’s movement campaigner from Stranraer in Dumfries and Galloway. Her book is called ‘Stranraer Suffragist Storms Scotland’ and we can’t wait to chat with her about it!

For the very first time we’re planning to make this event available to non-members for a one-off donation (although these events are always free for our Patreon supporters). Watch out for the Eventbrite link in next month’s newsletter. If you’ve been curious about the Gatherings but haven’t joined yet, this is your chance to check it out and share in the goodness!

Our May Gathering featured Ren Clark, talking about the history of the Kinning Park Complex, and we had an oral history of the community sit-in that took place 30 years ago. We’re hoping to upload a short video from the Gathering on our YouTube channel soon – so keep an eye out!

“When you are organising something – in my opinion – it will only ever be successful if people have a stake in it.” – Helen Kyle, community activist

Our monthly Patreon Gatherings have been live since December, and it’s been great fun getting to chat to members. We’ve also sent out several Creative Catalyst goodie bags with exclusive merch like our Rebel totes – handmade and not available in our shop!

Don’t miss out on all this goodness – join our Patreon as a Community Championforjust £5! Support our work, and join the conversation!

Join today and we’ll see you 25 July!

Jessie Stephen – Maryhill’s Suffragette

Find out more about Jessie Stephen and Maryhill.

While at the Maryhilll is Wonderful event on 13th June, we’ll be celebrating Maryhill’s own suffragette and trade union activist Jessie Stephen MBE (1893-1979). Not much was recorded about the efforts of working-class women in the suffrage movement, but Jessie wrote her autobiography and claimed her place in history.

A fierce and militant activist, Jessie was a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union and at the age of 16, she was vice president of the Maryhill Branch of the Independent Labour Party – she sold copies of ‘Labour Women’ outside St Andrew’s Hall at the same age. She worked as a maid and formed a trade union for domestic workers in 1911-1912, holding meetings first in the streets and later in Alston’s Tea Rooms in Bothwell Street, Glasgow.

“I walked down from where I was employed in my cap, muslin apron and black frock… nobody would ever suspect me of dropping acid through the box.”

Jessie took part in the ‘Scottish Outrages’, dropping acid into post boxes, in Glasgow in February 1913. After being approached by Sylvia Pankhurst, she moved to London and was considered “one of the most active members” of the Workers Suffrage Federation. Her passionate activism continued throughout her life, and in 1977 she was appointed MBE for “services to the trade union movement”. She died on 12 June 1979.

She was recently honoured in an exhibition at Maryhill Burgh Halls, written by our dear pal and women’s history enthusiast Anabel Marsh.

Read more about Jessie and Maryhill