Mrs Pankhurst's Purple Feather Fashion, Fury and Feminism – Women's Fight for Change

About this book

When Mrs Pankhurst stormed the House of Commons with her crack squad of militant suffragettes in 1908, she wore on her hat a voluptuous purple feather. This is the intriguing story behind that feather.

Twelve years before the suffragette movement began dominating headlines, a very different women's campaign captured the public imagination. Its aim was radical: to stamp out the fashion for feathers in hats. Leading the fight was a character just as heroic as Emmeline Pankhurst, but with opposite beliefs. Her name was Etta Lemon, and she was anti-fashion, anti-feminist – and anti-suffrage.

Mrs Lemon has been forgotten by history, but her mighty society lives on. Few, today, are aware that Britain's biggest conservation charity, the RSPB, was born through the determined efforts of a handful of women, led by the indomitable Mrs Lemon. While the suffragettes were slashing paintings and smashing shop windows, Etta Lemon and her local secretaries were challenging 'murderous millinery' all the way up to Parliament.

This gripping narrative explores two singular heroines – one lionised, the other forgotten – and their rival, overlapping campaigns. Moving from the feather workers' slums to the highest courtly circles, from the first female political rally to the first forcible feeding, Mrs Pankhurst's Purple Feather is a unique journey through a society in transformation.

This is a highly original story of women stepping into the public sphere, agitating for change – and finally finding a voice.

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Biography

Tessa Boase read English at Oxford, and has worked as a scriptwriter, a voiceover artist and an editor at The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. As a freelance journalist she has contributed to a wide variety of publications. Her first book, The Housekeeper's Tale, was published by Aurum in 2014. She is married with children and lives between St Leonards on Sea, and Lazio, Italy.