Suffragettes at the Oval Cricket Ground

Suffragettes selling Votes for Women newspapers at the entrance to the Oval Cricket Ground. Two of the women are identified as sistersJoan and Daisy Dugdale.
'Votes for Women' was first published in October 1907 as a monthly publication. From April 1908 it was published weekly in a larger format. The mass distribution of the paper raised significant income for the Women's Social and Political Union and also provided employment for several Suffragettes. By July 1909, a year after this picture was taken, circulation had peaked at 50,000 copies per week. Suffragettes would regulaly pitch up at events that drew a crowd such as, in this case a cricket match at the Oval, to sell the newspapers and encourage support for the campaign amongst both men and women. The Dugdale sisters, Una, Joan and Daisy, came from a family with suffrage sympathies: their father was a supporter of the Men's League for Suffrage. All three sisters became involved in militant suffragette activity and supported the Women's Social and Political Union. Una was noted for her journeys around the country with Emmeline Pankhurst, particularly on ther latter's two Scottish tours of 1910 and 1911. For the large WSPU Hyde Park demonstration on 21 June 1908 the sisters gave a banner consisting of a golden sun and the words 'Justice.' Joan Dugdale was in 1909 banner-bearer in the WSPU Drum and Fife band. In 1911 she was the organising secretary of the Actresses' Franchise League and in 1913 wrote a suffrage propaganda play called 'Clowning Street.' On 19 December 1908, Daisy Dugdale was the standard-bearer of the procession which welcomed Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst on their release from Holloway Gaol.