Women's Sunday

Suffragettes in Hyde Park on Women's Sunday, 21st June 1908. The Suffragettes are gathered beside Platform 6, one of twenty platforms erected in the park for the rally from which leading Suffragettes delivered speeches. The chair of Platform 6 was Rosamund Massy. Other key speakers on this platform were Elsie Howey and Katherine Douglas Smith. In the image, wearing a mortarboard can be identified the Irish Suffragette Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington. Beside her is an 'officer' wearing a 'Banner Captain's' sash indicating the level of organisation that was key to the success of the procession and rally that involved 700 hundred banners. The image was taken by Christina Broom a professional photographer who produced a series of London street views for sale as postcards.