Women and Power: Struggle for suffrage in the Midlands

The struggle for equal voting rights in Britain took decades, each generation inching closer to the ballot box. Women (and some men) across the Midlands were at the forefront of this battle.

Laura and George Ridding and Sylvia Pankhurst portrait images

Faces of Change: Votes for Women  

In partnership with The National Portrait Gallery, an incredible array of photographs and paintings are being displayed at The Workhouse.

The National Portrait Gallery and The Workhouse
Dudmaston violet ann bland women and power suffragette

Kitchenmaid to suffragette. Violet's story at Dudmaston 

Violet Ann Bland was the Dudmaston kitchenmaid who became a suffragette hunger-striker. A participant in ‘Black Friday’, a large suffrage event held in November 1910, Bland later received four months’ imprisonment for window-breaking in 1912, joining a major hunger-strike in Aylesbury prison.

More about Violet
Photo of Emily Massingberd

Emily Langton-Massingberd at Gunby 

As part of the National Trust’s commemoration to mark a hundred years since the passing of the Representation of the People Act when some women over 30 got the right to vote, we celebrate the life of Gunby's political and social pioneer Emily Langton-Massingberd.

Vote for Emily!
Painting depicting Romeo leaning over Juliet, who is lying on a table.

Wightwick Manor: Art and Activism 

From the 1870s the Mander family were vocal supporters of women’s suffrage who held Suffragist meetings at Wightwick Manor and fought in parliament for women’s rights.

Explore suffrage stories at Wightwick