Exhibition Review: Suffragettes and Other Feminists in Camden
“A Stone’s Throw from Westminster: Suffragettes and Other Feminists in Camden” launched this evening at Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre in Holborn with performances, songs, and an introduction by comedian, writer and activist, Kate Smurthwaite.
Inspired by Camden’s radical feminist past, Suffrage Arts has curated a diverse history of women’s political and social campaigns in the borough across the decades, with the back wall covered in posters from recent times.
Displays feature a variety of activists who lived locally and made unique contributions to women’s rights. These include Mary Wollstonecraft (who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women while living in Store Street), Frances Buss (founder of Camden School for Girls), Millicent Fawcett (led the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies while living in Gower Street), Margaret Bondfield MP, Cicely Hale, Cicely Hamilton, Ernestine Mills, Olive Hockin, Alice Zimmern (lived in Lissenden Gardens), Charlotte Wilson, and Barbara Castle.
Barbara Castle (1910-2002), who lived in Belsize Park Gardens.
Map showing who lived where in the Camden area
There is a section devoted to the centenary of women lawyers, and another to those associated with the theatre.
Digital Drama has contributed a section on the Endell St Military Hospital (staffed entirely by women).
Visit the exhibition for free at Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, 2nd floor of Holborn Library, 32-38 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8PA; Tel: 020 7974 3860, web: www.camden.gov.uk/localstudies
Mon and Tue 10am-6pm, Wed closed, Thu 10am-7pm, Fri 10am-5pm by appointment only, Sat 11am-5pm alternate weeks (23 Jun, 7 Jul, 21 Jul, 4 Aug, 18 Aug, 1 Sept, 15 Sept).
