Suffragette exhibition at Potters Bar

A NEW exhibition commemorating the centenary of the Suffragette Movement has been unveiled at Potters Bar Museum. It will feature a collection of photographs from the early part of the 20th century, when the Suffragettes campaign to secure voting rights

A NEW exhibition commemorating the centenary of the Suffragette Movement has been unveiled at Potters Bar Museum.

It will feature a collection of photographs from the early part of the 20th century, when the Suffragettes' campaign to secure voting rights for women started to intensify.

The activities of other, more peaceful campaigners are also covered too.

The exhibition has been prepared by museum curator Arnold Davey.

Arnold, 77, said: "The idea that women could have a vote started at the time of the French Revolution."

But it was at the turn of the last century, he said, that the Suffragettes started to ratchet up their campaign with "high-profile acts of civil disobedience".

These acts included hunger strikes, smashing 200 shop windows in the space of one morning and even burning down the home of future Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

The Suffragettes, led by the redoubtable Emmeline Pankhurst, temporarily suspended their campaign during World War One.

But they earned partial success in 1919 when women over the age of 30 were given the right to vote.

And universal suffrage was finally granted by Stanley Baldwin's government in 1928.

Mr Davey said he had learned a lot researching the exhibitions and added: "I have already had a couple of ladies say they found it very interesting."

The exhibition will run until the end of December and admission is free.