The Women's Coronation Procession was a

suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

march through London, England, on 17 June 1911, just before the Coronation of George V and Mary, demanding

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

in the coronation year. The march was organised by the

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and p ...

(WSPU). It was "the largest women’s suffrage march ever held in Britain and one of the few to draw together the full range of suffrage organisations". Some 40,000 people marched from Westminster to the Albert Hall in

South Kensington South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...

Charlotte Despard Charlotte Despard (née French; 15 June 1844 – 10 November 1939) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist. She was a founding member of the Women's Freedom League, the Women's Pe ...

and Flora Drummond on horseback led the march, which included Marjery Bryce dressed as

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc ( ; ; – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the Coronation of the French monarch, coronation of Charles VII o ...

and 700 women and girls clothed in white to represent suffragette prisoners. Kate Harvey, Edith Downing and Marion Wallace-Dunlop were among the organisers, and Lolita Roy is believed to have been as well. Jane Cobden organised the Indian women's delegation. The presence of a substantial number of marchers, both clergymen and lay women, under the banner of the

Church League for Women's Suffrage The Church League for Women's Suffrage (CLWS) was an organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. The league was started in London, but by 1913 it had branches across England, in Wales and Scotland and Ireland. Aims an ...

was remarked upon by the ''

Church Times The ''Church Times'' is an independent Anglican weekly newspaper based in London and published in the United Kingdom on Fridays. History The ''Church Times'' was founded on 7 February 1863 by George Josiah Palmer, a printer. It fought for the ...

''. Elsie Hooper and other members of the National Association of Women Pharmacists joined the march. In June 1911 the '' Chemist and Druggist'' carried photographs of women pharmacists in the march and reported "Miss Elsie Hooper, B.Sc., was in the Science Section, and several other women pharmacists did the two-and-a-half hours’ march.”

References

{{Suffrage June 1911 in the United Kingdom Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom 1911 in the United Kingdom 1911 in London Protest marches in London 1911 in women's history

See also

References