152 WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION. Hunger strike medal awarded to Elsie Wolff van Sandau. London: Toye, March 1912 “the crowning achievement” for a suffragette A scarce medal honouring the activism of Elsie Wolff van Sandau, complete with the original presentation box, the printed dedication recognizing her “gallant action, whereby through endurance to the last extremity of hunger and hardship a great principle of political justice was vindicated”. The medal establishes Elsie’s participation in the protest meeting of 4 March 1912 and subsequent window-smashing campaign. Elsie’s identity has been much debated. No lifetime dates have been definitively traced, and she is not mentioned in the major suffrage reference works, nor in ODNB . Her entry in the Women’s Suffrage database is sparse. The National Archives ledger HO 45/24665 records the arrest “Sandau – Van Elsie Wolf. Bow St. 12/3/12”. These and other records, however, also trace a Matilda (or Mathilde/Matilde) Wolff (or Wood) van (or von) Sandau, a music teacher with an arrest record for “Westminster 14/2/07” and “Bow St. 19/11/10” and subsequent involvement with the early women’s chess and vegetarian movements. Recent research has suggested that Elsie and Mathilde Wolff Van Sandau are one and the same (see Margaret Makepeace’s blog post for the British Library). First commissioned by the WSPU in 1909, the Medal for Valour, or Hunger Strike Medal, was “the crowning achievement” for a suffragette to earn (Florey, p. 148). It was issued by London regalia and medal-makers Toye and Company of 57 Theobalds Road, who also made pins for the WFL and the NWSPU. “Toye actually were proactive in approaching the WSPU . . . they realized, even at this really early stage of the suffragette campaign, that here was a campaign group that was growing, that was thriving, that could possibly offer them a lot of business in the future . . . Within months, Toye & Co. were making other items for the movement . . . [and] the medals were sold by Toye to the WSPU for £1 each” (BBC Four interview, 2014). If the medal’s ribbon terminated in a silver bar (as Elsie’s does) this indicated the date of arrest; if it terminated in a three-colour enamelled bar, the engraved date was the day the recipient was force-fed.
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151 WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION. Votes for Women calendar for 1911. London: [printed for the Women’s Social and Political Union], 1911 a relic of suffrage fundraising A well-preserved miniature pocket calendar issued by the WSPU, the date 1911 set within an embossed purple seal on the front cover, its primary purpose seemingly to advertise the society’s newspaper Votes for Women . “One of the first types of suffrage memorabilia to appear was the calendar, examples of which can be found as early as the 1880s in England and the 1890s in America” (Florey, p. 56). Wall calendars, perforated Ryte-Me postcard calendars, and perpetual calendars with mottos per day were all tailored to the cause for fundraising purposes. This miniature calendar, also “printed in the colours”, is a particularly ephemeral example of this phenomenon, comprising a four-page list of bank holidays, movable festivals, and postal rates, followed by a simple twelve-page calendar. We cannot trace another example; this is formerly from the women’s suffrage collection of Lesley Mees, its front cover subsequently digitized for the Mary Evans Picture Library’s March of the Women collection. Miniature booklet (50 × 38 mm), 16 pp. Original pale pink printed wrappers, stitched as issued, covers lettered in green, purple embossed “1911” circular stamp on front cover and advertisement for the Votes for Women newspaper on rear, contents printed in black within red double rule borders on matching pink paper. Wrappers soiled and rubbed, a few small marks and one spot to contents; a very good copy of a fragile publication. ¶ Kenneth Florey, Women’s Suffrage Memorabilia: An Illustrated Historical Study , 2013. £2,500 [161014]
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Original hunger strike medal (approx. 75 × 40 mm), comprising silver pin bar engraved “For Valour”, hanging length of ribbon in green, white and purple, second silver bar engraved “March 4th 1912” with circular silver pendant hanging beneath, “Hunger Strike” engraved on recto, “Elsie Wolff van Sandau” on verso. With the original dark purple skiver presentation box, push-button metal fastener, green velvet lining, inner lid padded with cream silk lettered in gilt. Housed in a blue quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. In very good condition, the presentation box particularly so, with the inside silk dedication remaining integral (sometimes seen detached). Metal a
little tarnished, without the pin to attach, a little light wear to the box. ¶ Kenneth Florey, “English suffrage badges and the marketing of the campaign”, in Miranda Garrett & Zo Thomas, eds, Suffrage and the Arts , 2019; BBC Four interview with Fiona Toye, “Hidden Histories: Britain’s Oldest Family Businesses”, 21 January 2014; Margaret Makepeace, “Solving a suffragette mystery – who was Miss Wolff van Sandau?”, British Library’s Untold Lives blog, 22 June 2020. £27,500 [134407]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
LOUDER THAN WORDS
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