Communications Assistant, Rachel Wade, takes a look back at the recent half-term activities at York Castle Museum, highlighting the Suffragettes’ fight for women’s right to vote.

Our theme for February half-term at York Castle Museum this year was women’s suffrage, as 2015 marks the centenary of the start of militant campaigning by the Suffragettes.

Visitors to the Museum could join Suffragette campaigners on Kirkgate, donning a sash and raising their placards to recreate what many British women experienced in their fight for the right to vote.

York Castle Museum Guide Hannah Savage was one of the members of staff taking part and wore traditional period costume to campaign on our cobbled street, Kirkgate.

‘The day went amazingly well and the event completely brought Kirkgate alive’, said Hannah.

Fellow Museum Guide Thomas Jacobs captured Hannah and her colleagues in their roles (pictured above), with Hannah sat chained to the lamppost.

There was also the opportunity for visitors to take part in themed arts and craft events at the Museum, which Assistant Curator of Social History (Informal Learning) Lisa Coombs helped to organise.

‘We wanted to show people the struggles faced by the Suffragettes in the build up to the First World War’, said Lisa, ‘The work that they did had a huge impact on the world we live in today’.

In November 2014 we were lucky enough to have a live online Q&A session with Nicola Pullen, Assistant Curator of Social History at Leeds Museums.

Nicola answered questions on the Museums’ collection of items donated by Suffragette Leonora Cohen, Leeds’ most famous suffrage campaigner.

Leonora’s most notorious act was smashing the glass case containing the crown jewels in the Tower of London. Following a court case in which she provided her own defence, Leonora was released without charge.

At York Castle Museum we are lucky enough to have the badge pictured above in our collection – a small but strong reminder of the suffrage campaigns that took place very close to home one hundred years ago.

For more information on the half-term activities that took place at York Castle Museum, please visit the website here. You can find out more about Leonora Cohen and the Leeds Museums’ collection in the Q&A session here.