National Museum Wales buys suffragette collection
Archive relates to Welsh-born campaigner Kate Williams Evans
Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales - NMW) has bought a collection that was owned by suffragette Kate Williams Evans.
Williams Evans, who was born in Montgomeryshire in 1866, became an active member of Women’s Social and Political Union in her early 30s. She later became a suffragette and in 1912 she was arrested and imprisoned for 54 days in Holloway prison in London.
The collection includes the Metropolitan Police arrest warrant issued to Williams Evans in 1912 for “malicious damage”. There is also a rare silver suffragette hunger strike medal and an archive of letters, books and ephemera.
"This is an iconic collection for the history of the whole suffragette movement,” said Sioned Hughes, the keeper of history at NMW. "While we had suffragist collections in Wales, and an example of anti-suffragette sentiment in Wales, until now we had very little in our collections relating to the Welsh suffragettes themselves. This collection will be a valuable asset to Wales' political and national history collections."
The collection was acquired for £48,640 at an auction held by Catherine Southon Auctioneer & Valuers.