Portrait postcard signed by Women's Freedom League leader Charlotte Despard

DESPARD, Charlotte (1844–1939). Signed photographic postcard portrait.
 
Contemporary photographic postcard, 140 x 90 mm. Signed by Charlotte Despard in black ink across the lower right of the image. Published by periodical Votes for Women with printed identification to the lower margin and the Women's Freedom League address at 1 Robert Street, Adelphi, London. Unused verso. Light age-toning and trivial handling wear, overall, very good.
 
A scarce signed portrait of the veteran suffragette Charlotte Despard, published by Votes for Women following her departure from the Women's Social and Political Union. The portrait identifies her with the Women's Freedom League, the organisation she co-founded in 1907 after breaking with Emmeline Pankhurst over the question of internal democracy and constitutional governance.
 
Charlotte Despard was one of the leading figures of the British suffrage movement, combining campaigning for women's enfranchisement with wider causes including social reform, anti-poverty work, pacifism and Irish nationalism. As president of the Women's Freedom League she became one of the movement's most recognisable public figures.