Portrait postcard Votes for Women signed WSPU leader, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence

PETHICK-LAWRENCE, Emmeline (1867–1954). 'Votes for Women', signed and dated photographic postcard portrait, 15 January 1908.
 
Contemporary photographic postcard, 140 x 90 mm. Signed and dated by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence in ink to the lower margin, "15.1.08". Some light surface marking and age-toning, remnants of old album mounts to the reverse, otherwise about very good.
 
An early signed portrait of the suffragette leader Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, published under the banner Votes for Women during the formative years of the Women's Social and Political Union. The portrait identifies her as Treasurer of the WSPU at its headquarters, 4 Clement's Inn, Strand, and is signed and dated just days after the opening of 1908, one of the movement's most active and significant years.
 
Together with her husband Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence was among the principal organisers, financiers and publicists of the WSPU. As joint editor of Votes for Women and the Union's treasurer, she played a central role in financing, promoting and expanding the militant suffrage campaign before her expulsion from the organisation in 1912. An uncommon contemporary signed suffragette portrait from the height of the campaign.