The Suffragette newspaper first issue - front page only - 18 October 1912

PANKHURST, Christabel; THE SUFFRAGETTE. Vol. I — No. 1. Friday, October 18, 1912.
 
London: Women’s Social and Political Union, 1912.
 
Front page (and conjugate inner page) only of the first issue of The Suffragette, printed on newsprint, 420 × 320 mm.
 
Good. Horizontally folded; edge wear and tears along fold; some creasing and light browning; lower edge slightly irregular; complete as a single leaf but lacking remainder of issue.
 
The first issue of the W.S.P.U.’s official newspaper following the suppression of Votes for Women. Edited by Christabel Pankhurst, the new paper marked a decisive moment in the militant phase of the campaign. The front-page cartoon depicts the three headed monster Coalition Government armed with a mace labelled “Coercion” and a sword marked “Forcible Feeding,” confronting a solitary W.S.P.U. figure — a striking visual statement of political confrontation.
 
The masthead declares the paper as the voice of the militant organisation at a moment of escalating arrests, imprisonment, and hunger-strike protest. Even as a single leaf, the survival of the inaugural front page is significant.