Votes for Women: an official song sheet of the Women's Social & Political Union

[WSPU] National Women’s Social and Political Union: Votes for Women.
 
The National Women’s Social & Political Union, 4 Clements Inn, Strand, W.C. [London, c.1909–1912].
 
Single bifolium pamphlet, 140 × 220 mm when folded, 4 pp., printed on both sides. Contents include the words to: The Women’s Marseillaise (by F. E. M. Macaulay), Rise Up Women (tune: John Brown), Women of England (tune: Men of Harlech), In the Morning (tune: John Peel), As I Came Through Holloway (tune: The Keel Row), and Women of today.  Browned, chip to the upper corner of the first leaf, a short tear at the central fold, otherwise a very good example. Contemporary hand written note at foot of final page, “Much sung in prison.”
 
Official WSPU song-sheet, intended for distribution to members and for use at meetings and marches. The inclusion of “As I Came Through Holloway”, explicitly referencing the women imprisoned in Holloway Gaol, places the pamphlet firmly in the militant phase of the campaign, when mass arrests and hunger strikes had become central to suffragette strategy. The imprint at Clements Inn dates it to the period after the WSPU’s establishment there in 1907 and before the disruption of wartime, most plausibly c.1909–1912.
 
Such ephemeral pamplets were produced, circulated and then discarded and survival rates are low.