Scrapbook For 1912 | Vera Brittain Introduces Dame Ethel Smyth

Vera Brittain (pictured above) briefly describes the restrictions she faced as a young girl in a provincial town before introducing the composer and suffragette leader Dame Ethel Smyth. Heralded by her composition 'The March of the Women', the suffragette anthem, Dame Ethel describes the famous window-smashing incident of March 1912. Nearly 200 women were arrested as a result of the action taken on this night and Dame Ethel herself was sentenced to two months in Holloway Prison.

Dame Ethel Smyth was a well-known composer when she took up the suffragette cause. During her time in Holloway she was visited by the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, who recalled watching her lean out of the window of her cell and use her toothbrush to conduct the suffragettes in the exercise yard as they sang 'The March of the Women'.