Inside History: Protest. Revolt & Reform

sticks and umbrellas – were banned
from public museums and galleries,
whilst plain clothes detectives trailed
after any suspicious-looking woman who
might enter. By 1914, planned closures
at times of heightened suffrage activity
took place, causing further disturbance
for disgruntled visitors and agitated
gallery staff.
Unlike the window smashing campaign,
smashing paintings was not a formulated
moment involving hundreds of women at
one time. The most famous attacks on
paintings were isolated incidents,
undertaken by individuals or a very small
group, and the choice of painting was
often selected because of their subject;
Mary Wood deliberately chose to slash
the portrait of Henry James by Sargent at
the Royal Academy in 1914, because she
knew (and given women were still not
admitted to the RA): ‘…if a woman had
painted it, it would not have been worth
so much.’
But as we look to the national museums
to understand how these campaigns
impacted public space, closures, and
visitor restrictions, we must recognise
where the first painting smashing took
place in 1913 - in the city where
Pankhurst had, ten years previously,
founded the militant campaign.
women holding ‘a small confectionary
hammer and another instrument’. The
other instrument proved to be a screw
wrench hidden behind a statue. The
hammers bore notes featuring messages
that read: ‘Votes for Women’ ‘stop
forcible-feeding’ and ‘Parliament for
dishonourable men; imprisonment for
honourable women.’
Throughout the Gallery, thirteen
paintings were smashed, causing over
£100 worth of damage. Lillian Forrester,
Annie Briggs and Evelyn Manesta were all
arrested; upon her detainment, Forrester
and Manesta declared, as if rehearsed: ‘I
broke the glass of the pictures as a
protest against the wicked sentence
passed upon Mrs Pankhurst.’ Annie
Briggs remained silent.
The attack on Manchester Art Gallery had
been planned by Lillian Forrester, but
across the city, and indeed, across the
nation, women were protesting the
sentencing of Emmeline Pankhurst, who
On the evening of Thursday 3rd April
1913, at around quarter to nine, three
women stood in room No.5 of
Manchester Art Gallery. According to the
statement of the guard, he heard a loud
smashing noise, rushing in to find the