Lot 50*
SUFFRAGETTE TEA SERVICE Complete tea service designed by Sylvia Pankhurst, [1909]
Ending from 20 November 2025, 12:00 GMT
Online, London, Knightsbridge£10,000 - £15,000
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SUFFRAGETTE TEA SERVICE
Complete tea service designed by Sylvia Pankhurst, decorated with the badge of the Women's Social and Political Union printed in green and washed in purple, a trumpeting angel under the banner 'FREEDOM' and the initials 'WSPU', the rims and angular handles also picked out in green enamel, comprising a teapot and cover, six cups, six saucers, six small plates, a cake plate, one sugar bowl, and one milk jug, teapot 14.2cm high, printed marks for H M Williamson and Sons of Longton, [1909] (23)
Footnotes
A RARE COMPLETE SUFFRAGETTE TEA SERVICE DESIGNED BY SYLVIA PANKHURST.
No firm produced pottery and porcelain in support of the women's suffrage movement commercially, so pieces such as this service were commissioned by the movement itself. In early 1909 the WSPU commissioned Williamson's of Longton, Staffordshire to produce wares for use in the refreshment room at the Prince's Skating Rink Exhibition held in Knightsbridge for two weeks in May 1909. Each piece bears Sylvia Pankhurst's 'Angel of Freedom' in the WSPU colours, a motif designed specifically for the exhibition. After the exhibition the china was sold off in sets of 22 pieces to raise funds for the cause. Votes for Women of 13 May 1910 noted that some was still available to purchase; 'a breakfast set for two, 11s; small tea set, 15s; whole tea set £1; or pieces may be had singly' (Elizabeth Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928, 1999, p.108). To find a complete set, therefore, is a rarity. The motif also appears on many other items such as the illuminated addresses awarded to prisoners, badges and a enamel medallion (a rare example of which sold in these rooms March 2022). Christabel Pankhurst wrote of the opportunity that the exhibition afforded for supporters to purchase a wide variety of items in the WSPU colours and thus spread the message through merchandising: 'every member of the Union will become an advertiser for the movement, and will bring to the Prince's Skating Rink a dozen, or a score, or an even larger number men and women of her acquaintance who... will appreciate for the first time the strength of the woman's movement' (Crawford, p.137).