.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Sold with related Suffragette's "Portcullis Badge", silver and enamel Miniature Hammer, silver, one side engraved, 'March 1912', lacking part of brooch-pin wearing device, and a Christian X of Denmark Badge, silver and enamel, dated 1870-1945, with pin device for wearing.
Bertha Ryland and her militant activities in support of women's suffrage are twice highlighted in the newspaper of the Women's Social and Political Union (W.S.P.U.) whose members were generally referred to as Suffragettes. Votes for Women records that at the end of November 1911, she took part in a mass demonstration around Parliament Square during which many windows were broken, especially in the Whitehall area. A large number of arrests were made and on 24 November and the cases of 220 women and three men were scheduled to be heard at Bow Street Court before a Mr. Marsham. Bertha was charged with breaking windows at a Local Government Board Office and causing damage to the amount of 15 shillings. Fined 10 shillings with five shillings damages or alternatively sentenced to seven days imprisonment, she chose the latter alternative which was the usual course of action taken by the Suffragettes. Having served her sentence, Bertha Ryland was released from incarceration on 30.11.1911.
Only three months later, she appeared again at Bow Street and was committed for trial as a result of her participation in yet another mass demonstration on 1.3.1912, organised to express indignation at the Government's intransigence to advancing the Suffragette cause. On this occasion about 100 arrests were made, with another 100 or more being arrested at similar protests three days later. Bertha's trial took place at Newington Sessions on 26.3.1912 and a passage from Votes for Women sets the scene (8.3.1912): '...the court house presented the appearance of a busy railway station at the height of the holiday season. Most of the women were prepared for imprisonment and heaps of luggage were piled against the walls, whilst the public hall was packed tightly with women and their friends, the police witnesses and the general public'.
Bertha Ryland was sentenced to six months for breaking a window worth six pounds, the property of Philip Morris & Co. Ltd., cigar merchants of New Bond Street. During her sentence she went on hunger strike and her name subsequently appears on what is referred to as a "Roll of Honour" published in Votes for Women. The "Roll" is headed by the statement made by Mr. McKenna, Secretary of State for the Home Department, in the House of Commons, 17.4.1912: 'It is impossible to allow any prisoner to determine the length of his sentence by setting him at liberty if he chooses to refuse food for a few days'. Then follows the Suffragette counterclaim: 'This statement has been refuted by the following list of prisoners all of whom have been released before the expiry of their sentence in consequence of their hunger strike'. Beneath are the names of many Suffragettes who had gone on hunger strike (though not those who had been force-fed), including that of Bertha Ryland.
Nothing further about Bertha Ryland emerges easily from the main body of material relating to Suffragette activity, but doubtless sustained research has the potential to release further information about her personal background and her Suffragette activities. Indeed further work may well throw light on an intriguing statement by Sylvia Parkhurst in her memoir The Suffragette Movement: 'The destruction wrought in the seven months of 1914 before the War exceeded that of the previous year. Three Scotch castles were destroyed by fire on a single night. The Carnegie Library in Birmingham was burnt. The Rokeby Venus, falsely as I consider, attributed to Velazquez and purchased for the National Gallery at a cost of 45,000 pounds was mutilated by Mary Richardson. Romney's "Master Thornhill" in the Birmingham Art Gallery, was slashed by Bertha Ryland, daughter of an early Suffragette'. This raises the question as to whether it was the window-breaking Bertha or her daughter that caused the damage to this picture. Whatever the case their is a mother/daughter relationship to be examined which has the potential to reveal much more about their respective Suffragette activities.
Bertha Ryland and her militant activities in support of women's suffrage are twice highlighted in the newspaper of the Women's Social and Political Union (W.S.P.U.) whose members were generally referred to as Suffragettes. Votes for Women records that at the end of November 1911, she took part in a mass demonstration around Parliament Square during which many windows were broken, especially in the Whitehall area. A large number of arrests were made and on 24 November and the cases of 220 women and three men were scheduled to be heard at Bow Street Court before a Mr. Marsham. Bertha was charged with breaking windows at a Local Government Board Office and causing damage to the amount of 15 shillings. Fined 10 shillings with five shillings damages or alternatively sentenced to seven days imprisonment, she chose the latter alternative which was the usual course of action taken by the Suffragettes. Having served her sentence, Bertha Ryland was released from incarceration on 30.11.1911.
Only three months later, she appeared again at Bow Street and was committed for trial as a result of her participation in yet another mass demonstration on 1.3.1912, organised to express indignation at the Government's intransigence to advancing the Suffragette cause. On this occasion about 100 arrests were made, with another 100 or more being arrested at similar protests three days later. Bertha's trial took place at Newington Sessions on 26.3.1912 and a passage from Votes for Women sets the scene (8.3.1912): '...the court house presented the appearance of a busy railway station at the height of the holiday season. Most of the women were prepared for imprisonment and heaps of luggage were piled against the walls, whilst the public hall was packed tightly with women and their friends, the police witnesses and the general public'.
Bertha Ryland was sentenced to six months for breaking a window worth six pounds, the property of Philip Morris & Co. Ltd., cigar merchants of New Bond Street. During her sentence she went on hunger strike and her name subsequently appears on what is referred to as a "Roll of Honour" published in Votes for Women. The "Roll" is headed by the statement made by Mr. McKenna, Secretary of State for the Home Department, in the House of Commons, 17.4.1912: 'It is impossible to allow any prisoner to determine the length of his sentence by setting him at liberty if he chooses to refuse food for a few days'. Then follows the Suffragette counterclaim: 'This statement has been refuted by the following list of prisoners all of whom have been released before the expiry of their sentence in consequence of their hunger strike'. Beneath are the names of many Suffragettes who had gone on hunger strike (though not those who had been force-fed), including that of Bertha Ryland.
Nothing further about Bertha Ryland emerges easily from the main body of material relating to Suffragette activity, but doubtless sustained research has the potential to release further information about her personal background and her Suffragette activities. Indeed further work may well throw light on an intriguing statement by Sylvia Parkhurst in her memoir The Suffragette Movement: 'The destruction wrought in the seven months of 1914 before the War exceeded that of the previous year. Three Scotch castles were destroyed by fire on a single night. The Carnegie Library in Birmingham was burnt. The Rokeby Venus, falsely as I consider, attributed to Velazquez and purchased for the National Gallery at a cost of 45,000 pounds was mutilated by Mary Richardson. Romney's "Master Thornhill" in the Birmingham Art Gallery, was slashed by Bertha Ryland, daughter of an early Suffragette'. This raises the question as to whether it was the window-breaking Bertha or her daughter that caused the damage to this picture. Whatever the case their is a mother/daughter relationship to be examined which has the potential to reveal much more about their respective Suffragette activities.