The March of the Women

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This article is about the women's suffrage song. For the event in the French Revolution, see
The Women's March on Versailles
.

Ethel Smyth March of the Women
Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage petitioners on the steps of the United States Capitol, 9 May 1914. Those in the front line are singing "The March of the Women".

"The March of the Women" is a song composed by Ethel Smyth in 1910, to words by Cicely Hamilton. It became the official anthem of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and more widely the anthem of the women's suffrage movement throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Activists sang it not only at rallies but also in prison while they were on hunger strike. Smyth produced a number of different arrangements of the work.

Composition

Ethel Smyth composed the song in 1910, as a unison song with optional piano accompaniment, with words by Cicely Hamilton.[1] Smyth based the melody on a traditional tune she had heard in Abruzzo, Italy.[2] She dedicated the song to the WSPU.[1] In January 1911, the WSPU's newspaper, Votes for Women, described the song as "at once a hymn and a call to battle".[3]

Performances

"The March of the Women" was first performed on 21 January 1911, by the Suffrage Choir, at a ceremony held on Pall Mall, London,[1] to celebrate a release of activists from prison. Emmeline Pankhurst introduced the song as the WSPU's official anthem, replacing "The Women's Marseillaise".[4] The latter song was a setting of words by WSPU activist Florence Macaulay to the tune of La Marseillaise.[5]

On 23 March 1911 the song was performed at a rally in the Royal Albert Hall. Smyth was ceremonially presented with a baton by Emmeline Pankhurst, and proceeded to conduct the whole gathering in singing it. Smyth was active in promoting the performance of the song throughout the WSPU's membership.[6] It became the anthem of the women's suffrage movement throughout the United Kingdom.[7]

A famous rendering of it took place in 1912, at

Lewis Harcourt, the Secretary of State for the Colonies.[8] The conductor Thomas Beecham visited Smyth in prison and reported that he found the activists in the courtyard "...marching round it and singing lustily their war-chant while the composer, beaming approbation from an overlooking upper window, beat time in almost Bacchic frenzy with a toothbrush."[3]

While imprisoned in April 1913, Emmeline Pankhurst undertook a hunger strike which she did not expect to survive. She told Smyth that at night she would feebly sing "The March of the Women" and another of Smyth's compositions, "Laggard Dawn".[9]

The march was also used during a large demonstration of American suffragists rallying in Washington, D.C., on May 9, 1914.[10] The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage sent delegates to march up the Capitol building stairs and present a petition to the U.S. Congress and accompanied by a 1,000 singer chorus.[10]

Arrangements

Pankhurst Memorial
, unveiled in 1930 as Smyth conducted "The March of the Women"

Smyth arranged the work several times. A version for

statue to memorialize Emmeline Pankhurst in Victoria Tower Gardens.[1] The ceremony was presided over by Stanley Baldwin, and the performance was by the band of the Metropolitan Police.[11]

The tune of "The March of the Women" also appears in the overture of Smyth's opera The Boatswain's Mate.[12]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Bennett (1987), p. 378
  2. ^ St John (1959), p. 151
  3. ^ a b Crawford (2001), pp. 641–642
  4. ^ Purvis (2002), p. 157
  5. ^ Crawford (2001), p. 645
  6. ^ Purvis (2002), pp. 159–160
  7. ^ Collis (1984), p.104
  8. ^ Norris in The Daily Telegraph, 31 July 2008
  9. ^ Purvis (2002), p. 217
  10. ^ a b Florey 2013, p. 170.
  11. ^ Purvis (2002), p. 357
  12. ^ Fuller (1994), p. 294

Sources

External links
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