Exclusive:Fury as Russell Findlay's Suffragette aunts' historic medals are lost to Scotland
Glasgow had the opportunity to honour Russell Findlay’s Suffragette aunts but their Hunger Strike medals are going to Manchester
The family of two Glasgow Suffragette sisters has criticised the city for once again failing to honour the women’s memory.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay had called on Glasgow City Council to step in and save an archive of rare memorabilia linked to his great-aunts, Frances and Margaret McPhun.
The sisters endured hunger strikes and brutal treatment during detention in London’s Holloway prison in an attempt to secure votes for women.
Their father - who was a local councillor - is honoured with a memorial and gate in Glasgow Green but there is nothing to commemorate his daughters.
It had been hoped a Scottish university or the council would step in to purchase an auction lot containing two exceptionally rare Hunger Strike medals awarded to the McPhuns as well as the women’s diaries and letters from Holloway.
However, it has now emerged the collection - which went under the hammer for a guide price of around £30,000 - has been bought by the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library.
Mr Findlay said he was relieved the items were remaining in the UK but said it was “disappointing” they are leaving Scotland.
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“It’s disappointing that these important items once owned by my great-grandmother’s Suffragette sisters have left Scotland but a relief that they remain in the UK,” he said.
“It’s also hard to understand why Glasgow City Council showed zero interest in acquiring these historic medals and documents.
“It’s just as perplexing that Glasgow University sat back and did nothing instead of seizing the opportunity to celebrate these two brave and pioneering former students.”
A University of Glasgow spokeswoman said: "This wasn't a collection we were aware of until it was sold. However we are pleased to hear that this collection has been acquired by an institution where it will be preserved and available to study and learn from."
‘Gallant action’
The medals, preserved in their original purple boxes with green velvet lining, bear the inscription printed in gold on white silk: "Presented by the Women's Social and Political Union in recognition of a gallant action, whereby through endurance to the last extremity of hunger and hardship a great principle of political justice was vindicated."
The acquisition includes a significant body of correspondence, including letters giving intimate insight into the personal sacrifices made by these pioneering women's rights activists.
The Rylands already holds internationally significant collections of archives, periodicals, and ephemera on the Women’s Suffrage Movement.
“The collection is testament to the bravery of Edwardian women who fought for their political rights, enduring the indignities of forcible feeding and imprisonment in dark, stuffy cells,” said the Library’s Dr Janette Martin, Research and Learning Manager.
“Today women in many parts of the world continue to fight for basic human rights and these objects are a powerful reminder that the battle for gender equality is still to be won.”
Dr Martin said the medals hold particular significance for Manchester, as the suffragettes were formed in the city in 1903.
The Women's Social and Political Union, which presented these medals, was founded by the suffragettes and maintains a direct historical connection to these artifacts.
"These medals represent not just individual acts of courage, but the broader struggle for women's political rights that began right here in Manchester," added Professor Christopher Pressler, University Librarian and Director of The John Rylands Library.
"The correspondence adds an invaluable personal dimension to our understanding of the suffragette movement."
The newly acquired items will form part of a major exhibition planned for Manchester in 2028, marking 125 years since the suffragette movement began in the city.
Frances and Margaret, both university-educated women in their 40s, travelled from their Scottish home to London to take part in a window-smashing campaign in March 1912.
The pair were arrested and sentenced to two months’ hard labour in Holloway jail.
Their prison diaries, which were smuggled out by other suffragettes on their release to inform the movement’s leaders about the continued struggle, detail force-feedings and shocking treatment.
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