Grille, baby, grille
Before the fire which destroyed the Palace of Westminster in 1834, a woman wanting to watch Parliamentary proceedings had to do so via a ventilation shaft in the ceiling.
Things weren't much better under Charles Barry's rebuild, which created a dedicated Ladies' Gallery but obscured the view with heavy metal grilles, which also made hearing difficult. Millicent Fawcett wrote: “It was like using a gigantic pair of spectacles which did not fit, and made the Ladies' Gallery a grand place for getting headaches."
The grille was a physical barrier that doubled as a metaphor for women's exclusion from the democratic process.
On the evening of 28th October 1908 members of the Women’s Freedom League - a suffragette group - entered the Ladies’ Gallery. Hansard, the official record of Parliamentary debates, observed that MP James Remnant’s words in the debate on the Licensing Bill 1908 became inaudible amid a disturbance in the Gallery, as two women, Muriel Matters and Helen Fox, chained themselves to the grille. Matters then shouted, "Votes for women!”
The debate had to be suspended, and — unable to cut the chains — officials removed the entire grille panel with the women still attached, carrying them to a committee room where a blacksmith finally filed them free. There were arrests and fines and Matters was sent to Holloway Prison for a month. She is remembered by suffrage historians as the first woman ever to speak, however unofficially, within the House of Commons.
The grilles themselves weren't removed for good until 1917.