Pin your colours to the mast
Ask about suffragette colours and most people will confidently say purple, white and green. Those belonged to the Women’s Social and Political Union – Emmeline Pankhurst and her headline‑grabbing militants who liked their symbolism bold and easily spotted in a crowd. Purple for dignity, white for purity, green for hope.
But they weren’t the whole picture. Alongside them, and much earlier, worked the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, the Suffragists, led by Millicent Fawcett. Their approach was constitutional rather than confrontational, favouring petitions, patient lobbying and careful organisation. Millicent and her fellow suffragists had their own palette: red, white and green. No broken windows and no arson – but rosettes, sashes and banners that still carried a message if you knew how to read it.
So if you ever find an old photograph where the colours look “wrong” for the famous purple‑white‑green, it might not be a mistake in the tinting. It might be a woman who pinned her colours to a different route to the same goal. The two palettes, side by side, tell their own story. One shouts from the street; the other moves quietly through committees and corridors. Both are part of how the vote was won.