FOR many years the story of the suffragettes has been told from a London perspective, with the impression given that all the action took place down south.
In this centenary year of the vote finally being given to women, moves have been made to address the southern bias and stories are being told of brave women all over the UK who joined the campaign.
Yet even now few realise that the suffrage movement reached as far as Scotland’s islands and, far from being cut off from what was happening on the mainland, the island women were leading the way in terms of emancipation.
At the turn of last century, the island women were in fact the breadwinners, bringing in an astonishing £75,000 per year into the Hebridean economy in 1913, an enormous sum at the time.
Before the First World War, 5000 females aged 15 and upwards from Lewis, Harris, Barra and Uist were travelling around the UK coast, gutting fish and broadening their horizons while earning enough in the herring season to keep their families going for the rest of the year.
“People don’t realise what these women achieved because it’s not in the history books,” pointed out Muriel Ann Macleod, director of a new play documenting their achievements. “They don’t realise how much was done by women.”
WHAT DID THEY DO?
PLAYWRIGHT and researcher Toria Banks and Macleod have spent three years of research on the Hebridean women of that time and say that what has been discovered has been a real eye opener.
To begin with, Banks discovered there was a suffrage society in Stornoway with 25 members, and in researching these women found the stories which form the content of the play.
The play, Deeds Not Words, begins with the story of a breach of promise of marriage and a court action taken by the wronged woman (an actual story reported in the Highland News in 1913 which caused controversy in the community), then moves on to the fishgutters in the First World War when the industry collapsed and they all lost their jobs.
With all the men at war and little income coming into the island, people began to suffer terribly.
However, although the women begged to be allowed to take the fishing boats out they were refused. The poverty was so extreme by 1916 that when the government began to look for women to work in the munitions factories many from the Hebrides signed up and went off to the Central Belt to work.
DID THEY ALL GO?
OTHERS joined the Scottish Women’s Hospitals founded by Dr Elsie Inglis after the UK Government turned down her services, telling her that war was no place for women.
“If we can find remarkable stories like these in the Hebrides it makes you wonder what else was going on around the Highlands and remote communities,” said Macleod. “A lot of these areas have history like that but have been ignored because it was women that were doing it.”
One woman who went out to join Dr Inglis was Helen MacDougal from Lewis, a member of the Stornoway Suffrage Society and an X-ray specialist - a field that was in much demand. She served in Serbia and was taken prisoner with Dr Inglis when Serbia fell. She suffered much hardship but on her release went back to the Front in France where she again served with the Scottish Women’s Hospitals.
Despite her bravery, Macleod was shocked to find she was given only two lines in the Loyal Lewis roll of honour while her brother Duncan, a Free Church minister who died serving during the war, was much more celebrated in the history books.
WHAT ELSE HAPPENED?
MACDOUGAL’S tale is included in the play, which takes audiences right up until women are given the vote after the war.
Many were still disenfranchised by the legislation which allowed only property owners over the age of 30 to vote.
This included women married to property owners but excluded many others.
However as crofters in the Hebrides were classed as property owners, the crofting women of the Highlands and Islands were among the first females allowed to cast their votes.
“Six women on St Kilda even had the vote,” said Macleod. “People often assume these communities were remote and ignorant but that’s not the case at all.
“They were very politicised. Women were very connected to what was going on elsewhere. We found one international paper where people wrote about what was happening in Scotland, New Zealand and all round the world. They all felt part of a big global suffrage network.”
WHERE CAN THE PLAY BE SEEN?
DEEDS Not Words, which was written by Banks, was first performed in the Western Isles earlier this year. Extracts including specially commissioned songs from Mary Ann Kennedy will be performed at the Solas Festival in Perthshire this month.
“We commissioned Mary Ann to write two songs and rearrange some others so we have a Serbian folk song performed in Serbian and Gaelic for example,” said Macleod.
“One of the new ones is Saoghal Ùr Air Fàire (Òran Alice), a Gaelic anthem for women which is really beautiful.
“We were surprised to find out that there are very few commissions for people to write Gaelic songs in the tradition but Alice’s Song will go into the tradition, because although it has a contemporary feel, it is written in the traditional style.”
The play was produced by Rural Nations Scotland CIC in partnership with An Lanntair Arts Centre, Stornoway.
Macleod is now hoping to raise funds to tour it in Scotland and the wider UK later this year.
“Everyone here was really moved by it so we hope we can take it further – but it costs a fair bit of money to tour professional theatre,” she said.
Solas Festival runs from June 22-24. More information is available at www.solasfestival.co.uk
For more information on the Deeds Not Words play go to www.ruralnations.com
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