One hundred years ago 50,000 women from all across the country marched to London for a Suffragette Rally in Hyde Park and they were not exactly wearing suitable clothing for outdoors. It is being remembered by a series of walks which are taking pace right across the country, 35 are organised at the moment. So why not get involved, one lady in London has organised a walk from Woolwich to Greenwich because she wants to show ‘her fellow black women that everything is possible’, couldn’t agree more.

However the original walk and rally was a feat of endurance and organisation in a pre-computer age. One photograph that exists shows a group of women getting ready wearing hats and sashes, pavement-skimming skirts, heavy looking blouses and jackets, looking more likely to walk to church then set off for London. The ladies themselves were actually setting off from Land’s End and are shown with bicycles, but how they rode them in those skirts I shall never know!

Eight routes were planned from the far reaches of England and Wales, with both men and women joining the march en-route. By the time the group from Land’s End had marched up through Cornwall nearly 15,000 had walked with them or attended meetings they held. A theatre group is performing a play to celebrate the anniversary along the original route from Land’s End.

The suffragette movement wasn’t just about getting women the vote; they wanted to tackle other issues from child poverty to sweatshops. The beigest walk this year to commemorate the anniversary starts in Brighton on the 21st July and ends at Hyde Park on the 27th at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park when modern day female activists will be speaking, exactly 100 years after Millicent Fawcett stood in front of a crowd of 50,000 women wearing a raffia hat and waving her fist.

 Well what ever they were wearing 100 years ago anyone taking part in the anniversary walks might be a little more comfortable getting their clothing for outdoors from us, so why not check out the website.