The Woman's Hour quilt marking 75 years of women's suffrage, composed of 80 patchwork squares, Great Britain, 1993.

The Woman's Hour quilt marking 75 years of women's suffrage, composed of 80 patchwork squares.

Given by Woman's Hour, BBC Radio Four

Registered File number 1994/1332.

This quilt was made up in June 1993 using 80 patchwork squares worked up by listeners to the BBC radio programme Woman's Hour; selected from a larger group of submissions, and assembled as a whole by the Quilt Room, Dorking, Surrey, using the women's suffrage colours of green, white and violet. The project was launched by Jenni Murray, journalist, broadcaster, and presenter of Woman's Hour from 1987 to 2020. Woman's Hour has been a staple of the British Broadcasting Corporation's radio programming since 1946. According to an article published in The Sunday Express, July 11 1993, Murray was inspired to launch the project after seeing American awareness-raising quilt projects such as the AIDS Quilt, and hearing about a planned exhibition on women in politics by Teresa Gorman, the then MP for Billericay. She invited her listeners to make squares and send them in.

The finished quilt was exhibited in the Houses of Parliament as part of Gorman's exhibition. After the show ended, the quilt was then put on tour. From 7th March 1994 to 30 September 1994, the quilt was exhibited at Luton Central Library, the Chiltern Quilters Exhibition, Amersham; Voirrey Branthwaite Centre, Wirral; the "Quilts UK" show of Malvern, Brighton Festival, Glen Pavilion in Dunfermline, Fife; the National Patchwork Competition at Ascot, and finally, at the Forgemill Needle Museum in Redditch. After this, the quilt was acquired by the V&A as a direct gift from Woman's Hour. (DMC, 23/08/2024)

List of quilt squares and their makers (where known)

Row 1:
1) Women in Dentistry by Marion Press, London
2) "Hearts and Flowers" by Ms. P. Scarsbrook, Lancashire
3) "Equal Rights, Equality, Choice" by Patricia Short, Stafford
4) Lesbian symbol by Jan Ebbutt, Bristol
5) Virgin Mary and Christ Child by Mrs S. Hoppe, Devon
6) Angela Berners-Wilson, first woman priest in England in 1992, by Rita A. Heggie, Cornwall.
7) "One of the Tollesbury 4" by S. Lamb, Essex
8) Peter Rabbit by Sandy Andrews, West Midlands

Row 2:
1) "Shoulder to Shoulder" (One of the Tollesbury 4) by Margaret Shove, Essex
2) "Forward" (European Union) by Elsie F. Wells, Kent
3) Vase of flowers by Joan Ryan, Oxfordshire
4) Votes for Women 1918-1993 by Elaine Rennie, Hertfordshire
5) Idea of Female Astronauts (with judges, chemists, priesthood, Olympics and nursing represented as well) by P. Hill, A. Noble and J. Price; Rutland.
6) Celtic knot by Mrs L. McClintock, Exeter
7) No 10 (with a female symbol for the nought) by Helen Galley, West Sussex
8) Design depicting Marie Stope's Married Love; a mother's clinic and the Old Woman who lived in a Shoe without children, by Mrs Joy Clatworthy, West Sussex

Row 3:
1) Suffragette heads by Mrs J. Reilly, London
2) Women: an ongoing story by Jan Ives, Singapore
3) Design by Marilyn Swann, Kent
4) Amy Johnson by Mrs C.J. Beesley, Gloucestershire
5) Work, Home and Leisure: We can be what we want (In memory of my Great Aunt) by Rosemary A.H. Well, Somerset
6) Woman judge by Anonymous
7) Design by Norma Scott, Wiltshire
8) Child with balloon, Mrs R. Brown (of the British Army of the Rhine)

Row 4:
1) Design by June Thorpe, Hampshire
2) Women in Art, by Anonymous
3) The Pill (1961), by Rosemary Rudolph, Surrey
4) Cover page of The Suffragette by Susan de Barro, Surrey
5) "King's Horse Colliding With Emily Wilding Davidson at the 1913 Epsom Derby" by Karyn Prowen, Kent
6) Deeds Not Words by Julia Triaton, Co. Durham
7) Polly Donkin of Cullercoats 1858-1951 by Vera Kenyon, Tyne & Wear
8) Design by Ann Whittaker, London

Row 5:
1) Heart design by Sandra Lynn Tiffin, Kent
2) "Women's Ordination" by Olivia Milburn, Kent
3) Votes for Women 75 Year Anniversary (in memory of Marjory Ingle) by Miss Isobel Baylis, Leeds
4) Design by Miss Joan Hodgson, Herts
5) Design commemorating one of the Tollesbury 4 by Dorothy Beal, Essex
6) "To the Heart of the Matter" by Gillian Gray, Isle of Man
7) Friendship Knot by S. Elstob and K. Whyte, Somerset
8) Victorian vs modern fashion, A. Phillips, Plymouth

Row 6:
1) Portrait of artist Liz Frink (1930-93) by Diane Gorvin, Cheshire
2) Mariner's Compass by Mrs D. Brown, Scotland
3) Your Country Still Needs You (incorporating WWII parachute silk) by J. Holmes O'Brien, York
4) Tribute to Margaret McMillan and Miriam Lord, nursery education pioneers; by Mrs Bobbie Atkinson, West Yorks
5) From Bedroom to Boardroom by Anne Chapman, Wiltshire
6) 75 Years = The Power to Choose by Diane McMurrie, Surrey
7) The Hand that Rocks the Cradle Rules the World by Edna Ashton, Lancashire
8) The Path to Equality by Ann Davies, M. Glamorgan

Row 7:
1) Tree of Life 1918-1993 by Sheena M. Walker, Glasgow
2) 75 by Mary Shea, Berkshire
3) Votes for Women: the path to Parliament by Mrs Frances Clifford, Derbyshire
4) Tribute to Lady Thatcher, Anna How, Exeter
5) Design by Perranporth & St Agnes Friends of the Earth, Cornwall
6) Bicycling women by Clare Diprose, Bath
7) "Women Writers" by Jennifer Allen, London
8) "One Way Ticket to Epsom" (tribute to Emily Wilding Davison) by Betty Kerr, Lancashire

Row 8:
1) Emmeline Pankhurst speaking by "Morwenna"
2) Design commemorating one of the Tollesbury 4 by Susan P. Nash, Essex
3) The Hop Stringer by Jenny Jones, Kent
4) Design commemorating the Women's Social and Political Union by Dorothy Burnside, London
5) Women's Rights design by 9 & 10 year olds of Bradmore Kid's Workshop, London. (P. Cox, A. Buchanan, M. Adaramola, S. Rose)
6) Design inspired by BBC2's "Labours of Love" by Mary Alcock, Oxfordshire
7) Design based on the Holloway Brooch by Marion Turnbull, Sussex
8) Women Broke their Chains by Mrs Irene Angel, North Yorkshire

Row 9:
1) The Right to Say No by Michelle Onfwein, County Dublin
2) Jill Morrell (Friends of John McCarthy) by Susan Olney, London
3) Helen Sharman: First British Woman in Space, May 1991 by Anonymous
4) Healing Abuse by Jessica Calhill, London
5) Women for World Peace by Jules Wright, Bath
6) The Girl's Best Friend by Jane Sutton, London
7) Women for the Priesthood (portrait of Angela Berners-Wilson) by Mrs Eileen Robinson, Middlesex
8) In memory of Rev. Elsie Chamberlain, first woman chaplain to the Armed Forces and first ordained woman producer of the BBC; by Mrs J. Williams, Kent

Row 10:
1) Portrait of Daphne Du Maurier by Sheila Cook, Kent
2) "Keep them Barefoot and Pregnant" by J. & B. Kirkpatrick, Belfast
3) Broken chain design by Sue Bailey, Cornwall
4) Barbara Harmer Pilots Concorde, 1993 by Pauline Hatfield, East Sussex
5) Woman reading under hanging washing by Rose Wheeler, Suffolk
6) Design by Elizabeth Wolsey, West Midlands
7) Design by Nicki Leggatt, Kent
8) Design by Iris Marriott, Cornwall

T.1-1996