Part of the National Trust, Wightwick Manor is the epitome of a grand Victorian mock Tudor family home. Owned by the Mander family, a volunteer described the Manders importance to Wolverhampton the same as the Cadburys to Birmingham, the Manor was built in 1887, financed by the Mander’s successful chemical manufacturing business that produced paints and lacquers, and boasts a large collection of Pre-Raphaelite art.
Inspired by the centenary of the Representation of the Peoples Act 1918, Art and Activism is Wightwick Manor’s exhibition that is showcasing the powerful and influential women associated with the manor. Part of the National Trust’s nationwide programme of Women and Power Events, Art and Activism showcases the Mander families support of women’s suffrage and rooms were suffrage meetings were held in their grand home. The polite, country house decor has been littered with pro-suffrage propaganda and campaign materials for the exhibition. These include a Votes for Women embroidered poster, National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) sashes and picture frames with key facts about women’s suffrage and political participation, including the statistic that the number of men in the House of Commons today equals the number of women ever elected to it*.
The NUWSS are the perhaps lesser known suffragist campaigners that preceded the Pankhurst’s mighty organisation, Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), that grabbed headlines in the early 20th century with its civil disobedience and violent tactics to gain the votes for women. Suffragists, such as Millicent Garrett Fawcett and many of the Mander family including Florence Mander, supporter of the local branch of Wolverhampton Women’s Suffragist Society and Princess Sudhira Mander, promoter of improved Anglo-Indian relations and close with suffragette Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, campaigned in a much more restraint manner.
Suffragists were similar in some ways to the later incarnation of suffragettes; suffragist colours were red, white and green, a clever branding strategy that enabled fellow suffragists to identify each other and unite under these colours, similarly Emmeline Pankhurst’s WSPU supporters had the colours purple, white and green to identify each other. Also, another obvious connection is that they both campaigned for women’s suffrage, the right to vote. Suffragists, since the forming of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage in 1867, had been peacefully lobbying government and fundraising in support of women’s rights, however by 1903 many were unhappy with the lack of action and results of the campaign, almost forty years later women seemed no closer to gaining the right to vote. This is when the Pankhurst’s broke off from the NUWSS to form their WSPU and demand the right to vote through a campaign of ‘Deeds, not Words’.
Despite this break away and seeming lack of progress of the NUWSS at achieving its aims of women’s suffrage, I have no doubt that the organisation galvanised and inspired women throughout the Great Britain, and further afield, to fight on beyond the limitations of the organisation, to be great orators, organisers and campaigners; Emmeline Pankhurst herself was a member until she formed her infamous WSPU.
‘Beyond Ophelia’ is an additional part of the Art and Activism exhibition, which focuses on pre-Raphaelite artist and poet Lizzie Siddal. Often only remembered as a muse and model for male pre-Raphaelite artists, Siddal produced a wealth of art that was collected by the Manders, in a somewhat subversive support of professional women’s work and worth as an individual and a creator.
This exhibition, Art and Activism, puts the Manders in their Victorian context, they were wealthy, privileged and concerned extensively with the aesthetics of their beautiful home, however they were also passionate, committed and social responsible people.
* Quoted from the exhibition ‘Art and Activism’.
Museum Maverick Blog 
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