Suffragette Jewelry: The Colors, the Holloway Brooch, and the "Give Women the Vote" Legend

There is a pleasing tidiness to the story most often told about suffragette jewelry: that three colors—green, white and violet—were chosen because their initials spelled out a message, Give Women the Vote, and that a woman wearing them was quietly carrying a slogan on her lapel. It is a lovely idea. It is also one that the surviving record does not support, and the real history, which is better documented and rather more interesting, deserves to be told in its place.

The suffragette colors, and what the movement said they meant

The colors belonged to the Women's Social and Political Union, the militant suffrage organization founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in Manchester in 1903. The WSPU adopted purple, white and green as its official colors in 1908, a choice generally credited to Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, who co-edited the movement's newspaper, Votes for Women. Their first great public outing was the Women's Sunday procession and rally in Hyde Park in June 1908, the first great occasion on which the colors were seen in quantity.

The meanings were given in print at the time. As the paper explained them, purple stood for the royal blood that runs in the veins of every suffragette, white for purity in private and public life, and green for hope, the emblem of spring. Later writers condense this into dignity, purity and hope, and the paraphrase has taken hold; but the original wording is worth keeping, because it is plainly a statement of pride and self-respect, not a cipher.

The colors did their work in the open. Sashes, rosettes, ribbons, banners and hatbands all carried them, and the purpose was visibility: a woman in the colors was announcing where she stood. That is precisely why the acrostic sits uneasily beside the evidence.

The acrostic legend: green, white, violet

The claim runs as follows: green for Give, white for Women, violet for Votes. It appears in countless articles, auction descriptions and dealers' notes, usually stated flatly. We would treat it as legend. The meanings published by the WSPU itself are the ones above, and they say nothing of letters. The Union spoke of purple, not violet, which matters, because the acrostic needs the second word. We have found no contemporary WSPU statement offering the slogan as the reason for the choice, and a movement that wanted its members seen from across Parliament Square had little reason to bury its message in a code.

It is more likely a later back-formation—a mnemonic that arrived after the fact and then acquired the authority of repetition. We cannot prove a negative, and some may yet turn up an early source; until one does, the careful phrasing is that the acrostic is a popular explanation of uncertain date, not an established origin. Jewelers have always loved a hidden message, as we have written in our essay on the language of gemstones and acrostic jewelry, and the Victorians did genuinely spell out names and sentiments in stones. The suffragette colors simply were not, so far as anyone can show, one of those pieces.

The Holloway brooch: a badge of imprisonment

If a single object belongs to the movement and to no one else, it is the Holloway brooch. Designed by Sylvia Pankhurst and made in silver and enamel by the London firm of Toye & Co., it takes the form of a portcullis, the emblem of Parliament, over which lies a convict's broad arrow rendered in purple, white and green enamel. The Union presented it to members who had been imprisoned for the cause, and the first were handed out at a meeting at the Albert Hall in April 1909. It was called, in the movement's own circles, the Victoria Cross of the Union.

It was not a piece of fashion. It could not be bought; it was earned, and the wearer was a woman who had spent time in Holloway, the London women's prison. Janie Terrero, imprisoned there in 1912 and force-fed during her sentence, sat for the portrait below wearing her hunger strike medal — the movement honored its members in metal rather than money.

Both objects are now rare, and the best of them are in public collections. The London Museum holds Holloway brooches of this kind, and in 2023 a hunger strike medal awarded to Maud Joachim was acquired by the Glasgow Women's Library after a public appeal—a reminder of how seriously institutions now regard what was once worn quietly on a coat.

Mappin & Webb and the WSPU jewelry trade

Alongside the badges that were earned came a considerable commerce in jewelry that anyone could wear. The London house of Mappin & Webb, holder of royal warrants, issued a catalogue of suffragette jewelry for Christmas; accounts differ on whether this was 1908 or 1909, and we would not insist on either. Other makers and retailers followed, and the colors passed quickly into the ordinary language of ornament.

There were also pieces made to commission. A pendant in the form of an angel, enameled by Ernestine Mills in 1909 to mark the release of Louise Eates from Holloway, is in the collection of the London Museum, and its provenance is secure. It is a useful benchmark: such a piece has a recorded maker, recipient and occasion, and that is exactly what most jewels sold under the name of the movement do not have.

Amethyst, peridot and pearl: the gemstone code

The jeweler's translation of the colors is familiar. Amethyst supplies the purple, peridot the green, and pearl or diamond the white, set most often in nine-carat gold in the form of a pendant, a brooch or a necklace with small drops. It is, one should say, a palette that suited the Edwardian taste in any case. Purple and yellow-green are complements, pearls were everywhere, and the same combination was worn before the Union existed and long after it dissolved. Collectors and dealers are rightly cautious about this; a jewel in the three colors is consistent with the movement, but it is not evidence of it.

What the stones do give us is a period vocabulary. The slender curves and soft color of these pieces belong to the transition from the Art Nouveau line into Edwardian refinement, a world of lightness and pale stones that we explore in our collection of Edwardian jewelry. A woman who wore one need not have marched; she may have wished only to be seen to sympathize, or to enjoy a fashionable color scheme, or both. The historical record allows all three.

Nor was the practice confined to Britain. American organizations drew on the same idea with different colors: the National Woman's Party took purple, white and gold, and its founder Alice Paul is said to have adapted the British palette to a yellow long associated with the American cause. The acrostic, interestingly, does not carry over to gold at all.

Collecting suffragette jewelry today

The discipline for anyone drawn to this field is to separate three categories that the market tends to blur. First, objects with documented use by the movement: Holloway brooches, hunger strike medals and commissioned pieces, which are properly the business of museums and specialist auction rooms. Second, jewelry made and sold in the colors during the Edwardian years, which is a legitimate and attractive collecting area. Third, later or looser pieces that happen to be green, white and violet and have been given a romantic label.

The questions to ask are the old ones. Is the construction and metal consistent with the date? Are the stones original, or has a missing peridot been quietly replaced? Is there any hallmark, maker's mark or paper to support the claim? Our guide on how to read jewelry hallmarks is a sound starting point. A fine Edwardian pendant in amethyst, peridot and pearl is a worthy thing to own for what it is; it is a lesser one if it is bought as something it cannot be shown to be.

If this history appeals to you, we would be glad to show you period jewelry in these colors, with an honest account of what we know of each piece. Browse our vintage brooches, or request a private viewing and we will arrange an unhurried appointment.

— Eleanor Verane