The suffragette campaign spearheaded by Mrs Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a time of heady excitement, courage, endurance and persistence. Women marched under stirring banners – From Prison to Citizenship, Deeds Not Words, Ask With Courage (a pun on prime minister Asquith's name). They endured violence and imprisonment in their quest for justice. They made news – and for some they also made money. The Keeloma Dairy Company was one of the businesses which saw the suffragette campaign as a marketing opportunity. In 1907 they advertised their “butter substitute” in the Yorkshire Evening Post with a stock cartoon image of the suffragette – ugly, mannish and strident. The advertisement reads:- The suffragette says she ought to have a vote. Maybe it would be policy, perhaps not. But what we do know is that when once ladies have tried Keeloma, they unanimously vote it of a delicious creamy flavour, and quite equal to freshly-churned country butter. ...

I'm delighted to welcome Helen Hollick back with a riproaring blog about women pirates. The latest book in Helen's thrilling Sea Witch Voyages - On the Account - is out now! Read all about Captain Jesamiah Acorne's latest adventures and release your inner seadog...see below for details. You get authoress, manageress, actress – so why not pirate-ess? The word might be made-up (and the gender-specific ‘ess’ bit rarely used nowadays) but they were there, the women. Two in particular are the most famous. The early eighteenth century was not a good place to be if you were poor, black, or a woman. For women there were no rights; they were little more than possessions. No right to law, to decision of marriage – and about one in four died in childbirth. Mention pirates and Anne Bonny and Mary Read enter the conversation. Anne was pirate Captain ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham’s lover, Mary Read a member of his crew, although we do not know if she was initially disguised as a m...