Off-Topic: Farnworth Society of Women’s Suffrage
I expect most of you will be off-topic for the next 24 hours so here’s another random addition to the blog. Among my dad’s books, which I’m currently sorting through, there’s a volume of poetry with a red suede cover — “Poems of Experience” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, dated 1916, published by Gay and Hancock of Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London. The suede is pretty fragile and my hands are covered in red dust.
The inscription is fascinating and I’ve no idea how this book came to my dad:
To Mrs Affleck.
a gift from the Committee of the Farnworth Society for Women’s Suffrage in commemoration of the passing of the Representation of the People Bill, and in grateful recognition of her work as Secretary 1910 – 1918.
May 15th 1918
And in case you think that intellectual property rights are mainly the burning issue for the digital age, there’s a note from Ella Wheeler Wilcox:
Any edition of my poems published in England by any firm except Messrs. Gay and Hancock is pirated and not authentic.
Nothing changes . . .
