Now home to LSE, 20 Kingsway used to house the Tea Cup Inn – a tea shop for suffragettes. Look closely and traces of the suffragettes, LSE’s early neighbours, can still be found around our campus today.

Suffragettes and LSE

LSE moved to Clare Market and Houghton Street in 1902 to occupy the newly-built Passmore Edwards Hall – and was surrounded on all sides by suffragette affiliations.

St Clement's Press exterior c1959When the Tea Cup Inn opened in 1910 on the ground floor and basement of 20 Kingsway (then known as Bank Buildings), the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) general office was at 4 Clement’s Inn, and had been since 1906. Emmeline Pankhurst founded the WSPU in 1903, and she, Christabel Pankhurst and Flora Drummond were famously pictured being arrested from Clement’s Inn in 1908.  Two other prominent WSPU members were Frederick and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, who owned and edited the WSPU newspaper Votes for Women. Founded in 1907, Votes for Women was printed at the St Clement’s Press on Clare Market until 1912. Another early LSE neighbour was the Aldwych Skating Rink. During the 1911 census boycott, the WSPU gathered at the Aldwych Skating Rink after marching down the Strand.

The Tea Cup Inn was run by Alice Mary Hansell  (and for a short time Marion Shallard).  Tea shops like this were known as safe spaces for suffragettes to meet. The Tea Cup Inn advertised in Votes for Women and was of course extremely close to the WSPU offices at Clement’s Inn. When the London Opera House opened in 1911 it was used as a large meeting space and the Tea Cup Inn found itself conveniently located just across the road. In 1912, Emmeline Pankhurst moved the WSPU office to Lincoln’s Inn House on Kingsway and ousted the Pethwick-Lawrence’s. The Tea Cup Inn remained extremely well-placed for the WSPU and in 1914 also advertised in The Suffragette, the Pankhurst’s newspaper. Alice Hansell ran the Tea Cup Inn until she died in 1923.

Suffragettes and LSEToday these suffragette affiliated buildings are all – except for the skating rink, sadly – part of LSE’s campus. Their history has become linked to our own and in 2014 the LSESU Feminist Society recreated the iconic suffragette march through Clement’s Inn.

Today, St Clement’s Press is the St Clement’s Building and Waterstones Economists’ bookshop on Clare Market and the London Opera House is now the Peacock Theatre. Both buildings are used by LSE. Clement’s Inn also contains LSE offices and a plaque commemorating the WSPU, specifically Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, can be found on the wall just outside the entrance of Tower 3.

Contributed by Hayley Reed (Communications Executive, LSE) 

LSE 120th anniversary

 

Find out more about LSE’s history and join in the 120th anniversary celebrations at lse.ac.uk/lse120. #LSE120

 

 

Images:

1. 20 Kingsway plaque, 2015 by Hayley Reed

2. LSESU Feminist Society, 2014 from LSE Library Flickr

3. Tea Cup Inn advert from Votes for Women: http://womanandhersphere.com/

4. 20 Kingsway, 2015 by Hayley Reed

5. WSPU badge, from the Women’s Library

6. Suffragettes being arrested in the WSPU office at Clement’s Inn, from the Women’s Library

7. St Clement’s Press, 1959 from LSE Library Flickr

8. WSPU plaque, 2015 by Hayley Reed

9. St Clements Press, 2015 by Hayley Reed

10. Emmeline Pankhurst, from the Women’s Library

11. Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, from the Women’s Library

12. Votes for Women cover, from the Women’s Library

 

 

Further information:

Suffragettes and the Aldwych – see Woman and Her Sphere for these specific articles:

Tea Cup Inn

Aldwych Skating Rink

St Clement’s Press

Clement’s Inn

Women’s Walks app “Women’s Suffrage” route, available free at the iTunes app store.

Women’s Library @ LSE

LSE Digital Library

LSE’s move to Aldwych: Passmore Edwards Hall