Fawcett MK: Keeping Up

  February has not been a lot of fun so far, has it? Certainly not as far as the weather is concerned, offering us a salad of mud, sodden ground, floods and a miserable pervading damp. But, given the state of the world at the moment, it’s probably more enjoyable to meditate on rain and write about rain than it is to grapple with iniquities of humanity. So, let’s indulge in a few ponderings on women and inclement weather. The Mud March February 2026 might be a bit damp, but February 1907 (and specifically February 9, 1907) was particularly memorable for the women who took part in the infamous ‘Mud March’ from Hyde Park to Exeter Hall in the Strand. It was organised by Millicent Fawcett and the Suffragist movement, with 3,000 women joining to demonstrate their support for a bill on women’s suffrage due to be presented in the House of Commons. Kate Frye , who had joined the suffragists in 1906, described the weather in her diary: ‘…was my utter disgust – and disappointment- to hear t...