Marion Wallace Dunlop: West Ealing WI

The Marion Wallace Dunlop banner was designed in some ways to reflect our own. When we made the West Ealing WI banner in 2012, different members worked on individual letters.

The banner is a product of as many people as possible, incorporating different colours, styles and techniques. This means it is inclusive, showcases our different skills and personalities, and that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts, showing what we can achieve collectively. We used a variety of different shades and textures of purple fabric and thread to continue this idea, different crafts to represent different motifs, and there were sixteen of us who contributed to making the banner in one way or another – all in all, that’s about a third of our group.

As well as Marion’s name, we chose to depict the food that she threw out of the window while on hunger strike – a fried fish, three bananas, four slices of bread and a cup of hot milk – and as a replica of the badge that was given to suffragettes who had spent time in prison. We ran a couple of workshops on Saturday & Sunday mornings as well as taking the banner to February’s craft club meeting at the pub where we made significant progress on a truly intimidating amount of blanket stitch.

When we were gathered in the Royal Alnbert Hall, Elizabeth Crawford spoke about how Marion Wallace Dunlop was instrumental in supporting and leading other women in the creation of their own protest banners. This wasn’t a fact we’d come across during our own research, but learning it makes our tribute to her feel all the more necessary and appropriate!