The March of the Women

[3] "The March of the Women" was first performed on 21 January 1911, by the Suffrage Choir, at a ceremony held on Pall Mall, London,[1] to celebrate a release of activists from prison.

[4] The latter song was a setting of words by WSPU activist Florence Macaulay to the tune of La Marseillaise.

[7] A famous rendering of it took place in 1912, at Holloway Prison, after many women activists were imprisoned as a result of a window-smashing campaign.

[8] The conductor Thomas Beecham visited Smyth in prison and reported that he found the activists in the courtyard "...marching round it and singing lustily their war-chant while the composer, beaming approbation from an overlooking upper window, beat time in almost Bacchic frenzy with a toothbrush.

[10] The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage sent delegates to march up the Capitol building stairs and present a petition to the U.S. Congress and accompanied by a 1,000 singer chorus.

An arrangement of "The March of the Women" for solo piano appeared in 1914 in King Albert's Book, a fund-raising publication for Belgian relief.