Our Suffragette Printing History (1908-1911)

The little-known story of how our firm printed for the WSPU over a century ago, credited by suffrage historian Elizabeth Crawford, and what it means for the causes we print for today.

Our Suffragette Printing History: WSPU Leaflets to Today's Causes

In 1908, a small London printing firm called Geo. Barber, The Furnival Press, ran off a leaflet inviting "all women" to a "Parliament of Women" at Caxton Hall, chaired by Mrs Pankhurst. Three years later the same firm printed the leaflet calling women onto the streets for the 1911 Coronation Year procession to the Royal Albert Hall, and a second demanding fair treatment for the women beaten on Black Friday. That firm is us. We're Furnival Press, and we're still printing today, from Canvey Island, Essex, serving London exactly as we did back then.

HOW WE FOUND OUT

We only discovered this history by accident. While looking into our own past, we came across Woman and Her Sphere, the meticulously researched website run by suffrage historian Elizabeth Crawford, who spent over 40 years dealing in books and ephemera connected to women's history. Her catalogue includes four separate items bearing our old imprint, "Geo. Barber, The Furnival Press, E.C." Elizabeth kindly gave us permission to share her research and the images below. Her new book, The British Women's Suffrage Movement in 100 Objects: a material history, is published by Bloomsbury on 23 July 2026, and is well worth a look for anyone interested in how objects like these tell the suffrage story.

WHAT DID FURNIVAL PRESS PRINT FOR THE WSPU?

Four items in Elizabeth Crawford's records carry our imprint, all issued by the Women's Social and Political Union between 1908 and 1911: a leaflet for the 1908 "Parliament of Women" at Caxton Hall; The Women's Marseillaise, a 1909 marching song written by WSPU organiser Florence Macaulay; a leaflet for the 17 June 1911 Coronation Year procession from Westminster Embankment to the Royal Albert Hall; and a leaflet, signed by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, calling a deputation to the House of Commons on 21 November 1911 to protest the treatment of women on Black Friday.

SAME STREET, SAME VALUES

George Barber founded our firm in Holborn in the 1860s. We've traded as Furnival Press ever since. I bought the business in 2016, and we now print from Essex, but we still serve London the way we always have: personally, on time, and without cutting corners. Finding out that this firm once printed for the WSPU wasn't just a nice bit of trivia. It's a reminder of what a small print shop can end up part of, when the people using it are trying to change something that matters.

WE STILL PRINT FOR CAUSES TODAY

That's still true now. If you run a charity, a campaign group, a membership organisation or a women's rights organisation and need printing you can trust, leaflets, posters, event programmes, membership mailings, banners for a rally or a conference, we'd like to hear from you. Every job gets a manual artwork check before it goes to press, same-day turnaround is available when you're up against it, and you deal with one person, start to finish, not a call centre.

HOW FAST CAN FURNIVAL PRESS TURN AROUND CAMPAIGN OR EVENT PRINT?

Same-day is available for urgent jobs; our standard turnaround is 3 to 5 working days. Tell us your deadline and we'll tell you honestly whether we can hit it.

GET IN TOUCH

If your organisation needs a printer who understands deadlines, and who's been doing this since long before anyone had a mobile phone, get in touch through the website.

Old-School Service, Modern Technology, Delivered On Time:
we've apparently been living up to that longer than we knew.

With thanks to Elizabeth Crawford of Woman and Her Sphere womanandhersphere.com for her research, images and permission to tell this part of our history. Her book, The British Women's Suffrage Movement in 100 Objects: a material history, is published by Bloomsbury on 23 July 2026.