At Wimbledon, the backdrop to astounding feats of sporting virtuosity is a benign celebration for the middle classes (as I remarked here—and do let’s dust off the classic Vitas Gerulaitis story!!!), its genteel image (blazers, straw boaters, flowery dresses) carefully fashioned by the BBC. Everyone knows how to behave (“being British for the British, in front of the British”).

Even the style of this week’s climate protests seemed genteel, when Just Stop Oil activists briefly disrupted matches by scattering a Wimbledon-themed jigsaw and environmentally-friendly orange confetti glitter onto the grass. The planet may be on the brink of extinction, but predictably, “Home Secretary” Cruella Braverman considered the protesters “selfish” (cf. Going too far).

Tucked away on the BBC sport website is an intriguing article on a failed attempt by suffragettes in 1913 to burn down the grounds (see also here)—one of many such incidents that year at major sporting events. The Wimbledon chapter of the WSPU was a hotbed of suffragette activity, led by Rose Lamartine Yates.

Source.

Having been educated [You were educated?—Ed.] in Wimbledon myself, I had no idea of all this; I wonder if such local history is taught in schools today.

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The suffragette movement was widely recognised by its colours, adopted in 1908: purple representing loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green for hope. The following year the Wimbledon tennis tournament also chose purple and green for its emblem; but no debt has been acknowledged.

Just as there’s no clear link between the colours of Wimbledon and the suffragette movement, the image of the movement itself (“the largest domestic terror organisation who ever operated on British soil”) has long lost the taint of terrorism—as tends to happen with successful terrorist campaigns. Upon the outbreak of World War One the suffragettes’ arson and bombing campaigns were suspended, and after the war women gradually gained the vote without resorting to further violence.

For the suffragettes’ adroit use of humour, click here. More on tennis under A sporting medley; see also my Roundup of posts on gender.