Thank you for downloading this episode of A History of the World in 100 Objects from BBC Radio 4.
In this History of the World in 100 Objects, we've just reached the beginning of the 20th century.
And until now, we've been largely in a world of things that were made, commissioned, and owned by men.
Today, on the other hand, we've got an object designed to carry the image of a king,
but that's been appropriated by women.
Disfigured and over-stamped with a slogan as an act of female protest against the laws of the state.
Shout, shout, up with your song!
Cry with the wind for the dawn is breaking.
March, march, swing you along,
wide flows our banner and hope is waking.
The coin in this program is a deft act of civil disobedience
and a brilliantly inventive piece of low-budget popular propaganda.
It's a British penny with King Edward VII in elegant profile,
but his image has been shockingly defaced in what was then a criminal act.
Stamped all over the King's head in crude capitals are the words "VOTES FOR WOMEN."
March, march, many as one, shoulder to shoulder and friend to friend.
To hold it gives you a sense of connection to the suffragettes.
It's wonderful and it's those things from history, those objects that just take us back to a period,
to a moment in a wonderful imaginative way of making a political statement.
It's got shock value, it's got an incredible level of sophistication.