These Dangerous Women: Heritage Lottery Fund History Project
It was decided to focus on the 24 women who got passports to attend The Hague in 1915. Each volunteer agreed to research a pioneering WILPF member.
Katrina Gass organised a re-enactment of 4 August 1914 with some WILPF members in costume as early feminists delivering anti-war speeches and leaflets to passers-by near the site of the old Kingsway Hall and delivering a letter to Downing Street. The scenes of the women bound for The Hague in 1915, but thwarted at Tilbury by the closure of the North Sea to shipping, were re-enacted with the volunteers embodying the women they had researched. A scene was also filmed in Manchester to show that the early WILPF women came from all over the UK.
Through the research, we were very pleased to uncover the hidden histories of some astonishingly socially conscious and active women who, among their many concerns, were working for peace in the middle of the First World War, over 100 years ago. Our members produced the short biographies of early WILPF women published in These Dangerous Women.
All of those who participated were very proud of the project and have gained insight and knowledge into WILPF, its history, research and documentary making processes. Our thanks to all those who made this project possible
Read the blog Director, Charlotte Bill, wrote about the filming process: These Dangerous Women: Filming the 1915 Women’s Peace Congress – Imperial & Global Forum
Behind the scenes
Photos taken by Anna Watson
The Return of These Dangerous Women
In 2019 WILPF and the Clapham Film Unit collaborated again to create a sequel documentary about the international group of anti-war women who protested the terms of the Versailles Treaty in 1919.
WILPF members and partners met on 11 May in Zurich to celebrate and re-enact the 100th anniversary of WILPF’s Second Congress, hosted in Zurich in 1919, as part of the Women Vote Peace project which was funded by the European Commission and managed and reported by WILPF Germany.
Charlotte Bill and her team from Clapham Film Unit, filmed the re-enactment of the Congress, and produced Versailles 1919: The Return of These Dangerous Women.
Watch the film: Versailles 1919 Return of the Dangerous Women
Awards
WILPF and Clapham Film Unit submitted an entry to the Women’s History Network Community History Prize for our work on the These Dangerous Women project. We were very pleased to be awarded a Highly Commended Certificate.
