Suffragetto

Suffragetto is a British board game published around 1908 by the Women's Social and Political Union and manufactured by Sargeant Brothers Limited, created to dramatize the campaign for women's suffrage through play. Two players face off on a board representing the streets of Edwardian London, one commanding twenty-one green markers representing suffragettes and the other twenty-one blue markers representing police constables. The suffragette player tries to march pieces into the House of Commons while blocking the police from reaching Albert Hall, and the police player tries to do the reverse; a suffragette caught by police is sent to prison and a constable overcome is sent to hospital, with victory going to whichever side first gets six of its markers into the opponent's home space. The Women's Social and Political Union sold the game partly to raise money independent of wealthy patrons, and it belongs to a wider vogue for politically themed games of the period, alongside titles such as Pank-a-Squith of 1909. Only one confirmed original copy is known to survive, held at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, and the game returned to public attention through a 2018 BBC documentary and has since been made available in print-and-play and digital form.