Jill Craigie, the suffragettes and early TV drama

The suffragette movement held a life-long fascination for Jill Craigie as the inspiration and foundation for the broader fight for women’s rights. She dramatized the Pankhursts’ story in many forms, including a feature script and a musical, but only one of her attempts made it onto the air as a BBC radio play, The Women’s Rebellion in 1951. Hollie Price’s research at BBC Written Archives reveals that Craigie had already written a drama documentary for BBC television in 1949 on the early women’s movement, showing her determination to experiment in the new medium. Her findings are now published as ‘Jill Craigie: The BBC, Postwar Feminism and Modern Femininities’, Critical Studies in Television, vol 17: no 3, 2022.

Former Research Fellow on the Jill Craigie project, Price is now lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Keele.