Thread by @UKParliament

Dr Mari Takayanagi is Senior Archivist in the Parliamentary Archives and Co-Curator for ‘Voice and Vote: Women’s Place in Parliament’. Mari has worked in Parliament since 2000 and completed her PhD on Parliament and women in 2012. #AskACurator

© Parliament/Jessica Taylor

I'm often asked what my favourite items in the collection are. It's so hard to choose just one so I wanted to share some with you today. Feel free to ask me any questions about our archives and my work. #AskACurator

This watercolour from 1821 is on loan from our friends @ShakespeareBT. Discovered by a researcher via @Twitter a few years ago. It shows the view from the Ventilator, an octagonal structure in the attic space above the @HouseofCommons. Can you guess what it was for? #AskACurator

This space was where women watched proceedings through a ventilation shaft in the ceiling. Can you imagine what it must have felt like to peer down at the men below and listen to debates in a space like this? #AskACurator

by Lady Georgiana Chatterton 1821 © @ShakespeareBT

I love this collection that once belonged to Alice Hawkins. She was a suffragette and a true working-class woman. She was a machinist at the Equity shoe factory in Leicester, a socialist and trade unionist, and a mother of six children. #AskACurator

She was a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union and imprisoned five times for her role in WSPU protests. Her collection of WSPU memorabilia is on public display for the first time in our Voice and Vote exhibition, on loan from her family. #AskACurator

© Parliament

💬"Would you have been a suffragette?"

I don’t think I would have been a suffragette, I wouldn't have been brave enough to break the law, go to prison, or go on hunger-strike. I like to think I would have been a suffragist, one of the peaceful campaigners. #AskACurator

The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), led by Millicent Fawcett, organised mass petitions, huge marches, sent deputations to Parliament and lobbied MPs. I would have loved to help with that kind of thing. #AskACurator

💬"What’s your favourite item in the Parliamentary Archives?"

This suffragette banner dropped into the @HouseofCommons chamber from the Ladies’ Gallery during a protest by the Women’s Freedom League on 28 October 1908. #AskACurator

©Parliamentary Archives

Helen Fox and Muriel Matters chained themselves to the Ladies’ Gallery and Violet Tillard lowered the banner into the chamber. The women were cut free and the banner put in a cupboard and forgotten about, rediscovered in the Serjeant at Arms office during the 1990s. #AskACurator

That's all from me. Thanks for reading. The 'Voice and Vote: Women’s Place in Parliament’ exhibition is open to the public Monday to Saturday until 6 October. Book your free ticket at parliament.uk/visit - Mari.