The library was to hold material relating to women's work, too. This year's centenary is an opportunity to celebrate the institution's unique holdings.
The circular medal is decorated with eleven silver bars and the purple, white and green ribbon of the suffragette movement. It was awarded "For Duty" by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant suffrage organisation founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia.
Why, Damon, why, why, why so pressing? The Heart you beg's not worth possessing: Each Look, each Word, each Smile's affected, And inward Charms are quite neglected: Then scorn her, scorn her, foolish Swain, And sigh no more, no more in vain. Beauty's worthless, fading, flying; Who would for Trifles think of dying? Who for a Face, a Shape wou'd languish, And tell the Brooks, and Groves his Anguish, Till she, till she thinks fit to prize him, And all, and all beside despise him?