Did you every wonder where UNISON’s colours came from?

Does the colour scheme on the medal look familiar to you? Do you know what it is?  Well, it is actually a hunger strike medal from the women’s suffrage movement and represents the colours of the suffragettes.   In 1908 the women’s Social and Political UNISON or WSPU adopted the colour scheme of purple, white and green which would distinguish them in the political movement. Emmelin Pethick-Lawrence, editor of the weekly newspaper Votes For Women wrote “Purple as everyone knows is the royal colour, white stands for purity in private and public life and green is the colour of hope and the emblem of spring.”