400 societies that were split between 19 federations covering the country. It
had about 500,000 members and an annual income of £45,000.
By 1903, the suffrage movement was divided into two distinct groups, each of which further divided into a number of factions. By 1912, the whole movement was a complex web of such groups.
The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS)
Origins
This organisation was created in 1897 when the existing suffrage societies
merged under the leadership of
Millicent Garrett Fawcett,
the wife of Henry Fawcett, a Liberal MP. By 1913, the NUWSS had
400 societies that were split between 19 federations covering the country. It
had about 500,000 members and an annual income of £45,000.
Tactics
The NUWSS women were
‘constitutional suffragists’,
believing in
peaceful methods
to achieve their objectives. Their tactics centred round discussion, public m
eetings
and processions like the aptly called
‘Mud March’
of 7th February 1905 because of the atrocious weather, publishing
their views in a newspaper The Common Cause and petitioning parliament[1].
The NUWSS used the ploy of asking sympathetic MPs to sponsor private members’ bills. Between 1870 and 1914, almost thirty such bills were introduced. However, without government backing, they had little chance of success. The NUWSS did have some contact with other suffragist organisations such as the WSPU but abhorred the use of violence to achieve the vote. They felt that peaceful methods would strengthen their case by displaying women as rational beings who would be capable of using the franchise. In 1912, the NUWSS made it official policy to back Labour Party candidates in elections. Labour was the only political party to put female suffrage into its political manifesto.
The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)
Origins
Emmeline Goulden was born in 1858. She first attended a suffrage meeting in
Manchester in 1872. I
n
1879, she married a leading Manchester lawyer,
Richard Pankhurst,
and had four children --
Christabel, Sylvia, Henry and Adela.
The two elder girls and their mother were to become prominent figures
in the Suffrage Movement. Emmeline Pankhurst held public office as a Poor Law
Guardian and Registrar of Births and Deaths. By the time she was widowed in
1898, she was a committed socialist. It seemed possible that the Independent
Labour party would commit themselves to the vote in a way the Liberal party
would not. Emmeline Pankhurst, spurred on by Christabel, formed The Women’s
Social and Political Union at her home 62, Nelson Street, Manchester in 1903
with the aim of obtaining votes for women
‘on the same terms which it is, or may be, granted for men’.
In 1905, the WSPU moved its headquarters to Clement’s Inn, London (and to
Lincoln’s Inn in 1911-12). Other prominent members at this time were
Annie Kennedy,
a cotton-mill worker, and Mr and
Mrs Pethick-Lawrence,
who edited the WSPU publication, Votes for Women. By 1910, the WSPU had
a reputed membership of 36,000 and an annual income of £35,000.
Splinter groups
In 1907, Mrs Charlotte Despard and Mrs Teresa Billington-Greig established The Women’s Freedom League (WFL), a breakaway group from the WSPU. The WFL had the specific intention of evading the Inland Revenue, saying that they would not pay any taxes until they had the vote, and in 1911, they refused to co-operate with the Census. Another reason for the split was that they disliked the fact that WSPU was totally dominated by the Pankhursts, who were now dictating WSPU policy.
In 1912, the Pethick-Lawrences left the WSPU and established their own organisation The Votes for Women Fellowship or United Suffragists.
Finally, in 1913, Sylvia Pankhurst formed the East London Suffrage Federation. She had become disillusioned with the WSPU because it had become middle class oriented and had apparently abandoned working class women. The result of these splits was to leave the original WSPU as a dwindling band dominated by Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst. The degree to which this mattered depended on perspective.
At the grass roots, the distinction between militants and non-militants was much
less clear-cut than it
appeared
from the perspective of London.
Tactics
At first, the WSPU adopted similar tactics to the NUWSS and sought to educate
the public on female su
ffrage.
In 1904, however, the Pankhursts witnessed a Private Member Bill on Women’s
Suffrage deliberately talked out by MPs in the House of Commons. Their anger at
this caused them to reconsider their tactics. It became
obvious that men would not listen to their case and they decided that militant
action was necessary:
‘Deeds not words’
became official WSPU policy. They adopted tactics such as heckling government
ministers at meetings, obstructing ministers at by-elections and holding an
annual ‘Woman’s Parliament’. In October 1905, Christabel and Annie Kennedy
heckled Edward Grey at a Liberal Party rally in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall.
They were removed from the Hall and imprisoned: this was the first militant act
of the WSPU. In 1906, the Daily Mail labelled members of the WSPU
‘suffragettes’ in view of their militant stance, thus distinguishing them from
the moderate suffragists of the NUWSS. In 1912, Mrs Pankhurst declared ‘war’
and sanctioned attacks on property in the cause of winning the vote.
In 1978, Jill Liddington and Jill Norris published One Hand Behind Us. It gave a new view of the women’s suffrage movement. They argued that the traditional view gave too much credit to the militant tactics of the WSPU and the role of the Pankhursts and ignored the contribution made by the ‘Radical Suffragists’. They were working class female cotton-workers in Lancashire who objected to the violent tactics of the WSPU and the domination of the NUWSS by middle class activists. The Radical Suffragists were, in essence, a breakaway faction of the NUWSS. They were closely allied to the trade-union movement and believed fervently in winning the vote for working class women by means of ‘grassroots diplomacy’. Prominent in the movement was Esther Roper, Eva Gore-Booth, Cissy Foley and Ada Nield Chew. The Radical Suffragists allied themselves politically with the Labour Party and were in favour of full womanhood suffrage that they saw as the gateway to improving the social condition of working class women. They opposed female suffrage based on a property qualification, as it would only enfranchise upper and middle class women.
Date |
Event |
|
1905 |
February 7th: the NUWSS held the ‘Mud March’ in London to draw public attention to their cause. October: Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kennedy imprisoned after disrupting a Liberal rally in Manchester by heckling: the first militant incident. |
|
1906 |
Liberals swept to power after a landslide election victory. Shortly after in the autumn of 1906, the WSPU moved to London and decided to fight the Liberals at all by-elections until votes for women was granted. |
|
1907 |
February: the first Women’s Parliament met at Caxton Hall in London; sixty women arrested at demonstration at the House of Commons. September: three senior members of WSPU expelled and form the Women’s Freedom League that was also militant but democratic in structure. October: Votes for Women newspaper founded by Frederick and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence |
|
1908 |
April: Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman died. Henry Asquith takes over and he was strongly opposed to votes for women. June 21st: a huge demonstration held in Hyde Park with an estimated attendance of 250,000 and much pageantry (700 banners displayed). June 30th: Mary Leigh and Edith New became the first suffragette to smash windows. Acting independently, they smashed windows at 10 Downing Street and sentenced to two months in Holloway prison. This tactic became an established part of the militant campaign in the autumn of 1911. October 13th: Christabel, Emmeline and Mrs Flora Drummond arrested for ‘obstruction’ when a group of suffragettes tried to march (a ‘rush’) on the Houses of Parliament. They received three months imprisonment in Holloway. |
|
1909 |
June 29th: government office windows smashed by suffragettes because Asquith consistently refused to meet their deputations. July: Marion Wallace Dunlop went on the first hunger strike in prison, protesting that she was being treated as a criminal rather than a political offender. September: the reaction of the prison authorities was to force-feed her. This treatment caused a public outcry but the government continued to sanction such methods rather than risk the death of a suffragette who would be made into a martyr by the WSPU. Many other imprisoned suffragettes including Emmeline Pankhurst who now publicly advocated attacks on private property copied hunger striking. |
|
1910 |
The government was at last stirred into action and an all-party Conciliation Committee introduced the first Conciliation Bill into parliament that proposed to give female householders the vote. WSPU called a truce and used peaceful protest only. The first Conciliation Bill was defeated and to show their disgust a large suffragette demonstration took place outside parliament on 11th November. A running battle took place with the police and the suffragettes dubbed the incidence ‘Black Friday’. WSPU renewed its truce, optimistic about a second Conciliation Bill |
|
1911 |
Following this, the WSPU called a truce whilst a Second Conciliation Bill was debated but it too was defeated leaving militant suffragettes outraged. The result was widespread window smashing when government and commercial properties were attacked on 21st November. Window smashing was now official WSPU policy. Guerrilla warfare dominated the campaign until 1914 but the firing of churches, private houses and public amenities alienated public opinion. Golfing greens were attacked with acid, letters were burnt in letterboxes and buildings were defaced with graffiti. All targets were chosen to avoid any loss of life. |
|
1912 |
March: Suffragettes went on the rampage in London’s West End, smashing shop windows and causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. Emmeline and the Pethick-Lawrences were arrested. Christabel fled the country and went to Paris. October: the Pethick-Lawrences deplored the increased violence advocated by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and were expelled from the WSPU. A new newspaper, the Suffragette, is started presenting WSPU policy and propaganda in ways that are more strident. |
|
1913 |
The government introduced its General Electoral Reform Bill in early 1913 that proposed to give all men over 21 the vote. Asquith said that there would be a free vote on the bill and an amendment was moved to the effect that women should also receive the vote. The Speaker, however, ruled that the amendment was out of order and the whole bill was dropped. The WSPU were incensed and stepped up their action. Arson and bombing now became the chief weapons. Empty houses were burnt down, including a residence newly built for Lloyd George. Emmeline Pankhurst took responsibility for this, though most likely she did not do it, and was sentenced to three years imprisonment in Mach 1913. Once imprisoned she went on an immediate hunger strike. 4th June brought a major incident with the fatal injuring of Emily Davison during the Derby at Epsom. Her funeral was stage-managed to gain as much publicity as possible. In April 1913 the government, concerned about the number of hunger strikers passed the Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health Act (the so-called Cat and Mouse Act). This Act permitted the authorities to release a suffragette on licence so that she could regain her strength and she would then be rearrested. |
|
1914 |
August 4th: Britain declared war against Germany and the militant campaign was called off. Mrs Pankhurst was released from prison and she encouraged women to contribute to the war effort. Sylvia, however, carried on the campaign setting up the Women’s Suffrage Federation |
The biggest suffrage group, the NUWSS, did not support any form of violence. However, it has been suggested by the Pankhursts that violence was the only way to get the government to listen to them: meetings, leaflets and argument did not work. The WSPU and the Pankhursts made women’s suffrage a major national issue, something forty years of constitutional argument had failed to do. The extent to which militant tactics furthered the cause of the Suffragettes has been an issue of many debates. In hindsight, the evidence suggests that militant tactics did more harm than good to the suffrage movement. In 1908 a reporter in the Daily News claimed that “the feeling of the people in general ... is coming round to the side of the suffragettes”. If militant tactics had simply meant heckling ministers and demonstrations it is quite likely that the public would have still sided with the WSPU. However, it was after the campaign became violent and destructive of private property that the public turned against it. Lloyd George claimed that violence ‘antagonised’ and ‘poisoned’ both the public and government.
[1] Much work on women’s suffrage focuses on London. Leah Leneman ‘A truly national movement: the view from outside London’, in Maroula Joannou and June Purvis (eds.) The Women’s Suffrage Movement: New feminist perspectives, Manchester, 1998, pages 37-50 and June Hannam ‘I had not been to London: women’s suffrage – a view from the regions’, in June Purvis and Sandra Stanley Holton (eds.) Votes for Women, Routledge, 2000 pages 226-245 gives the story from the provinces. Leah Leneman A guid cause: the women’s suffrage movement in Scotland, Aberdeen University Press, 1991, 2nd ed., 1998 is the leading text on Scotland. Deidre Beddoe Out of the Shadows: A History of Women in Twentieth Century Wales, University of Wales Press, 2000 provides a sketch of women’s suffrage in Wales while Kay Cook and Neil Evans ‘The Petty Antics of the Bell-Ringing Boisterous Band? The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales 1890-1918’, in Angela V. John (ed.) Our Mothers’ Land: Chapters in Welsh Women’s History 1830-1939, University of Wales Press, 1991, pages 159-188 is more detailed. Cliona Murphy The Women’s Suffrage Movement and Irish Society in the Early Twentieth Century, Temple University Press, 1989 is a good introduction to the movement in Ireland.