The Campaign for Women’s Suffrage

Background – ‘Proto-feminists’ Mary Wollstonecraft John Stuart Mill A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) Maria: or, the Wrongs of Woman (1798) The Enfranchisement of Women (1851) The Subjection of Women (1861, published 1869)

Ruskin vs Mill ‘But how, you will ask, is the idea of this guiding function of the woman reconcilable with a true wifely subjection? Simply in that it is a GUIDING, not a determining, function.’ ‘The man, in his rough work in open world, must encounter all peril and trial; -to him, therefore, must be the failure, the offence, the inevitable error: often he must be wounded, or subdued; often misled; and ALWAYS hardened. But he guards the woman from all this; within his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself has sought it, need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of error or offence.’ John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies: Two Lectures delivered at Manchester in 1864

‘That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes – the legal subordination of one sex to the other – is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.’   John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, 1869

The Women’s Suffrage Campaign NSWS (National Society for Women’s Suffrage) formed in 1867 Question: how could it be OK for male labourers to vote when their employers could not (in the case of landowning unmarried women, or better-off servants)? Jacob Bright introduced the first women’s suffrage bill in 1870. It was defeated at the committee stage

Giving women the vote would lead to… ‘a fundamental change in the whole social function of women…. The fear I have is, lest we should invite her unwittingly to trespass on the delicacy, the purity, the refinement, the elevation of her own nature, which are the present sources of her power.’ W E Gladstone, Female Suffrage, 1892

‘We are tired of…hearing that “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world” – when a moment afterwards our brains are compared with rabbits, and we are told … that wives “should stay at home to wash their husbands’ moleskin trousers.”’ Margaret Llewelyn Davies, Leader of the Women’s Co-operative Guild

NUWSS – The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies Formed 1897 Led by Millicent Fawcett Moral force over militancy – aimed for constitutional change Lobbied parliament, collected signatures for petitions, organised peaceful marches Known as 'suffragists'

Mud March, 9th Feb 1907

WSPU – the Women's Social and Political Union Formed in 1903 Led by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia Women-only organisation "Deeds, not words“ Suffragettes

Tactics Disrupting Political Meetings Christabel Pankhurst Annie Kenney

Use of the Press

Marches, speech-making and rallies

 Suffragette Ada Wright collapses through police violence on Black Friday, 1910

Illegal activity - vandalism and attacks on premises

Mary Leigh and Edith New after being released from prison

"No sooner was this effected, however, than the rattling of missiles was heard on the other side of the hall, and on the roof of the house, thirty feet above the street, lit up by a tall electric standard was seen the little agile figure of Mary Leigh, with a tall fair girl (Charlotte Marsh) beside her. Both of them were tearing up the slates with axes, and flinging them onto the roof of the Bingley Hall and down into the road below-always, however, taking care to hit no one and sounding a warning before throwing. The police cried to them to stop and angry stewards came rushing out of the hall to second this demand, but the women calmly went on with their work." Sylvia Pankhurst, 1909 Mary Leigh

Hunger strike - and the ‘Cat and Mouse’ response

"On Saturday afternoon the wardress forced me onto the bed and two doctors came in. While I was held down a nasal tube was inserted. It is two yards long, with a funnel at the end; there is a glass junction in the middle to see if the liquid is passing. The end is put up the right and left nostril on alternative days. The sensation is most painful - the drums of the ears seem to be bursting and there is a horrible pain in the throat and the breast. The tube is pushed down 20 inches. I am on the bed pinned down by wardresses, one doctor holds the funnel end, and the other doctor forces the other end up the nostrils. The one holding the funnel end pours the liquid down - about a pint of milk... egg and milk is sometimes used.“ Mary Leigh Olive Wharry after her release from prison

Suicide?

Post WW1 Legislation 1918 Representation of the People Act: Women over 30 years old could vote if they were either a member or married to a member of the Local Government Register, a property owner, or a graduate voting in a University constituency 1928 Representation of the People Act: electoral equality with men. Was it campaigning that achieved this, or WW1?