The Great Pilgrimage of 1913 was a march in Britain by suffragists campaigning non-violently for

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

, organised by the

National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was ren ...

(NUWSS). Women marched to London from all around England and Wales and 50,000 attended a rally in

Hyde Park Hyde Park may refer to: Places England * Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London * Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds * Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield * Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester Austra ...

. ''Includes full text of several primary sources'' ''Includes a photograph of the marchers''

Background

The idea for the march was first put forward by Katherine Harley at an NUWSS subcommittee meeting in London on 17 April 1913. Plans were rapidly drawn up, and publicised through the NUWSS newsletter ''Common Cause'', for six routes along which marchers would converge on London for a rally in Hyde Park on 26 July 1913. These were named the Great North Route (from

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

and

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

); the

Watling Street Watling Street is a historic route in England that crosses the River Thames at London and which was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages. It was used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main R ...

Route (from

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern England, Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers River Eden, Cumbria, Eden, River C ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

and north Wales); the West Country Route (from

Land's End Land's End ( kw, Penn an Wlas or ''Pedn an Wlas'') is a headland and tourist and holiday complex in western Cornwall, England, on the Penwith peninsula about west-south-west of Penzance at the western end of the A30 road. To the east of it is ...

and south Wales); the

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the Southern ...

Route; the

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

Route; and the

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

ish Pilgrim Way.

March

The first marchers set off on 18 June, allowing six weeks to reach London from Carlisle and Newcastle. Each contingent was preceded by banners declaring the march to be law-abiding and non-militant, clarifying the stance of the NUWSS compared to the militancy of the

WSPU The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and ...

. Women of all classes joined the march, including Lady Rochdale (wife of

George Kemp, 1st Baron Rochdale George Kemp, 1st Baron Rochdale, (9 June 1866 – 24 March 1945) was a British politician, soldier, businessman and cricketer. Education and business career Kemp was born at Beechwood, Rochdale, Lancashire, and educated at Shrewsbury and Mill ...

), who marched from Carlisle to London. The march was organised in great detail. Advance information provided to marchers included a "village-by-village itinerary" with details about accommodation and facilities. A single piece of luggage per person would be transported, there were daily roll calls, and marchers were asked to wear rosettes in green, white and red - not the purple of the suffragettes. Some marchers brought horse-drawn caravans to accommodate themselves en route, while others stayed with local supporters or were found other accommodation. Marchers were welcome to join the pilgrimage for as long as they could: while some women marched for six weeks others could only spare a shorter time. Public meetings were organised along the routes of the march, and in some cases the women were met with violence from hostile locals, as at

Ripon Ripon () is a cathedral city in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. The city is located at the confluence of two tributaries of the River Ure, the Laver and Skell. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city ...

where they were attacked by drunks celebrating the local agricultural show, and at

Thame Thame is a market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about east of the city of Oxford and southwest of Aylesbury. It derives its name from the River Thame which flows along the north side of the town and forms part of the county border wi ...

where an attempt was made to burn one of the marchers' caravans while they slept in it.

Rally

On Saturday, 26 July, the marchers and others converged on

for their rally. They assembled at pre-arranged points to march to the park, where 78 speakers addressed the crowd from 19 platforms, one for each federation within the NUWSS. At 6pm a vote was taken at each platform, and those present unanimously passed the motion "That this meeting demands a Government measure for the enfranchisement of women".

Centennial commemoration

In 2013 a series of walks were held to commemorate the centenary of the pilgrimage. Playwright Natalie McGrath's play ''Oxygen'', which was inspired by the 1913 march, was performed by the arts organisation Dreadnought South West at venues along the march route.

Background

March

Rally

Centennial commemoration

References

Further reading