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
A movement to fight for women's right to vote in the United Kingdom finally succeeded through acts of Parliament in 1918 and 1928. It became a national movement in the Victorian era. Women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Britai ...
from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the
suffragette
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
s, its membership and policies were tightly controlled by
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
and her daughters
Christabel and
Sylvia; Sylvia was eventually expelled.
The WSPU membership became known for
civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...
and
direct action
Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...
. Emmeline Pankhurst described them as engaging in a "
reign of terror
The Reign of Terror (french: link=no, la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, ...
". Group members heckled politicians, held demonstrations and marches, broke the law to force arrests, broke windows in prominent buildings, set fire to or introduced chemicals into postboxes thus injuring several postal workers, and
committed a series of arsons that killed at least five people and injured at least 24. When imprisoned, the group's members engaged in
hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...
s and were subject to
force-feeding
Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose ( nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into t ...
. Emmeline Pankhurst said the group's goal was "to make England and every department of English life insecure and unsafe".
Early years
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded as an independent women's movement on 10 October 1903 at 62 Nelson Street,
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 ...
, home of the Pankhurst family.
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
, along with two of her daughters,
Christabel and
Sylvia, and her husband,
Richard
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Frankish language, Old Frankish and is a Compound (linguistics), compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' an ...
, before his death in 1898, had been active in the
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...
(ILP), founded in 1893 by former Scottish miner
Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie (15 August 185626 September 1915) was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party, and served as its first parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908.
Hardie was born in Newhouse, Lanarkshire. ...
, a family friend.
[ (Hardie later founded the Labour Party.)
Emmeline Pankhurst had increasingly felt that the ILP was not there for women.] On 9 October 1903, she invited a group of ILP women to meet at her home the next day, telling them: "Women, we must do the work ourselves. We must have an independent women's movement. Come to my house tomorrow and we will arrange it!" Membership of the WSPU was open to women only, and it had no party affiliation.[
]
In 1905, the group convinced the Liberal MP Bamford Slack
Sir John Bamford Slack (11 July 1857 – 11 February 1909) was a British politician, member of the Liberal Party and Methodist lay preacher.
Life
Slack was born in Ripley, Derbyshire in 1857. His Liberal Wesleyan Methodist parents were Mary An ...
to introduce a women's suffrage bill; it was ultimately talked out
A filibuster is a political procedure in which one or more members of a legislative body prolong debate on proposed legislation so as to delay or entirely prevent decision. It is sometimes referred to as "talking a bill to death" or "talking out ...
, but the publicity spurred rapid expansion of the group. The WSPU changed tactics following the failure of the bill; they focused on attacking whichever political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
was in government and refused to support any legislation which did not include enfranchisement
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
for women. This translated into abandoning their initial commitment to also supporting immediate social reforms.[Mary Davis, ''Sylvia Pankhurst'' (Pluto Press, 1999) ]
The term "suffragette" was first used in 1906 as a term of derision by the journalist Charles E. Hands in the London ''Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
'' to describe activists in the movement for women's suffrage, in particular members of the WSPU. But the women he intended to ridicule embraced the term, saying "suffraGETtes" (hardening the 'g'), implying not only that they wanted the vote, but that they intended to 'get' it.
Also in 1906, the group began a series of demonstrations
Demonstration may refer to:
* Demonstration (acting), part of the Brechtian approach to acting
* Demonstration (military), an attack or show of force on a front where a decision is not sought
* Demonstration (political), a political rally or prote ...
and lobbies of Parliament, leading to the arrest and imprisonment of growing numbers of their members. An attempt to achieve equal franchise gained national attention when an envoy of 300 women, representing over 125,000 suffragettes, argued for women's suffrage with the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (né Campbell; 7 September 183622 April 1908) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. He served as the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 and leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 190 ...
. The Prime Minister agreed with their argument but "was obliged to do nothing at all about it" and so urged the women to "go on pestering" and to exercise "the virtue of patience".[Strachey, Ray (1928). ''The Cause: A Short History of the Women's Movement in Great Britain''. p. 301.]
Some of the women Campbell-Bannerman advised to be patient had been working for women's rights for as many as fifty years: his advice to "go on pestering" would prove quite unwise. His thoughtless words infuriated the protesters and "by those foolish words the militant movement became irrevocably established, and the stage of revolt began". In 1907, the organisation held the first of several of their "Women's Parliaments".
The Labour Party then voted to support universal suffrage
Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stanc ...
. This split them from the WSPU, which had always accepted the property qualifications which already applied to women's participation in local elections. Under Christabel's direction, the group began to more explicitly organise exclusively among middle-class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Comm ...
women, and stated their opposition to all political parties. This led a small group of prominent members to leave and form the Women's Freedom League
The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigned for women's suffrage and sexual equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access ...
.
Campaigning develops
Immediately following the WSPU/WFL split, in autumn 1907, Frederick Frederick may refer to:
People
* Frederick (given name), the name
Nobility
Anhalt-Harzgerode
*Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670)
Austria
* Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198
* Frederick ...
and Emmeline Pethick Lawrence
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence (; 21 October 1867 – 11 March 1954) was a British women's rights activist and suffragette.
Early life
Pethick-Lawrence was born in Bristol as Emmeline Pethick. Her father, Henry Pethick, ...
founded the WSPU's own newspaper, ''Votes for Women
A vote is a formal method of choosing in an election.
Vote(s) or The Vote may also refer to:
Music
*''V.O.T.E.'', an album by Chris Stamey and Yo La Tengo, 2004
*"Vote", a song by the Submarines from ''Declare a New State!'', 2006
Television
* " ...
''. The Pethick Lawrences, who were part of the leadership of the WSPU until 1912, edited the newspaper and supported it financially in the early years. Sylvia Pankhurst wrote a number of articles for the WSPU newspaper and, in 1911, published a piece on the history of the WSPU campaign. This included a detailed account of her experience during the Black Friday event in 1910.
In 1908 the WSPU adopted purple, white, and green as its official colours. These colours were chosen by Emmeline Pethick Lawrence because "Purple...stands for the royal blood that flows in the veins of every suffragette...white stands for purity in private and public life...green is the colour of hope and the emblem of spring".[Quotation from the journal ''Votes for Women'' in 1908 cited by David Fairhall, ''Common Ground'', Tauris, 2006 p 31.] June 1908 saw the first major public use of these colours when the WSPU held a 300,000-strong "Women's Sunday
Women's Sunday was a suffragette march and rally held in London on 21 June 1908. Organised by Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) to persuade the Liberal government to support votes for women, it is thought to have b ...
" rally
Rally or rallye may refer to:
Gatherings
* Demonstration (political), a political rally, a political demonstration of support or protest, march, or parade
* Pep rally, an event held at a United States school or college sporting event
Sports ...
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 ...
. Sylvia Pankhurst designed the logo and created a number of leaflets, banners, and posters.
In February 1907 the WSPU founded the Woman's Press, which oversaw publishing and propaganda for the organisation, and marketed a range of products from 1908 featuring the WSPU's name or colours. The woman's Press in London and WSPU chains throughout the UK operated stores selling WSPU products.[John Mercer, "Shopping for Suffrage: The Campaign Shops of the Women's Social and Political Union", '']Women's History Review
''Women's History Review'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal of women's history published by Routledge. The editor-in-chief is June Purvis (University of Portsmouth) and Sharon Crozier-De Rosa is deputy editor.
Abstracting and indexin ...
'', 2009, A board game named Suffragetto was published circa 1908. Until January 1911, the WSPU's official anthem was "The Women's Marseillaise
"The Women's Marseillaise" was the former Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) official anthem. It was sung to the tune of La Marseillaise and included words about women's suffrage written by Florence MacAulay. The song was sung by suffragis ...
",[.] a setting of words by Florence Macaulay to the tune of "La Marseillaise
"La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. The song was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after the declaration of war by France against Austria, and was originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du R ...
". In that month the anthem was changed to "The March of the Women
"The March of the Women" is a song composed by Ethel Smyth in 1910, to words by Cicely Hamilton. It became the official anthem of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and more widely the anthem of the women's suffrage movement throughou ...
", newly composed by Ethel Smyth
Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (; 22 April 18588 May 1944) was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas.
Smyth tended t ...
with words by Cicely Hamilton
Cicely Mary Hamilton (née Hammill; 15 June 1872 – 6 December 1952), was an English actress, writer, journalist, suffragist and feminist, part of the struggle for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. She is now best known for the feminist ...
.
On 13 October 1908 Emmeline Pankhurst together with Christabel Pankhurst and Flora Drummond organised a rush on the House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
. 60,000 people gathered in Parliament Square
Parliament Square is a square at the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster in central London. Laid out in the 19th century, it features a large open green area in the centre with trees to its west, and it contai ...
and attempts were made by suffragettes to break through the 5000 strong police cordon. Thirty-seven arrests were made, ten people were taken to hospital. On 29 June 1909, WSPU activists Ada Wright
Ada Cecile Granville Wright (c. 1862–1939) was an English suffragette. Her photo on the front page of the ''Daily Mirror'' on 19 November became an iconic image of the suffrage movement.
Biography
Ada Cecile Granville Wright was born in ...
and Sarah Carwin
Sarah Jane Carwin (1863–1933) was a British suffragette, feminist and nurse.
Life and activism
Born Sarah Jane Carwin in 1863 in Bolton, Lancashire, her family moved to Russia for a period of her childhood.
In 1890, returned to England, Ca ...
were arrested for breaking government windows. They were sentenced to a month in prison. After breaking every window in their cells, in a pioneering protest they went on a hunger strike. They were released after six days.
Direct action
In 1910 Conciliation Bill, giving a limited number of propertied and married women the vote was carried on its first reading in the House of Commons, but then shelved by Prime Minister Asquith. In protest, on 18 November Emmeline Pankhurst led 300 women from a pre-arranged meeting at the Caxton Hall in a march on Parliament where they were met and roughly handled by the police. Under continued pressure from the WSPU, the Liberal government re-introduced the Conciliation Bill the following year. Exasperated by the continued opposition and by the bill's limitations, on 21 November 1911, the WSPU carried out an "official" window smash along Whitehall and Fleet Street. Its target included the offices of the ''Daily Mail'' and the ''Daily News'' and the official residences or homes of leading Liberal politicians. 160 suffragettes were arrested. The Conciliation Bill was debated in March 1912, and was defeated by 14 votes.
The WSPU responded by organising a new and broader campaign of direct action. Once this got underway with the wholesale smashing of shop windows, the government ordered arrests of the leadership. Although they had disagreed with strategy, Frederick Frederick may refer to:
People
* Frederick (given name), the name
Nobility
Anhalt-Harzgerode
*Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670)
Austria
* Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198
* Frederick ...
and Emmeline Pethwick-Lawrence, were sentenced to nine months imprisonment for conspiracy and successfully sued for the cost of the property damage.
Some WSPU militants, however, were prepared to go beyond outrages against property. On 18 July 1912, in Dublin Mary Leigh
Mary Leigh (née Brown; 1885–1978) was an English political activist and suffragette.
Life
Leigh was born as Mary or Marie Brown in 1885. She was born in Manchester and was a schoolteacher until her marriage to a builder, surnamed Leigh. She j ...
threw a hatchet that narrowly missed the head of the visiting prime minister H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom f ...
. On 29 January 1913, several letter bombs were sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...
, David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during t ...
, and the prime minister Asquith, but they all exploded in post offices, post boxes or in mailbags while in transit across the country. Between February and March 1913, railway signal wires were purposely cut on lines across the country endangering train journeys.
On 19 February 1913, as part of a wider suffragette bombing and arson campaign
Suffragettes in Great Britain and Ireland orchestrated a bombing and arson campaign between the years 1912 and 1914. The campaign was instigated by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and was a part of their wider campaign for women's ...
, a bomb was set off in the country home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...
, Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for lea ...
, which brought down ceilings and cracked walls. On the evening of the incident Emmeline Pankhurst claimed responsibility, announcing at a public meeting in Cardiff
Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
, we have “blown up the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s house”. Pankhurst was willing to be arrested for the incident saying “I have advised, I have incited, I have conspired”; and that if she was arrested for the incident she would prove that the “punishment unjustly imposed upon women who have no voice in making the laws cannot be carried out”. On 3 April Pankhurst was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude for procuring and inciting women to commit "malicious injuries to property". The Temporary Discharge for Ill Health Bill was rushed through Parliament to ensure that Pankhurst, who had immediately gone on hunger strike, did not die in prison.
In response to the bomb Lloyd George wrote an article in ''Nash's Magazine
''The Pall Mall Magazine'' was a monthly British literary magazine published between 1893 and 1914. Begun by William Waldorf Astor as an offshoot of ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', the magazine included poetry, short stories, serialized fiction, and ge ...
'', entitled “Votes for Women and Organised Lunacy” where he argued that the “main obstacle to women getting the vote is militancy”. It had alienated those who would have supported them. The only way for women to get the vote is a new movement “absolutely divorced from stones and bombs and torches”.
On the last day of April, the WSPU offices were raided by the police, and a number of women were arrested and taken to Bow Street. They were Flora Drummond, Harriett Roberta Kerr, Agnes Lake, Rachel Barrett
Rachel Barrett (12 November 1874 – 26 August 1953) was a Welsh suffragette and newspaper editor born in Carmarthen. Educated at the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth she became a science teacher, but quit her job in 1906 on hearin ...
, Laura Geraldine Lennox
Laura Geraldine Lennox (27 April 1883 – 1958), was a suffragette and a volunteer in Paris during the First World War.
Biography
Laura Geraldine Lennox was born in Durrus, West Cork in 27 April 1883 to Edward and Adelaide Lennox. She spent s ...
and Beatrice Sanders. All were charged under the Malicious Damages Act of 1861, found guilty and received various sentences.
In the same month, April 1913, Dorothy Evans
Dorothy Elizabeth Evans (6 May 1888 – 28 August 1944) was a British feminist activist and suffragette. On the eve of World War I she was a militant organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union twice arrested in Belfast on explosiv ...
, posted as an organiser to the north of Ireland, was arrested in Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
on explosive charges. Together with local activist Midge Muir, she created uproar in court demanding to know why the gun-running Ulster Unionist James Craig was not appearing on the same charges.
In June 1913 Emily Davison
Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913) was an English suffragette who fought for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, votes for women in Britain in the early twentieth century. A member of the Women's Social and Polit ...
was killed while attempting to drape a suffragette banner on the King's horse as it was racing in the Epsom Derby
The Derby Stakes, also known as the Epsom Derby or the Derby, and as the Cazoo Derby for sponsorship reasons, is a Group 1 flat horse race in England open to three-year-old colts and fillies. It is run at Epsom Downs Racecourse in Surrey o ...
—an incident famously captured on film.
On the evening of 9 March 1914 in Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
, about 40 militant suffragettes, including members of the Bodyguard team, brawled with several squads of police constables who were attempting to re-arrest Emmeline Pankhurst during a pro-suffrage rally at St. Andrew's Hall. The following day, suffragette Mary Richardson
Mary Raleigh Richardson (1882/3 – 7 November 1961) was a Canadian suffragette active in the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom, an arsonist, a socialist parliamentary candidate and later head of the women's section of the B ...
(known as one of the most militant activists, also called "Slasher" Richardson) walked into the National Gallery in London
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director of ...
and attacked Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...
's painting, ''Rokeby Venus
The ''Rokeby Venus'' (; also known as ''The Toilet of Venus'', ''Venus at her Mirror'', ''Venus and Cupid'', or '' La Venus del espejo'') is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. Completed between 1647 ...
'' with a meat cleaver. Her action stimulated a wave of attacks on artworks that would continue for five months. In June, militants had placed a bomb beneath the Coronation Chair
The Coronation Chair, known historically as St Edward's Chair or King Edward's Chair, is an ancient wooden chair on which British monarchs sit when they are invested with regalia and crowned at their coronations. It was commissioned in 1296 by ...
in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
.
Released following a hunger strike, in July 1914 Dorothy Evans was again arrested in Belfast. With a sister Hunger Strike Medal
The Hunger Strike Medal was a silver medal awarded between August 1909 and 1914 to suffragette prisoners by the leadership of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). During their imprisonment, they went on hunger strike while serving th ...
ist, Lillian Metge
Lillian Margaret Metge (née Grubb; 22 June 1871 – 10 May 1954) was an Anglo-Irish suffragette and women's rights campaigner. She founded the Lisburn Suffrage Society, which she left to become a militant activist, leading on an explosion at th ...
, she was implicated in a series of arson attacks and the bombing of Lisburn Cathedral
Christ Church Cathedral, Lisburn (also known as Lisburn Cathedral), is the cathedral church of the Diocese of Connor in the Church of Ireland. It is situated in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in the ecclesiastical province of Armagh. Previously St ...
.
Hunger strikes
In response to the continuing and repeated imprisonment of many of their members, the WSPU extended and supported prison hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...
s. The authorities' policy of force feeding
Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose ( nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into t ...
won the suffragettes public sympathy and induced the government later passed the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913. More commonly known as the "Cat and Mouse Act", this allowed the release of suffragettes, close to death due to malnourishment, and their re-arrest once health was restored. The WSPU fought back: their all-women security team known as the Bodyguard, trained in ju-jitsu
Jujutsu ( ; ja, link=no, 柔術 , ), also known as jiu-jitsu and ju-jitsu, is a family of Japanese martial arts and a system of close combat (unarmed or with a minor weapon) that can be used in a defensive or offensive manner to kill or subdu ...
by Edith Margaret Garrud
Edith Margaret Garrud (''née'' Williams; 1872–1971) was a British martial artist, suffragist and playwright. She was the first British female teacher of jujutsu and one of the first female martial arts instructors in the western world.
...
and led by Gertrude Harding
Gertrude Menzies Harding (1889-1977) was a suffragette born on a farm in rural Canada. She migrated to London, England in 1912. Once there she quickly joined militant suffragette movement, being one of only a handful of Canadian women to do so. ...
, protected temporarily released suffragettes from arrest and recommital. The WSPU also coordinated a campaign in which doctors such as Flora Murray
Flora Murray (8 May 1869 – 28 July 1923)[Flora Murray](_blank)
findagrave.com was a Scottish medical pioneer, ...
and Elizabeth Gould Bell treated the imprisoned suffragettes.
A special medal, the Hunger Strike Medal
The Hunger Strike Medal was a silver medal awarded between August 1909 and 1914 to suffragette prisoners by the leadership of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). During their imprisonment, they went on hunger strike while serving th ...
, like a military honour was designed by Sylvia Pankhurst and awarded 'for Valour' to women who had been on hunger strike/force-fed.
Splits and currents
Differences over direct action contributed to splits in the organisation. Emmeline Pethick Lawrence, who with her husband Frederick edited ''Votes for Women'', was expelled in 1912. Christabel Pankhurst launched a new WPSU journal, fully committed to the militant strategy, ''The Suffragette.'' The Pethick-Lawrences then joined Agnes Harben
Agnes Helen Harben (née Bostock; 15 September 1879 – 29 October 1961) was a British Women's suffrage, suffragist leader who also supported the militant suffragette hunger strikers, and was a founder of the United Suffragists.
Family and lif ...
and others in starting the United Suffragists
The United Suffragists was a women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom.
History
The group was founded on 6 February 1914, by former members and supporters of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). In contrast to the WSPU, it admit ...
, which was open to women and men, militants and non-militants alike.
Within the WPSU radical action was championed by the “Young Hot Bloods” or “YHB”. These were a group of younger unmarried women formed by Annie Kenney
Ann "Annie" Kenney (13 September 1879 – 9 July 1953) was an English working-class suffragette and socialist feminist who became a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union. She co-founded its first branch in London with Minnie ...
’s sister Jessie and Adela Pankhurst
Adela Constantia Mary Walsh ( Pankhurst; 19 June 1885 – 23 May 1961) was a British born suffragette who worked as a political organiser for the WSPU in Scotland. In 1914 she moved to Australia where she continued her activism and was co-found ...
in 1907. The group’s name derived from a newspaper comment: "Mrs Pankhurst will of course be followed blindly by a number of the younger and more hot-blooded members of the Union”. Members of the group included Irene Dallas
Irene Margaret Dallas (1883–1971) was a suffragette activist, speaker and organiser who held leadership roles in the WSPU; she was arrested and imprisoned with a group who tried to gain access to 10 Downing Street.
Life and activism
Irene ...
, Grace Roe
Eleanor Grace Watney Roe (1885–1979) was Head of Suffragette operations for the Women's Social and Political Union. She was released from prison after the outbreak of World War I due to an amnesty for suffragettes negotiated with the governme ...
, Jessie Kenney
Jessica "Jessie" Kenney (1887 – 1985) was an English suffragette who was jailed for assaulting the Prime Minister and Home Secretary in a protest to gain suffrage for women in the UK. Details of a bombing campaign to support their cause were ...
, Elsie Howey
Rose Elsie Neville Howey (1 December 1884 – 13 March 1963), known as Elsie Howey, was an English suffragette. She was a militant activist with the Women's Social and Political Union and was jailed at least six times between 1908 and 1912.
Earl ...
, Vera Wentworth
Vera Wentworth (born Jessie Alice Spink; 1890 – 1957) was a British suffragette, who notably door-stepped and then assaulted the Prime Minister on two occasions. She was incarcerated for the cause and was force fed, after which she wrote "Three ...
and Mary Home.
Sylvia Pankhurst
Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...
and her East London Federation
The Workers' Socialist Federation was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom, led by Sylvia Pankhurst. Under many different names, it gradually broadened its politics from a focus on women's suffrage to eventually become a left comm ...
were expelled early in 1914. They had argued for an explicitly socialist organisation, aligned with the Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...
, and focused on working-class collective action rather than individual attacks on property. They renamed themselves the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) and launched a newspaper, the ''Women's Dreadnought
''Workers' Dreadnought'' was a newspaper published by variously named political parties led by Sylvia Pankhurst.
The paper was started by Pankhurst at the suggestion of Zelie Emerson, after Pankhurst had been expelled from the Women's Social ...
''.
During the First World War
On the outbreak of the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
in 1914, Christabel Pankhurst was living in Paris, in order to run the organisation without fear of arrest. Her autocratic
Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perh ...
control enabled her, over the objections of Kitty Marion
Kitty Marion 12 March 1871 – 9 October 1944) was born Katherina Maria Schäfer in Germany. She emigrated to London in 1886 when she was fifteen, and she grew to minor prominence when she sang in music halls throughout the United Kingdom during ...
and others,[Spartacus: Kitty Marion](_blank)
to declare soon after war broke out that the WSPU should abandon its campaigns in favour of a nationalistic
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
stance, supporting the British government in the war. The WSPU stopped publishing ''The Suffragette'', and in April 1915 it launched a new journal, ''Britannia''. While the majority of WSPU members supported the war, a small number formed the Suffragettes of the Women's Social Political Union (SWSPU) and the Independent Women's Social and Political Union
The Independent Women's Social and Political Union (IWSPU, often known as the Independent WSPU) was a women's suffrage organisation active in the United Kingdom during World War I.
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was the most promine ...
(IWSPU), led by Charlotte Marsh
Charlotte Augusta Leopoldine Marsh (3 March 1887 – 21 April 1961), known as Charlie Marsh, was a militant British suffragette.
She was a paid organiser of the Women's Social and Political Union and is one of the first women to be force fed ...
, and including Edith Rigby
Edith Rigby ( Rayner) (18 October 1872 – 23 July 1950) was an English suffragette who used arson as a way to further the cause of women’s suffrage. She founded a night school in Preston called St Peter's School, aimed at educating women an ...
and Dorothy Evans
Dorothy Elizabeth Evans (6 May 1888 – 28 August 1944) was a British feminist activist and suffragette. On the eve of World War I she was a militant organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union twice arrested in Belfast on explosiv ...
.
The WSPU faded from public attention and was dissolved in 1917, with Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst founding the Women's Party.
Suffrage drama
Between 1905 and 1914 suffrage drama
Suffrage drama (also known as suffrage plays or suffrage theatre) is a form of dramatic literature that emerged during the British women's suffrage movement in the early twentieth century. Suffrage performances lasted approximately from 1907-1914 ...
and theatre forums became increasingly utilised by the women's movement. Around this same time, however, the WSPU also became increasingly associated with militancy, moving from marches, demonstrations, and other public performances to more avant-garde and inflammatory “acts of violence.” The organisation began using these shock tactics to demonstrate the seriousness and urgency of the cause. Their demonstrations included “window smashing, museum-painting slashing, arson, fuse box bombing, and telegraph line cutting,”—suffrage playwrights, in turn, began using their work to combat the negative press around the movement and attempted to demonstrate in performance how these acts of violence only occur as a last resort. They attempted to transform the negative, yet popular perspective of these militant acts as being the actions of irrational, hysterical, ‘overly-emotional’ women and instead demonstrate how these protests were merely the only logical response to being denied a basic fundamental right.
Suffragette
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
s not only used theatre to their advantage, but they also employed the use of comedy. The Women's Social and Political Union was one of the first organisations to capitalise on comedic satirical writing and use it to outwit their opposition. It not only helped them diffuse hostility towards their organisation, but also helped them gain an audience. This use of satire allowed them to express their ideas and frustrations as well as combat gender prejudices in a safer way. Suffrage speakers, who often held open-air meetings in order to reach a wider audience, had to face hostile audiences and learn how to deal with interruptions. The most successful speakers, therefore, had to acquire a quick wit and learn to "always to get the best of a joke, and to join in the laughter with the audience even if the joke was against" them. Suffragette Annie Kenney
Ann "Annie" Kenney (13 September 1879 – 9 July 1953) was an English working-class suffragette and socialist feminist who became a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union. She co-founded its first branch in London with Minnie ...
recalls an elderly man continuously jeering “if you were my wife I’d give you poison" throughout the course of her speech, to which she replied "yes, and if I were your wife I’d take it," diffusing threats and making her antagonist appear laughable.
Notable members
* Mary Ann Aldham
Mary Ann Aldham (born Mary Ann Mitchell Wood; 28 September 1858 – 1940) was an English militant suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) who was imprisoned at least seven times.[Janie Allan
Janie Allan (born Jane Allan; 28 March 1868 – 29 April 1968)Ewan ''et al.'' (2006), p. 11 was a Scottish activist and fundraiser for the suffragette movement of the early 20th century.
Early life and family
Janie Allan was born to Jane Smit ...]
* Doreen Allen
Doreen Allen (1879 – 18 June 1963) was a militant English suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), who on being imprisoned was force-fed, for which she received the WSPU's Hunger Strike Medal For Valour'' ...
* Helen Archdale
Helen Alexander Archdale (née Russel; 25 August 1876 – 8 December 1949) was a Scottish feminist, suffragette and journalist. Archdale was the Sheffield branch organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union and later its prisoners' sec ...
* Ethel Ayres Purdie
Ethel Ayres Purdie ( Ayres) (1874–1923) was a chartered accountant and suffragist. She specialised in counselling women and women's suffragist organisations. She was active in the Women's Tax Resistance League which argued that no vote mea ...
* Barbara Ayrton
* Edith Marian Begbie
Edith Marian Begbie (8 February 1866 – 27 March 1932) was a militant Scottish suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) who went on hunger strike in Winson Green Prison in Birmingham in 1912 and who was awarded ...
* Rosa May Billinghurst
Rosa May Billinghurst (31 May 1875 – 29 July 1953) was a British suffragette and women's rights activist. She was known popularly as the "cripple suffragette" as she campaigned in a tricycle.
Early life
She was born in 1875 in Lewisham, Londo ...
* Teresa Billington-Greig
Teresa Billington-Greig (15 October 1876 – 21 October 1964) was a British suffragette who helped create the Women's Freedom League in 1907. She had left another suffrage organisation – the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) – as s ...
* Violet Bland
Violet Ann Bland (17 December 1863 – 21 March 1940) was an English suffragette and hotelier who wrote about her experiences being force fed in prison.
Early life and career
Bland was born in Bayston Hill, Shropshire, the oldest of nine child ...
* Bettina Borrmann Wells
Bettina Borrmann Wells (born 1874) was a Bavarian-born English suffragette who toured the United States as an organizer and lecturer. (She rejected the term "suffragist" for her work, preferring "suffragette".)
Early life and education
Bettina ...
* Elsie Bowerman
Elsie Edith Bowerman (18 December 1889 – 18 October 1973) was a British lawyer, suffragette, political activist, and RMS ''Titanic'' survivor.
Early life
Elsie Edith Bowerman was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, the only daughter of Willi ...
* Janet Boyd
Janet Augusta Boyd (née Haig; 1850 – 22 September 1928) was a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and militant suffragette who in 1912 went on hunger strike in prison for which action she was awarded the WSPU's Hunger Str ...
* Constance Bryer
Constance Elizabeth Bryer (July 1870 – 12 July 1952) was a British classical violinist and campaigner for women's rights, an activist and suffragette who during her imprisonment in Holloway Prison went on hunger strike as a consequence of w ...
* Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton
Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton (12 February 1869 – 2 May 1923), usually known as Constance Lytton, was an influential British suffragette activist, writer, speaker and campaigner for prison reform, votes for women, and birth control. Sh ...
* Evaline Hilda Burkitt
Evaline Hilda Burkitt (19 July 1876 – 7 March 1955) was a British suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). A militant activist for women's rights, she went on hunger strike in prison and was the first suffrag ...
* Lucy Burns
Lucy Burns (July 28, 1879 – December 22, 1966) was an American suffragist and women's rights advocate.Bland, 1981 (p. 8) She was a passionate activist in the United States and the United Kingdom, who joined the militant suffragettes. Burns w ...
* Sarah Carwin
Sarah Jane Carwin (1863–1933) was a British suffragette, feminist and nurse.
Life and activism
Born Sarah Jane Carwin in 1863 in Bolton, Lancashire, her family moved to Russia for a period of her childhood.
In 1890, returned to England, Ca ...
* Eileen Mary Casey
* Joan Cather
Joan Cather (1882–1967) was a suffragette, awarded a Hunger Strike Medal, 'For Valour' and a Holloway brooch for imprisonment in the cause of women's rights to vote, and also as protest refused to take part in the 1911 British Census.
Life ...
* Una Duval
Una Harriet Ella Stratford Duval (; 1879–1975) was a British suffragette and marriage reformer. Her refusal to say "and obey" in her marriage vows made national news.
Early life
Una was the debutante daughter of Commander Edward Stratford ...
* Georgina Fanny Cheffins
Georgina Fanny Cheffins (1863 – 29 July 1932) was an English militant suffragette who on her imprisonment in 1912 went on hunger strike for which action she received the Hunger Strike Medal from the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) ...
* Helen Millar Craggs
Helen Millar Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence (née Craggs; 1888–1969) was a suffragette and pharmacist.
Life and activism
Craggs was born in Westminster, London in 1888, daughter to Sir John Craggs, an accountant, who donate mon ...
* Ellen Crocker
Ellen "Nelly" or "Nellie" Crocker (1872–1962) was a British suffragette, and a cousin of Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence.
Life and activism
Ellen Crocker (known as Nelly or Nellie) was born in 1872 in Stogumber, Somerset. Her father was a doctor, a ...
* Helen Cruickshank
Helen Burness Cruickshank (15 May 1886 – 2 March 1975) was a Scottish poet and suffragette and a focal point of the Scottish Renaissance. Scottish writers associated with the movement met at her home in Corstorphine.
Early life and edu ...
* Louie Cullen
Louie Cullen (1876 – 24 July 1960) was a British suffragette and hunger striker who emigrated to Australia to continue her feminist activism. She was imprisoned for her activist work, and was awarded a Holloway brooch.
Life
Born Louisa Clar ...
*Alice Davies
Alice Davies (1870 - ''alive in'' 1919 ) was a British suffragette and nurse. She was imprisoned for protesting for women's right to vote by smashing windows, went on hunger strike and was awarded the Women's Social and Political Union Hunger St ...
* Emily Davison
Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913) was an English suffragette who fought for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, votes for women in Britain in the early twentieth century. A member of the Women's Social and Polit ...
* Charlotte Despard
Charlotte Despard (née French; 15 June 1844 – 10 November 1939) was an Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist. She was a founding member of the Women's Freedom League, Women's Peace Crusade, and the I ...
* Violet Mary Doudney
Violet Mary Doudney (5 March 1889 – 14 January 1952) was a teacher and militant suffragette who went on hunger strike in Holloway Prison where she was force-fed. She was awarded the Hunger Strike Medal by the Women's Social and Political U ...
* Edith Downing
Edith Elizabeth Downing (January 1857 – 3 October 1931) was a British artist, sculptor and suffragette.
Life
Edith Elizabeth Downing was born in Cardiff in January 1857. She was one of four children of the coal merchant and shipping agent E ...
* Flora Drummond
Flora McKinnon Drummond (née Gibson) (born 4 August 1878, Manchester – died 17 January 1949, Carradale), was a British suffragette. Nicknamed 'The General' for her habit of leading Women's Rights marches wearing a military style uniform 'wi ...
* Sophia Duleep Singh
Princess Sophia Alexandrovna Duleep Singh (8 August 1876 – 22 August 1948) was a prominent suffragette in the United Kingdom. Her father was Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, who had been taken from his kingdom of Punjab to the British Raj, a ...
* Elsie Duval
Elsie Diederichs Duval (1892–1919) was a British suffragette. She was arrested many times throughout her life and in 1913 became the first woman to be released from Holloway Prison under the so-called 'Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill He ...
* Una Duval
Una Harriet Ella Stratford Duval (; 1879–1975) was a British suffragette and marriage reformer. Her refusal to say "and obey" in her marriage vows made national news.
Early life
Una was the debutante daughter of Commander Edward Stratford ...
* Norah Elam
Norah Elam, also known as Norah Dacre Fox (née Norah Doherty, 1878–1961), was a militant suffragette, anti-vivisectionist, feminist and fascist in the United Kingdom. Born at 13 Waltham Terrace in Dublin to John Doherty, a partner in a paper ...
* Dorothy Evans
Dorothy Elizabeth Evans (6 May 1888 – 28 August 1944) was a British feminist activist and suffragette. On the eve of World War I she was a militant organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union twice arrested in Belfast on explosiv ...
* Kate Williams Evans
Kate Williams Evans (1 October 1866 – 2 February 1961) was a Welsh suffragette, activist and campaigner for Women's suffrage, women's rights. She was imprisoned in HM Prison Holloway, Holloway Prison where she went on hunger strike for which s ...
* Theresa Garnett
Theresa Garnett (17 May 1888 – 24 May 1966) was a British suffragette. She was a serial protester who sometimes went by the name 'Annie O'Sullivan', was jailed and then still refused to cooperate. She assaulted Winston Churchill while carryin ...
* Louisa Garrett Anderson
Louisa Garrett Anderson, CBE (28 July 1873 – 15 November 1943) was a medical pioneer, a member of the Women's Social and Political Union, a suffragette, and social reformer. She was the daughter of the founding medical pioneer Elizabeth Garre ...
* Edith Margaret Garrud
Edith Margaret Garrud (''née'' Williams; 1872–1971) was a British martial artist, suffragist and playwright. She was the first British female teacher of jujutsu and one of the first female martial arts instructors in the western world.
...
* Katharine Gatty
Katharine Gatty (11 June 1870 – 1 May 1952) was a nurse, journalist, lecturer and militant suffragette. As a prominent member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she received from them the Hunger Strike Medal after going on a ...
* Mary Gawthorpe
Mary Eleanor Gawthorpe (12 January 1881 – 12 March 1973) was an English suffragette, socialist, trade unionist and editor. She was described by Rebecca West as "a merry militant saint".
Life
Gawthorpe was born in Woodhouse, Leeds to John Ga ...
* Katie Edith Gliddon
Katie Edith Gliddon (6 May 1883 – 1 September 1967) was a British watercolour artist and militant suffragette. She was a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) for whom she campaigned for which she was imprisoned in HM Pri ...
* Nellie Hall
Nellie Hall (1895 – 26 July 1976), later known as Nell Hall-Humpherson, was a British suffragette, arrested and imprisoned several times for her activities with the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).
Early life
Nellie Hall was bor ...
* Cicely Hamilton
Cicely Mary Hamilton (née Hammill; 15 June 1872 – 6 December 1952), was an English actress, writer, journalist, suffragist and feminist, part of the struggle for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. She is now best known for the feminist ...
* Beatrice Harraden
Beatrice Harraden (1864–1936) was a British writer and suffragette.
Life
Born in Hampstead, London on 24 January 1864, to parents Samuel Harraden and Rosalie Lindstedt Harraden, Beatrice Harraden grew up to become an influential feminist wri ...
* Edith How-Martyn
Edith How-Martyn (''née'' How; 17 June 1875 – 2 February 1954) was a British suffragette and a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). She was arrested in 1906 for attempting to make a speech in the House of Commons. This was ...
* Elsie Howey
Rose Elsie Neville Howey (1 December 1884 – 13 March 1963), known as Elsie Howey, was an English suffragette. She was a militant activist with the Women's Social and Political Union and was jailed at least six times between 1908 and 1912.
Earl ...
* Ellen Isabel Jones
Ellen Isabel Jones (born Ellen Isabel Cotton; – 1946) was an English suffragette. Ellen, known as "Nell", was a close associate of Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst, leaders of the Suffragette movement. She was also an acquaint ...
*Annie Kenney
Ann "Annie" Kenney (13 September 1879 – 9 July 1953) was an English working-class suffragette and socialist feminist who became a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union. She co-founded its first branch in London with Minnie ...
* Edith Key
* Aeta Adelaide Lamb
Aeta Adelaide Lamb (1886–June 1928) was one of the longest serving organizers in the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the leading militant organization campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Early life and education
...
* Mary Leigh
Mary Leigh (née Brown; 1885–1978) was an English political activist and suffragette.
Life
Leigh was born as Mary or Marie Brown in 1885. She was born in Manchester and was a schoolteacher until her marriage to a builder, surnamed Leigh. She j ...
* Lilian Lenton
Lilian Ida Lenton (5 January 1891 – 28 October 1972) was an English dancer, suffragette, and winner of a French Red Cross medal for her service as an orderly in World War I.
Early years
Lillie Lenton was born in Leicester in 1891, the eldest ...
* Constance Lytton
Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton (12 February 1869 – 2 May 1923), usually known as Constance Lytton, was an influential British suffragette activist, writer, speaker and campaigner for prison reform, votes for women, and birth control. ...
* Mary Macarthur
Mary Reid Anderson (née Macarthur; 13 August 1880 – 1 January 1921) was a Scottish suffragist (although at odds with the national groups who were willing to let a minority of women gain the franchise) and was a leading trades unionist. She ...
* Florence Macfarlane
Florence Geraldine Macfarlane aka "Muriel Muir" (5 October 1867 – 28 October 1944) was a nurse, militant suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) who went on hunger strike in Winson Green Prison in Birmingham ...
* Margaret Macfarlane
Margaret Macfarlane (born 1888) was a Scottish suffragette and honorary secretary of the Women's Social and Political Union in Dundee and East Fife.
Suffragette activity
From at least 1911, Macfarlane, a trained nurse, had started working for ...
* Margaret McPhun
Margaret Pollock McPhun (1876–1960) was a Scottish suffragette from Glasgow who served two months in Holloway Prison in London and composed a poem about imprisoned activist Janie Allan.
Life
McPhun was born on 8 July 1876. Her father was a G ...
* Frances McPhun
* Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda
Margaret Haig Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda ( Thomas; 12 June 1883 – 20 July 1958) was a Welsh peeress, businesswoman and active suffragette who was significant in the history of women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Early life
Marga ...
* Christabel Marshall
Christabel Gertrude Marshall (aka Christopher Marie St John) (24 October 1871 – 20 October 1960) was a British campaigner for women's suffrage, a playwright and author. Marshall lived in a ménage à trois with the artist Clare Atwood and ...
* Kitty Marion
Kitty Marion 12 March 1871 – 9 October 1944) was born Katherina Maria Schäfer in Germany. She emigrated to London in 1886 when she was fifteen, and she grew to minor prominence when she sang in music halls throughout the United Kingdom during ...
* Dora Marsden
Dora Marsden (5 March 1882 – 13 December 1960) was an English suffragette, editor of literary journals, and philosopher of language. Beginning her career as an activist in the Women's Social and Political Union, Marsden eventually broke ...
* Lillian Metge
Lillian Margaret Metge (née Grubb; 22 June 1871 – 10 May 1954) was an Anglo-Irish suffragette and women's rights campaigner. She founded the Lisburn Suffrage Society, which she left to become a militant activist, leading on an explosion at th ...
* Dora Montefiore
Dorothy Frances Montefiore (; 20 December 1851 – 21 December 1933), known as Dora Montefiore, was an English-Australian women's suffragist, socialist, poet, and autobiographer.
Early life
Born Dorothy Frances Fuller at Kenley Manor near Cou ...
* Alice Morrissey
Alice Morrissey (''died in'' 1912) was a British Catholic, socialist leader and suffragette activist from Liverpool, who was imprisoned in the campaign for women's right to vote.
Life
Born with a brother who became a Catholic priest. Morrissey ...
* Flora Murray
Flora Murray (8 May 1869 – 28 July 1923)[Flora Murray](_blank)
findagrave.com was a Scottish medical pioneer, ...
* Margaret Nevinson
Margaret Wynne Nevinson (née Jones) (11 January 1858 – 8 June 1932) was a British suffrage campaigner.
Nevinson was one of the suffragettes who split from the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1907 to form the Women's Freedom ...
* Edith New
Edith Bessie New (17 March 1877 – 2 January 1951) was an English suffragette. She was one of the first two suffragettes to use vandalism as a tactic. She and Mary Leigh were surprised to find their destruction was celebrated and they were pu ...
* Adela Pankhurst
Adela Constantia Mary Walsh ( Pankhurst; 19 June 1885 – 23 May 1961) was a British born suffragette who worked as a political organiser for the WSPU in Scotland. In 1914 she moved to Australia where she continued her activism and was co-found ...
* Christabel Pankhurst
Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, (; 22 September 1880 – 13 February 1958) was a British suffragette born in Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bord ...
* Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
* Sylvia Pankhurst
Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...
* Frances Parker
Frances Mary "Fanny" Parker (24 December 1875 – 19 January 1924) was a New Zealand-born suffragette who became prominent in the militant wing of the Scottish women's suffrage movement and was repeatedly imprisoned for her actions.
Early lif ...
* Alice Paul
Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American Quaker, suffragist, feminist, and women's rights activist, and one of the main leaders and strategists of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ...
* Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence (; 21 October 1867 – 11 March 1954) was a British women's rights activist and suffragette.
Early life
Pethick-Lawrence was born in Bristol as Emmeline Pethick. Her father, Henry Pethick, w ...
* Ellen Pitfield
* Isabella Potbury
Isabella Claude Potbury (1890 – 31 July 1965) was a portrait painter, a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and a militant suffragette who was arrested several times and imprisoned during which she was Force-feeding, forc ...
* Mary Richardson
Mary Raleigh Richardson (1882/3 – 7 November 1961) was a Canadian suffragette active in the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom, an arsonist, a socialist parliamentary candidate and later head of the women's section of the B ...
* Edith Rigby
Edith Rigby ( Rayner) (18 October 1872 – 23 July 1950) was an English suffragette who used arson as a way to further the cause of women’s suffrage. She founded a night school in Preston called St Peter's School, aimed at educating women an ...
* Rona Robinson
Rona Robinson (26 June 1884 – 7 April 1962) was the first woman in the United Kingdom to gain a first-class degree in chemistry and one of the first documented female industrial chemists. She was also a British suffragette and paid member o ...
* Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford
Mary Du Caurroy Russell, Duchess of Bedford, (née Tribe; 13/26 September 1865 – ca. 22 March 1937) was a British aviator and ornithologist. She was honoured for her work in founding hospitals and working in them during the First World War. ...
* Bertha Ryland
* Amy Sanderson
* Arabella Scott
Arabella Scott (7 May 1886 – 27 August 1980) was a Scottish teacher, suffragette and campaigner. As a member of the Women's Freedom League (WFL) she took a petition to Downing Street in July 1909. She subsequently adopted more militant tac ...
* Muriel Scott
Muriel Eleanor Scott (1888–1963), was a Scottish suffragette, hunger striker, and protest organiser. Her sister Arabella Scott was force-fed many times, and Muriel Scott led protests about this cruel treatment.
Family and education
Muriel E ...
* Genie Sheppard
Genie Sheppard (7 October 1863 – 10 April 1953) was a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and militant suffragette who in prison went on hunger strike where she was force-fed for which action she received the WSPU's Hun ...
* Alice Maud Shipley
Alice Maud Shipley (5 June 1869 – 16 December 1951) was a militant suffragette and member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) who received a prison sentence during which she went on hunger strike and was force-fed, for which act ...
* Dame Ethel Mary Smyth
* Harriet Shaw Weaver
Harriet Shaw Weaver (1 September 1876 – 14 October 1961) was an English political activist and a magazine editor. She was a significant patron of Irish writer James Joyce.
Life
Harriet Shaw Weaver was born in Frodsham, Cheshire, the sixth of e ...
* Evelyn Sharp
* Hope Squire
Evelyn Hope Squire Merrick (1878–1936) was a British composer, pianist, and political activist who supported women's suffrage, vegetarianism, Esperanto, and new music. She opposed England’s participation in World War I. She published and perf ...
* Janie Terrero
Janie Terrero (14 April 1858 – 22 June 1944) was a militant suffragette who, as a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), was imprisoned and force-fed for which she received the WSPU's Hunger Strike Medal.
Early life
Born ...
* Dora Thewlis
Dora Thewlis (1890–1976) was a British suffragette whose arrest picture made the front page of the ''Daily Mirror'' and other press.
Early life
Dora was born on 15 May 1890, at Shady Row in Meltham Mills, near Huddersfield in the West Ridi ...
* Catherine Tolson
Catherine Tolson (21 August 1890 – 3 March 1924) was an English nurse and suffragette from Ilkley in West Yorkshire active in the Women's Social and Political Union. She was arrested and imprisoned in 1909 and 1911 when she went on hunger st ...
* Helen Tolson
Helen Tolson (1888–1955) was an English suffragette from Wilmslow in Cheshire active in the Women's Social and Political Union (WPSU). She was repeatedly arrested in 1908 and 1909.
Activism
Helen Tolson was born in Wilmslow in Cheshire in ...
*Elsie and Mathilde Wolff Van Sandau
Elsie and Mathilde Wolff Van Sandau (died in 1926, aged 83) were British suffragette sisters: Elsie was arrested for smashing shop windows, went on hunger strike and was awarded the Women's Social and Political Union Hunger Strike Medal 'for Va ...
*Patricia Woodlock
Patricia Woodlock (born Mary Winifred Woodlock; 25 October 1873 – after 1930) was a British artist and suffragette who was imprisoned seven times, including serving the longest suffragette prison sentence in 1908 (solitary confinement for thr ...
* Gertrude Wilkinson
Gertrude Jessie Heward Wilkinson (1851 – 19 September 1929), also known as Jessie Howard, was a British militant Suffragette, who, as a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), was imprisoned in Winson Green Prison. She went ...
* Laura Ann Willson
Laura Annie Willson MBE (née Buckley) (15 August 1877 – 17 April 1942) was an English engineer and suffragette, who was twice imprisoned for her political activities. She was one of the founding members of the Women's Engineering Society an ...
* Laetitia Withall
Laetitia Withall (30 August 1881 – 11 March 1963) was an Australian-born poet, author and militant suffragette who campaigned in the United Kingdom for the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) under the name Leslie Hall. On her impriso ...
* Olive Wharry
Olive Wharry (29 September 1886 – 2 October 1947) was an English artist, arsonist and suffragette, who in 1913 was imprisoned with Lilian Lenton for burning down the tea pavilion at Kew Gardens.
Early life
Olive Wharry was born into a ...
* Celia Wray
Celia Wray (30 May 1872 – 30 November 1954) was an English suffragette and an architect. For many years she was in a lesbian relationship with scientist Alice Laura Embleton.
Early life
She was born in Barnsley in Yorkshire in 1872 as Cecil ...
* Ada Wright
Ada Cecile Granville Wright (c. 1862–1939) was an English suffragette. Her photo on the front page of the ''Daily Mirror'' on 19 November became an iconic image of the suffrage movement.
Biography
Ada Cecile Granville Wright was born in ...
* Rose Emma Lamartine Yates
Rose Emma Lamartine Yates ( Janau; 23 February 1875 – 5 November 1954) was an English social campaigner and suffragette. She was educated at the Sorbonne and Oxford.
Together with her lawyer husband she worked for female suffrage from 1908 an ...
See also
*Feminism in the United Kingdom
As in other countries, feminism in the United Kingdom seeks to establish political, social, and economic equality for women. The history of feminism in Britain dates to the very beginnings of feminism itself, as many of the earliest feminist writ ...
*Suffragette bombing and arson campaign
Suffragettes in Great Britain and Ireland orchestrated a bombing and arson campaign between the years 1912 and 1914. The campaign was instigated by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and was a part of their wider campaign for women's ...
*List of suffragists and suffragettes
This list of suffragists and suffragettes includes noted individuals active in the worldwide women's suffrage movement who have campaigned or strongly advocated for women's suffrage, the organisations which they formed or joined, and the public ...
*List of women's rights activists
This article is a list of notable women's rights activists, arranged alphabetically by modern country names and by the names of the persons listed.
Afghanistan
* Amina Azimi – disabled women's rights advocate
* Hasina Jalal – women's empowerm ...
*List of women's rights organizations
This is a list of women's organizations ordered by geography.
International
* Alliance of Pan American Round Tables – founded 1916 to foster women's relationships throughout the Americas
* Arab Feminist Union – founded 1945
* Associated Cou ...
*Men's League for Women's Suffrage The Men's League for Women's Suffrage may refer to:
*The Men's League, United States women's suffrage group, also known as the Men's Equal Suffrage League and the Men's League for Women's Suffrage
*The Men's League for Women's Suffrage (United King ...
*Timeline of women's suffrage
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's suffrage organizations
This list of suffragists and suffragettes includes noted individuals active in the worldwide women's suffrage movement who have campaigned or strongly advocated for women's suffrage, the organisations which they formed or joined, and the #Women ...
*List of suffragette bombings
The following list of suffragette bombings is a list of bombings carried out by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the suffragette bombing and arson campaign of 1912–1914. ...
Sources
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
Further reading
* Bartley, Paula. ''Emmeline Pankhurst'' (2002)
* Davis, Mary. ''Sylvia Pankhurst'' (Pluto Press, 1999)
* Harrison, Shirley. ''Sylvia Pankhurst: A crusading life, 1882–1960'' (Aurum Press, 2003)
* Holton, Sandra Stanley. "In sorrowful wrath: suffrage militancy and the romantic feminism of Emmeline Pankhurst." in Harold Smith, ed. ''British feminism in the twentieth century'' (1990) pp: 7–24.
* Loades, David, ed. ''Reader's guide to British history''. (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2003). 2:999–1000, historiography
* Marcus, Jane. ''Suffrage and the Pankhursts'' (1987)
* Pankhurst, Emmeline. "My own story" 1914. London: Virago Limited, 1979.
* Purvis, June. "Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928), Suffragette Leader and Single Parent in Edwardian Britain." ''Women's History Review'' (2011) 20#1 pp: 87–108.
* Romero, Patricia W. E. ''Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a radical'' (Yale U.P., 1987)
* Smith, Harold L. ''The British women's suffrage campaign, 1866–1928'' (2nd ed. 2007)
* Winslow, Barbara. ''Sylvia Pankhurst: Sexual politics and political activism'' (1996)
External links
Annual Reports of the National Women's Social and Political Union, 1908–1912.
LSE Digital Library, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Museum of London
''Votes for Women'' exhibition and programming
2 February 2018 – 6 January 2019.
Papers, 1911–1913.
Schlesinger Library
Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Women's Social And Political Union
1903 establishments in the United Kingdom
1918 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Emmeline Pankhurst
Feminist organisations in the United Kingdom
First-wave feminism
Organisations based in Manchester
Organizations established in 1903
Organizations disestablished in 1918
Women's organisations based in the United Kingdom
Social history of the United Kingdom
Suffrage organisations in the United Kingdom
Terrorism in the United Kingdom