2 Women’s suffrage: establishing a chronology

The term ‘suffrage’ means the right to vote in elections. Universal suffrage means that all adults (with a few exceptions) have the vote.

The struggle for women’s suffrage was inextricably linked with the fight for better working conditions for women. Women had often been brought into the factories because they were cheaper to employ than men.

Our popular image of this struggle to gain votes for women is of a militant activist, interrupting public meetings, chaining herself to railings and smashing windows, ready to go to prison in the name of her cause (Figure 3). These things certainly happened, but they don’t tell the whole story of the struggle, which lasted for decades and drew support from people from all classes and regions.

Figure 3 An arrest of a protesting suffragette.

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This is a black and white photograph of a woman in early twentieth-century dress holding on to railings, while a policeman tries to pull her away.

Figure 3 An arrest of a protesting suffragette.

If you know anything about the struggle, it may well surprise you that there were many female suffragists who pre-dated the suffragettes. Suffrage campaigners had, from the 1860s onwards, argued for women to be granted a parliamentary vote on the same property-based franchise as men. Generally, they used constitutional methods and arguments. In 1897 the many local suffrage societies joined together to form the NUWSS and became, as a consequence, a force to be reckoned with.

It is crucial to note that a key element seems to have been the change from the peaceful protest advocated by the NUWSS to the much more active stance of the WSPU, which clearly felt that ‘deeds’ rather than ‘words’ were needed.

Note also that the campaign for women’s suffrage was not restricted to the suffragists and suffragettes. In addition to the information given in the timeline, in 1909 the People’s Suffrage Federation was formed to campaign for the extension of the vote to all adults – male and female – and it drew support from the trade unions and the Women’s Co-operative Guild. In 1910 the NUWSS put its weight behind the efforts of the Conciliation Committee, which sought to persuade members of all political parties to introduce a moderate franchise reform. Even the WSPU called a truce. A Conciliation Bill was brought before Parliament. There was certainly support from both sides of the House of Commons, although Herbert Asquith’s Liberal government didn’t believe there was sufficient support to enact a women’s enfranchisement bill. The Liberal government dissolved Parliament and when the same party returned to power, it focused on National Insurance (broad welfare reforms) designed to alleviate poverty. The members of the WSPU, despairing, broke the truce.