DOCUMENT 3a

The Suffragettes
The feminist movement has changed drastically

The move for women to have the vote had really started in 1897 when Millicent Fawcett founded
the National Union of Women’s Suffrage. “Suffrage” means the right to vote and that is what
women wanted – hence its inclusion in Fawcett’s title.

Millicent Fawcett believed in peaceful protest. She felt that any violence or trouble would
persuade men that women could not be trusted to have the right to vote. Her game plan was
patience and logical arguments. Fawcett argued that if parliament made laws and if women had to
obey those laws, then women should be part of the process of making those laws; she argued that
as women had to pay taxes as men, they should have the same rights as men and one of her most
powerful arguments was that wealthy mistresses of large manors and estates employed gardeners,
workmen and labourers who could vote……..but the women could not regardless of their wealth…..

However, Fawcett’s progress was very slow. She converted some of the members of the Labour
Representation Committee (soon to be the Labour Party) but most men in Parliament believed that
women simply would not understand how Parliament worked and therefore should not take part in
the electoral process. This left many women angry and in 1903 the Women’s Social and Political
Union was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. They wanted
women to have the right to vote and they were not prepared to wait. The Union became better
known as the Suffragettes. Members of the Suffragettes were prepared to use violence to get
what they wanted.

In fact, the Suffragettes started off relatively peacefully. It was only in 1905 that the
organization created a stir when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney interrupted a political
meeting in Manchester to ask two Liberal politicians (Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey) if
they believed women should have the right to vote. Neither man replied. As a result, the two
women got out a banner which had “Votes for Women” and shouted at the two politicians to answer
their questions. Pankhurst and Kenney were thrown out of the meeting and arrested for causing
an obstruction and assault on a police officer.

Both women refused to pay a fine, preferring to go to prison to highlight the injustice of the
system as it was then.
The Suffragettes refused to bow to violence. They burned down churches as the Church of
England was against what they wanted; they vandalised Oxford Street, apparently breaking all
the windows in this famous street; they chained themselves to Buckingham Palace as the Royal
Family were seen to be against women having the right to vote; they hired out boats, sailed up the
Thames and shouted abuse through loud hailers at Parliament as it sat; others refused to pay
their tax. Politicians were attacked as they went to work. Their homes were firebombed. Golf
courses were vandalised. The first decade of Britain in the twentieth century was proving to be
violent in the extreme.

Suffragettes were quite happy to go to prison. Here they refused to eat and went on a hunger
strike. The government was very concerned that they might die in prison thus giving the movement
martyrs. Prison governors were ordered to force feed Suffragettes but this caused a public
outcry as forced feeding was traditionally used to feed lunatics as opposed to what were mostly
educated women.

The government of Asquith responded with the Cat and Mouse Act. When a Suffragette was sent
to prison, it was assumed that she would go on hunger strike as this caused the authorities
maximum discomfort. The Cat and Mouse Act allowed the Suffragettes to go on a hunger strike
and let them get weaker and weaker. Force feeding was not used. When the Suffragettes were
very weak, they were released from prison. If they died out of prison, this was of no
embarrassment to the government. However, they did not die but those who were released were
so weak that they could take no part in violent Suffragette struggles. When those who had been
arrested and released had regained their strength, they were re-arrested for the most trivial of
reasons and the whole process started again. This, from the government’s point of view, was a
very simple but effective weapon against the Suffragettes.

As a result, the Suffragettes became more extreme. The most famous act associated with the
Suffragettes was at the June 1913 Derby when Emily Wilding Davison threw herself under the
King’s horse, Anmer, as it rounded Tattenham Corner. She was killed and the Suffragettes had
their first martyr. However, her actions probably did more harm than good to the cause as she
was a highly educated woman. Many men asked the simple question – if this is what an educated
woman does, what might a lesser educated woman do? How can they possibly be given the right to
vote?

It is possible that the Suffragettes would have become more violent. They had, after all, in
February 1913 blown up part of David Lloyd George’s house – he was probably Britain’s most famous
politician at this time and he was thought to be a supporter of the right for women to have the
vote!

However, Britain and Europe were plunged into World War One in August 1914. In a display of
patriotism, Emmeline Pankhurst instructed the Suffragettes to stop their campaign of violence
and support in every way the government and its war effort. The work done by women in the First
World War was to be vital for Britain’s war effort. In 1918, the Representation of the People
Act was passed by Parliament, giving the right to vote to women over 30 years old.