Choose one reason and explain how it contributed to women being given the vote in 1918.

Jason Tucker-Feltham 11F

Thematic Study D:

The Changing Roles And Status of Women, C.1840–C.1990

Question 1: Choose one reason and explain how it contributed to women being given the vote in 1918.

The First World War played a very large part in allowing women gain the vote. It permitted women to demonstrate that they were more than capable of working as men worked at the time. Although women were not allowed to work in the army, instead, they worked in the equally important ammunition factories. I say equally important, since without this supply of ammunition, Britain obviously could not play a substantial part in the war other than by code breaking. It took a considerable time for women to be employed in large numbers. However, Mrs. Pankhurst, (a prominent suffragette) conducted a ‘right to serve’ campaign. This undoubtedly sped up the process, which made it possible for women to be recruited in large numbers into industry. In 1917, there were around 60 000 women working in banking and commerce and almost half a million in Local Government. Women joined the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, and in 1917 there were 40 000 nurses serving in France and Belgium. In 1918 there were 120 000 bus conductresses and there were 18 000 working in the Women’s Land Army.

On 4th August 1914, England declared war on Germany. Two days later the announced that it was suspending all political activity until the war was over. The leadership of the began negotiating with the British government. On the 10th August the government announced it was releasing all suffragettes from prison. In return, the agreed to end their militant activities and help the . The Women's Freedom League disagreed and continued with its campaign for the vote.

Some leaders of the such as Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter, Christabel Pankhurst, played an important role as speakers at meetings to recruit young men into the army. Others like Sylvia Pankhurst were opposed to the war and refused to carry out this role. Some members of the WSPU disagreed with the decision to call off militant activities. For example, Kitty Marion was so angry she went to the USA to help American women in their fight for the vote.

As men left jobs to fight overseas, women replaced them. and from worked as doctors treating wounded British soldiers. was married with a young child and so was restricted in the role she could play in the war effort. However, she was active in Danehill where she ran a school for local children. and continued their work trying to protect women workers in London.

Women filled many jobs brought into existence by wartime needs. As a result the number of women employed increased from 3,224,600 in July 1914 to 4,814,600 in January 1918. Nearly 200,000 women were employed in government departments. Half a million became clerical workers in private offices. Women worked as conductors on trams and buses. A quarter of a million worked on the land. The greatest increase of women workers was in engineering. Over 700,000 of these women worked in the highly dangerous munitions industry. Industries that had previously excluded women now welcomed them. There was a particular demand for women to do heavy work such as unloading coal, stoking furnaces and building ships.

Movements promoting the enfranchisement of women began in the nineteenth century. However, the campaign was intensified in 1885 when a bill was passed which entitled over 58% of men to vote, making gender the most widespread discrimination to voting. Milicent Fawcett was a key figure in the female suffrage campaign of the late nineteenth century. Her methods were of a more traditional, gentile nature, and the Womens Social and Political Union adopted these methods in its early history, after having been set up in 1903. Initially the W.S.P.U. was associated with the Independent Labour Party, and its work was largely directed towards influencing the various Labour societies, to ensure that the new parliamentary party would be behind the W.S.P.U. regarding questions on the enfranchisement of women. However, the subsequent rejection of the W.S.P.U. by the I.L.P., coupled with general disillusionment over the rather slow progress of the Suffragist movement, arguably led the W.S.P.U. to look for alternative methods of campaigning i.e. militancy. Militant acts included interrupting political meetings, hunger striking, glass breaking, violence, and arson. It is the purpose of this essay to suggest why, and which forms militancy was used by the militant Suffragettes, and to comment on the idea that the militant Suffragettes demonstrated the limitations on the power of propaganda to bring about social and political change.

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`As mentioned previously militancy largely came about due to the rejection of the W.S.P.U. by the Independent Labour Party. It has been suggested that this was due to the fact that the issue of female enfranchisement was thought by the I.L.P. leaders to complicate their lines of appeal to the electorate. There were also doubts on the side of the W.S.P.U. Christabel Pankhurst, a W.S.P.U. leader, doubted the commitment of the I.L.P., and Hannah Mitchell was quoted as saying that, "socialists are not necessarily feminists.". However, there was also a sense in which many of the women involved in the Suffragist campaign were disillusioned with the slow progress being made using the gentle tactics, thus, new methods were sought to hasten the pace. It was suggested by Teresa Billington Greig, a prominent suffragist, that the more civilized campaign was on a plain ethically too high to reach the politician, and socially too high to reach the people, hence the rise of the militant Suffragettes.

`Christabel Pankhurst was concerned that the W.S.P.U. were being ignored, and as a result engineered the first militant act, which took place in October 1905, at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst disrupted Edward Grey and Winston Churchill during a public meeting, and they were subsequently arrested and imprisoned, a deliberate ploy, for assaulting a Police officer. This was the start of a heckling campaign by the W.S.P.U., which saw hecklers being ejected from meetings, and deliberately getting themselves arrested.

`Another method of militancy employed by the Suffragists first occurred on July 5th 1909 when Marion Wallace Dunlop, imprisoned for one month for defacing the wall of St Stephens hall, began a hunger strike. The leaders of the W.S.P.U. approved of the hunger striking, believing that it created a martyrdom of far greater magnitude than the martyrdom incurred through imprisonment alone. By August 1909 hunger striking was the norm for imprisoned Suffragettes. Between July and September 1909 thirty-seven women had managed to terminate their imprisonment by hunger striking, and it was at this point the Government introduced forced feeding. The W.S.P.U. labelled the government’s actions "a horrible outrage", and they undertook legal proceedings against the Home Secretary, backed up by 116 doctors.

`The adoption of hunger striking as W.S.P.U. policy heralded a more fierce approach to Suffragette militancy. Violent incidents became increasingly common, and these mainly took place outside large halls after hecklers had been ejected from meetings. For example, Mary Edwards, at her trial for assaulting a police officer an the 17th September 1909 said, "I had the opportunity, had I chosen to take it, of seriously injuring Mr Asquith. I am now sorry I did not do so. As he will not listen to words I think it is time that blows should be struck.... I was two yards from him."

`On March 1st 1912 the W.S.P.U. began its glass breaking campaign. Emmeline Pankhurst was quoted, in February 1912, as saying that, "the argument of a pane of glass is the most valuable argument in modern politics". Thus, on March 1st 124 women were arrested for smashing shop windows on Regent Street, Oxford Street, and The Strand. The damage was estimated at £5000. Similar plate glass smashing incidents occurred in the following months, causing the press and the cabinet to react angrily.

`The arson campaign was the most extreme form of militancy practiced by the militant Suffragettes. Shortly before the first arson attack Christabel Pankhurst, Emmeline Pankhurst, and Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence i.e. the W.S.P.U. leadership had a debate concerning the wisdom of continued militancy. Mr Pethick Lawrence felt that the militant campaign was creating too much opposition to the cause of women’s suffrage. Christabel felt that it was necessary to repeat and intensify the attack, thus, she was fully behind the arson attempts which, as with most of the innovations in the Suffrage movement, were the result of an individual member, this time Helen Craggs, acting under her own responsibility. The arson campaign was a deliberate attempt, in the words of Christabel Pankhurst, "to create a difficulty so great as to be found intolerable by the politicians." Government attempts to call a halt to the arson campaign were ineffective, partly due to the Polices inability to catch the arsonists.

`It would seem clear from this evidence that the Suffragettes were willing to go to some lengths, through their militant campaign, to promote the issue of female enfranchisement. It has been suggested, however, that as a tool of propaganda, the militancy practiced by the Suffragettes was essentially limited. For example, in many cases the militant strategy was seen to lose considerable public support. Firstly through the press, who were initially hostile to the use of militancy, and in many cases grew more so as militant acts became more extreme. For instance, as regards the window breaking campaign, the Times wrote, "...None of its [the W.S.P.U.'s] previous follies have been so thoroughly calculated to discredit the Suffragette cause.", whilst The Morning Post commented that, "...Nothing could indicate more plainly their lack of fitness to be entrusted with the exercise of political power."

`The press often had a strong effect on public opinion, so, for example, when the W.S.P.U. sent a deputation to the King on the 21st May 1914 the photographs printed in the press of the ensuing violence did little to further the W.S.P.U.'s cause. Particularly if one takes the same view as the American Suffragist Anna Shaw, that "...women never show up their real weakness so much as when they attempt force.". The ramifications of the W.S.P.U.'s often-unpopular public image were far reaching. For instance, the public reaction, especially against the arson campaign began to curtail some of the W.S.P.U.'s legal activities, in the sense that the W.S.P.U. were banned from holding meetings in the Albert Hall, or in any of London’s parks due to the disorder which was likely to occur.

`For many people the use of militancy as a tool of propaganda caused them to dismiss the Suffragettes as hysterical fanatics whose actions were totally irrational. For example, Arnold Ward said that, "...to enfranchise women would be to incorporate that hysterical activity permanently into the life of the nation.". It has been suggested that the real test of Suffragette militant propaganda is the extent to which it could be seen as a valid form of political representation without being reduced to the category of feminine hysteria.

`This lack of public support, felt by the public and the press, and largely caused by the militant tactics was also felt by many M.P.'s who supported the idea of the enfranchisement of women, but disagreed with their campaign. For example, in response to the continued arson campaign Phillip Snowden M.P. claimed that he was, "...convinced that the doings of the Pankhurstians are inflicting such injury on the movement that it is the duty of all who want women to have the vote to protest against their conduct."

`Similarly those M.P.'s who disagreed with the Suffragettes cause were often made more determined not to give in to what they saw as the W.S.P.U. scare tactics. For example, an article in 'The Referee' suggested that politicians should not give in to the Suffragettes militant campaign because,"...to give women the franchise would be to pay blackmail to a felon."

`Indeed, when a conciliation bill regarding female enfranchisement was tabled many indicated that Suffragette militancy had brought them to vote against the bill. For example, Sydney Buxton, President of the board of trade, claimed that"...to pass the bill just now might appear to be...a justification for, and an endorsement by the House of Commons of their methods and actions.". In fact, after the second conciliation bill had failed to pass its second reading in March 1912, the Westminster Gazette commented that the Suffragettes militancy had created ".... an atmosphere unfavourable to any action which might have been construed by the unthinking public as yielding to pressure on the part of the House of Commons."

`On the 28th March 1917 the House of Commons approved the introduction of legislation relating to female enfranchisement. Arguably militancy was instrumental in bringing the issue of women’s suffrage to the fore. However, it has been suggested that equally, it was militancy that prevented the kind of social change regarding the emancipation of women in many other areas, which might have been expected in the wake of women winning the vote. For example, Teresa Billington-Greig recognised the power of militancy in gaining publicity for the cause. However, she felt that the lengths the Suffragettes were prepared to go to gain the vote set a precedent, and that the militant movement only forced a continuation of this spirit of self sacrifice. There were, and still are, areas of prejudice against women in society, outside the scope of the vote, and Billington-Greig appears to be saying that similar struggles, like that of the Suffragette militant campaign, are expected in order to break down such barriers. In this sense Suffragette militancy is seen as a barrier to social change.

`In many ways it is perhaps not militancy as such that demonstrates the limitations on the power of propaganda to affect social and political change, but it is the type of militancy practiced by the Suffragettes which demonstrates this limitation. For instance, the militant Suffragettes had no tangible long-term strategy. New tactics were introduced arbitrarily on the initiative of individual women. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that were flaws in many of these tactics. For example, the idea behind the arson campaign was to inconvenience the country so greatly that the politicians were left with no choice but to give in. This goal was never acheived because the scope of the campaign was so limited. It was obvious there was no threat of a mass uprising, and the buildings chosen to be burnt were of no commercial value to the country. In short, the campaign was not bothersome enough.

`Hunger striking was often rendered ineffective in that, whilst it secured the release of many Suffragette prisoners, these prisoners were so weakened by hunger that after being freed they were physically incapacitated.

`Criticism of the interruptions policy was also made. For example, Frank Palmer claimed that questioning ministers, rather than interrupting them, would prove a more successful policy. "....A series of carefully drafted questions would have sufficed to drive the minister into a corner." Palmer felt the interruptions policy estranged many possible sympathizers, and shielded cabinet ministers from politically damaging questions. Thus, in this sense it is perhaps unfair to say that militancy is an example of propaganda being limited in bringing about social change. It clearly depends on the nature of the militancy.

`In many ways, however, the campaign of the militant Suffragettes demonstrates the power of propaganda to affect social and political change. For instance, despite some negative feedback, militancy was an important weapon in gaining public support. The W.S.P.U. leaders recognised the importance of militancy for the purposes of advertisement. Hence, militant demonstrations were always heavily advertised through the press and methods such as bill posters.

`Also, despite much negative press coverage of the militant Suffragettes, there was also a degree of positive coverage. For example, in 1908, when the Suffragettes were pursuing candidates at a by election, the Manchester Guardian commented, "I think there can be no doubt that the Suffragettes did influence voters. Their activity, the interest shown in their meetings, the success of their persuasive methods in enlisting popular sympathy....must have struck visitors to the constituency."

`Indeed the militant Suffragettes did attract alot of sympathy and respect within certain sections of the public. For example, as mentioned previously, the Suffragettes were regarded by many as hysterical hooligans. However, an incident in October 1906 changed this somewhat when ten Suffragettes were arrested after a demonstration at the House of Commons. It became clear that three of the Suffragettes had been arrested without good cause, and that most of them were women of family and position in society. Attention and sympathy towards these women grew upon publication of these facts, and the imprisoned Suffragettes were treated by many as heroes after their release.

`The W.S.P.U.'s use of art in their poster campaign also went some way towards undermining this idea of militant women being hysterical fanatics. Joan of Arc was often prominent because she was seen as offering an identification which was neither that of the dominant feminine ideal or the hysterical fanatic. Other such iconography drew upon mythical heroines, such as Athena, and personified virtues, such as justice and fortitude.

`There were many factors at work which influenced how quickly women were enfranchised, quite irrespective of militancy, or indeed any of the propaganda techniques employed by the Suffragettes. For example, arguably the second conciliation bill was not passed in March 1912 because only twenty-five out of forty-one Labour M.P.'s were present to support the bill, due to an outbreak of strikes in the North. Similarly, it could be said that women were granted the vote when they were due to their invaluable work during the war. In September 1916 the war office announced that women "had shown themselves capable of replacing the stronger sex in practically every calling." It became clear that some adjustment, both in attitude and legislation, would be necessary regarding women, after the war. It would appear that any social or political change is the result of a number of factors. The militant campaign was clearly important in raising the issue of female enfranchisement, although it is obvious that a number of other factors were at work in eventually winning the vote. For this reason it is perhaps unfair to say that the campaign of the militant Suffragettes demonstrates the limitations on the power of propaganda to affect social or political change, because propaganda is just one of a number of factors which brings about such change.

`In conclusion, it would appear that the campaign of the militant Suffragettes was a key feature in the overall campaign for the enfranchisement of women. It cannot be doubted that the campaign created much publicity for the cause, and this publicity often translated into positive public support. For example, the "hero worship" of many imprisoned Suffragettes upon their release from prison.

`However, the campaign also created its share of bad publicity also. For instance, the hostile reaction of much of the press towards the militant campaign, and it is in this sense that the militant campaign could be said to have demonstrated the limitations on the power of propaganda to affect social and political change.