In 1906, the suffragettes hopes were raised when the Liberal Party won the general election, many of whom supported the suffragettes.
However, the cabinet refused to make a decision, and sick of being left waiting for so long, the Suffragettes took more drastic action. They began a more militant campaign, with the motto ‘Deeds not words’.
The first shocking action of a member of the WSPU was in 1905, when Annie Kennedy heckled at a meeting held for the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, and David Lloyd George, as well as other members of the cabinet.
David Lloyd George, it seemed, could never get away from the antics of the suffragettes. He was met with cries of ‘Votes For Women’ wherever he went, and was once trapped in his car by a rather large woman who talked to him about the campaign.
Asquith was also chased by these women, they would hassle him at parties, and at his golf course. Some even took it upon themselves to chain themselves to railings outside 10 Downing Street as a form of protest.
The methods of the Suffragists peaceful protests had long been overshadowed by those of the Suffragettes, who were now getting themselves arrested just so that they could get to court and have their say in front of important people.
Many suffragettes ended up in prison. Now they were cut off from the outside world, they could not participate in outside protests. So, instead, they went on hunger strike whilst they were in jail. Harsh prison officers, however, force fed the women through tubes put in their noses. It was a dreadful experience.
Finally, people had begun taking notice of the Suffragettes. They got lots of coverage from newspapers, their protests made headline news! The campaign for women’s votes suddenly became important.
However, as the stories dragged on, people became bored of them, and as a result newspapers no longer published Suffragette-related stories, printing instead stories about the Irish Catholics trying to gain independence, and all of the industrial strikes that were happening at the same time.
Eventually, the campaigns of the Suffragists and Suffragettes alike appeared to have proven successful, when, in 1911, Parliament debated and passed a Conciliation Bill, which would allow women to vote. The Conciliation bill was supported by all of the parties, and the liberal government claimed that the new law would be introduced in 1912.
The women became very angry though, when instead of their original promise of a conciliation law; the government introduced a law which bore no mention of women's Suffrage.
The female campaigners were infuriated, and as a result of the broken promises, began a campaign of violence. Two hundred women were arrested after fighting with police, who tolerated no violence, and treated the women atrociously.
Whilst the Suffragists remained peaceful, the suffragettes organised window smashing and one woman even slashed an expensive and famous painting in London’s National Gallery. Members of the WSPU took it upon themselves to burn houses and public buildings, cut telephone wires, and tore up golf greens, even pouring acid all over them to destroy the grass.
One woman, Emily Davison, is famous for jumping in front of the Kings horse during the Derby horse race of 1913. Her final cry before she jumped was apparently ‘Votes for women!’ Emily is seen as a Martyr by some, she was a strong-minded woman who died for what she believed in.
Many women ended up in prison. In prison the suffragettes again went on hunger strikes; they could not protest alongside the suffragettes outside, so inside of the confined prisons, many women started their own protests and refused to eat. Realising that this was going to be difficult to stop, the government passed the ‘Prisoners Temporary Release Act’ in 1913. This meant that prisons could release the women who were on hunger strikes, but once they had regained their strength they would be immediately imprisoned.
However, the suffragettes managed to find ways to get around this. They nicknamed the ‘Prisoners Temporary Release Act’ the ‘Cat and mouse act’.
Women's methods of protest changed between 1903 and 1915, because of the introduction of Emmeline Pankhurst’s Suffragette organisation, a group that believed violence was the only way of getting anywhere. When their hopes of winning the vote in 1912 were cruelly snatched away, women began a much more violent approach, and a bigger attack on society, and its government. I think the main reason for the Suffragettes becoming increasingly more violent, vandalising, and going on hunger strikes, was because they were angry that the campaign for the right to vote kept being dismissed, and because of the way that the policemen that dealt with the suffragettes treated them. Women felt like they had been almost stabbed in the back by the government, who had once promised that the women were incredibly close to winning the vote.
Throughout this however, the suffragists carried on making petitions and meeting with MP’s, they were one group of women who knew that violence was not the answer, and never changed their campaign methods.
Women were called ‘irresponsible’ by men who did not wish for them to gain the right to vote, and the suffragettes, through their increasingly violent methods, were proving that they were, in fact, completely irresponsible.
