Another reason for the women’s failure to get the vote was that the Liberal Government had more pressing concerns. They had to deal with the insurrection in Ireland, the rebellion by the House of Lords and the widespread strike action by trade unions. All of these problems for the government forced votes for women further and further down the order of priorities as it was not believed to be as important as other matters.
It is particularly important to note that the Liberal Prime Minister at the time, Asquith together with a number of other MPs, was hostile to the idea of women’s suffrage. This put women on the back foot as they were fighting against a Prime Minister who made the final decision.
The government’s political self interest was also a decisive factor. Asquith did not want to do something that would affect people voting for him. Mainly the lower classes vote Labour and the upper classes vote Conservative. Asquith could not allow lower class women to vote as it would have jeopardised his party’s position in power. The Liberal government’s majority had been steadily whittled down, and by 1910 they relied upon support from the Irish Nationalists, who did not support women’s suffrage. Time and again between 1906 and 1914 the Liberal government went back on promises made to the women’s movement. Their treatment of these two forces shows how unfair they were. The government continued to treat with, and consult, the Ulster Unionists, even though they used violence and preached sedition. However the women’s movement was dealt with in a brutal manner (meetings banned, press censored, hunger strikers force-fed, and leader’s homes raided by the police).
Therefore a large number of important factors were in play during this turbulent period which explains why women failed to get the vote by 1914. In short, there was no single major event which demanded this great political shift.
Question 2: Attitudes towards women and their right to vote had changed by 1918. How important was the First World War in bringing about this change?
Women did not receive the vote solely because of the First World War but it did play a major part in women gaining the vote and attitudes towards women changing.
The War was a major factor in shaping the change in attitudes to women’s suffrage, but there were other political changes in Parliament which had a very considerable impact.
The response of the women’s movement and their support for the war effort was a key factor in women gaining the vote. When the First World War was declared the WSPU (Suffragettes) decided to put their campaigning on hold in order to help the War effort. Emmeline Pankhurst believed that “there was no point in continuing to fight for the vote when there might be no country to vote in.” She and her party took a very nationalistic and patriotic position. However it is fair to say that not everyone in the movement thought the same way- most suffragists (the upper-class faction) still campaigned during the war as they were reluctant to support what was in their eyes an imperialist war. The outbreak of the war enabled the WSPU to show how patriotic they were, and therefore deserving of the vote. The WSPU quickly joined the war effort and by 1915 they were liaising with Lloyd George (Minister of Munitions) for women to join the workforce (there was a great shortage of labour as 2 million men had joined the forces and women were required for munition production. It is inevitable that this loyalty would be remembered when the time came for the change in the law.
Some historians, certainly in the past, were of the opinion, that women were given the vote as a sign of gratitude for their war work (working in the munitions factories, and in auxiliary and nursing service at the Front). Other historians say that whilst this economic contribution to the war effort by women was important, the women’s movements groundbreaking campaign before the war should not be ignored.
Even though there were divisions between the WSPU and the NUWSS (which was bitterly divided over the war and kept its suffrage campaigning structure intact) both organisations worked hard for the war effort. This helped to give respectability to the suffrage cause, and eased some of the negative publicity given to the militant tactics of previous years. This was important in changing attitudes.
One belief, and widely held argument against votes for women, was that women were incapable of taking part in the defence of the country. The fact that women entered so many different occupations during the war that they had never done before (drivers, messengers, store keepers, fire-fighters, electricians, bus drivers and conductors, some even as welders and carpenters working on aeroplanes, others as munition workers working long hours in dangerous conditions) disposed of that argument and hence it was easier for men to accept that they should receive the just political rewards.
We should also look at other important reasons for shifting attitudes.
Parliamentary politics during this period was important in shaping changing attitudes. In the 50 years before the war MPs were reluctant to enfranchise women but by the end of the war in 1918 MPs had changed their minds. It was clear that there was a need for franchise reform in general.
Parliament had been all-male for the 50 years prior to the war and so the war sparked this need for change. The old law meant that men who were qualified as householders had to have occupied a dwelling for a year before an election. This meant that large numbers of men in the army could not vote. Therefore a change had to be made, but women demanded that they were included too. Only women over 30 were granted the vote (8 million of them) because of the fear that they might overwhelm the male electorate.
Another important factor was that the balance between those opposing and those favouring votes for women changed in Parliament. A number of men who supported the change were promoted to the Cabinet. It was especially important that Lloyd George, broadly sympathetic to women’s suffrage, became Prime Minister in Dec 1916.
Another reason was that a number of previously hostile MPs (like Asquith) used the war and women’s war work as a face-saving excuse to change their position. Even though they were against women’s suffrage they knew that the reform was unavoidable. They felt that women’s contribution should be rewarded with the vote.
The change in attitudes was also helped, and spurred on by, the Liberal government becoming a Coalition government. This allowed for all party agreement on women’s suffrage. Some politicians in the past had feared that allowing women to vote would only benefit one party. Allowing 8 million women to vote did not favour any particular party. The Conservatives were pleased that munition workers (mainly working class and therefore likely to be voting Labour) were excluded from the vote.
It is also important to note that in addition to the war effort, attitudes were also changed by the wider international shift in allowing women to vote. Women in New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Denmark and Norway already had the vote, and Canada and four American States granted the vote for women in 1917.
It is too easy to say that women’s contribution towards the war effort earned them the vote. In fact, the ones who made the most obvious effort (the young munitions workers in the factories, working in dangerous conditions, but under 30) weren’t actually allowed to vote. The vote was mainly given to older women who would promote stability in society. The campaign of the Suffragettes and Suffragists before the war laid down the foundation for granting the vote. No doubt any government which failed to grant some suffrage would fear that militancy would start again after the war. Also it would be very difficult for any government to start imprisoning women who had so publicly been praised for their war effort. Some historians argue that the war may have actually delayed women getting the vote, as conciliatory gestures were being made to the women’s movement before the outbreak of war. But all these things taken together show that attitudes had changed and such a horrific event as the Great War clearly had great importance to that change.
