Legal and political progress
No matter what class they were women were not expected to take positions of leadership, this was a mans job.
Before 1870 women were not bothered about Legal and Political rights. Before 1870 when a woman got married all her wealth and possessions became her husband’s property, this included any children the woman had had in any other previous marriages.
After 1870 things looked up for women’s rights, in 1870 Parliament passed the law in which Married women were allowed to keep their own earnings, it was another 12 years before they were allowed to own property and dispose of it as they wished this law was passed in 1882. In 1888 women were able to vote in the County and Borough elections, this was one of the first steps in which women had taken in how their country was run. Until 1907 women were not allowed to become Councillors, around this time women started to form groups and organizations that campaigned for women’s right to vote, such as the N.U.W.S.S, this started to lift off and more and more women started to fight to gain this franchise.
This was Progress as it was a starting point for Women’s rights. The Married Women’s Property Acts let women have some Legal rights, but this did not allow them to vote for their own country, although they were allowed to vote and run for Local Elections. Men thought these rights were too much, they thought that the women couldn’t votes sensibly and should leave it too their husbands.
As women became more and more independent and educated they wanted equal legal rights. They wanted all their wealth and possessions and earnings to belong to them and not their husbands. They gained legal status in 1882 but still did not have the right to vote.
In 1888 women were allowed to vote in county and borough elections. By 1900 there were many women’s organisations to win the vote.
Explain HOW and WHY methods of the suffragettes changed between 1903 and 1915.
Between 1903-1906 the Suffragettes used peaceful and democratic ways in their campaign for Women’s Right to Vote. In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst founded the W.S.P.U (Women's Social and Political Union) this was an off-break of the N.U.W.S.S (National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies) their motto was “Deeds, not words”. The W.S.P.U in this period would hold small meetings, write letters to Members of Parliament and they also handed out leaflets. The W.S.P.U did this to gain public support for their campaign, and also to persuade Parliament to pass their bill that was the Right for Women to vote. The Suffragette campaigned this way because laws had been passed previously such as the Married Properties Act. The Daily Mail gave the Nickname “Suffragettes” to them.
The Suffragettes became more militant in the six years between 1906-1912. The Suffragettes started to heckle at political meetings, chained themselves to railings, would get themselves arrested to have their say in court and they had large demonstrations such as “Black Friday”. They did this because going through Parliament hadn’t worked out, so they decided to take it a stage further. After campaigning for the Liberal party with the promise of Women’s Right to vote, the Suffragettes thought that they had achieved what they wanted, only to be thrown a side and ignored, this made them feel betrayed and angry. They wanted the Public to take more notice.
They had thought that their letters to parliament had worked because when the elections were coming near the Liberals said that if they won then they would CONSIDER giving women the vote. Encouraged by this the Suffragettes campaigned endlessly for the Liberals and they won, so the Suffragettes were in celebration but there celebrations were cut short when the liberals decided not to give women the vote. This made the suffragettes very angry.
In the period between 1912-1914 the Suffragettes became Violent, they did things like Slashed pictures in the National Gallery, cut residential telephone lines, wrecked Golf courses by pouring acid on the greens and up rooting the grass, threw hammers through shop windows (e.g. Oxford Street), went on hunger strike in prison and there was the 1913 Derby incident involving Emily Davidson and the Kings Horse “Anmer”. They went on Hunger Strike in prison because they thought that they shouldn’t be treated like common prisoners like Murderers and Thieves, they thought themselves as “Political” prisoners and should have more rights. They resorted to this type of behaviour because going through Parliament and being more Militant hadn’t worked so the Suffragettes started to make themselves in the centre of the “Public eye”. They still didn’t have their Right to vote, and were losing public support, and in 1911 they were given their say in court with a debate over their proposed bill; it was rejected twice.
Perhaps the most important thing a suffragette did, Emily Davidson, threw herself under the king’s horse at the Derby. She died making her the only martyr to the suffragette cause. There were plenty of reasons they did these things, militancy didn’t work and the majority of the public had turned against them. There were more things going on in the background. The conflict between the suffragettes and the police had been there for a long time just getting worse. As the W.S.P.U. grew division happened and the younger members started to follow Emmeline Pankhursts’ daughter and they were the most violent members of the W.S.P.U. In 1911 two conciliation bills were debated, they were about giving some women the right to vote but they were both rejected! They actually ended up making more rights for men to vote, which enraged the suffragettes even further. The main reason I think that made them do all this is because of the reaction they got from other people. If they got a bad reaction they got worse whereas I think if they had got a good reaction they wouldn't have been so bad.
Between 1914-1915 the Suffragettes stopped all their Campaigns for there right to Vote, instead they campaigned for their Right to Serve, to serve in the war effort, they were granted this Right after the Ammunitions shortage during WW1.
They (W.S.P.U) had been campaigning since 1867 and not a lot had changed in terms of women getting the vote. To get their case heard at the start they wrote letters to MP’s, held small meetings and they published leaflets for the public. The reasons they did these things were for a variety of reasons, they wanted to gain more support and members, so their case would be stronger. The also wanted parliament to take notice and hopefully pass some laws and this was the traditional route to change in this country. Another reason was Upper Class men always had the right to vote then Middle Class men got the right to vote 1872 and Working Class men in 1867. So women thought they’re turn to get the vote would naturally come next but it didn’t.
It didn’t because a lot of men were still against women getting the vote. In some cases men were so much against it that they bent the rules of parliament so it wouldn’t be voted on. A rule of parliament is that when someone stands up to speak he’s allowed to say what he wants without being told to stop, once he is finished then only does he sit down. So some male MP’s stood up and talked until there was no time left in the meeting, by doing this if the act of women getting the vote was coming up he wouldn’t let it.
But women in my opinion should’ve have taken positives from that. It showed that MP’s were scared that it would actually pass so this should have encouraged women. There was one instance where the act of women’s franchise did come up it was voted for and didn’t pass but in that same session men were actually given more voting rights!! The reason they wrote to parliament was because they had changed things/laws for women in the past e.g. the ‘Married Woman’s Rights Acts’. The ‘Married Woman’s Rights Acts’ had been passed 1893 it was a group of acts that consisted of some laws concerning women’s property e.g. ‘Married Woman’s Property Act – this gave them full control of their wealth and the ‘Guardianship Of Infants Act’ – this gave women custody of their children in case of a divorce.
Also the general elections were coming close so they might think of trying to make it a law.
Christabel Pankhurst & Annie Kenney, Manchester 1906.
This is the period of time where the suffragettes stop campaigning because of the war. In 1914-1915 there methods did a complete u-turn. In these years they stopped protesting, made men go to war and they actually came in handy for Britain. They stopped the protesting because they were serving their country making munitions for the war, they wanted to prove that they were responsible, they also wanted to be patriotic like everyone else and lastly this was a good chance to improve their image in the public’s eye.
WHY did women get the vote and what is the most important reason they did?
They eventually got the vote in 1918 after the war ended on November 11th at 11 am. In 1918 a new law was passed to re-organise the electoral register it was called the ‘Representation of the peoples act’. Added onto that law was a clause saying that women over 30 could vote but there were conditions, they would have to have rented a house for 12 months or have owned a house. Finally in 1928 voting became completely equal.
I agree that women’s efforts in the war helped them gain the right to vote. One of the reasons was that they helped out by making munitions (shells). They were made all over Britain in places such as Woolwich, Leeds and Birmingham. This was the first job women had during the war and the most important. Over 1 million women worked in munitions!! The reason they were allowed to start working in munitions factories was because the British army were severely low on shells after 1915. They were down to firing a few shells a day while we were bombarded with shells non-stop. The reason the shortage developed was because the government let too many of the munitions workers go and fight so there was a shortage of workers. When the shortage occurred the women again started asking for their right to serve but it was denied again. So they made a very famous march to Whitehall where they demanded the right to serve their country. Adding to that Mrs Pankhurst asked for women’s wage conditions to become fairer. The P.M. at the time David Lloyd George obliged and allowed them to start working and have equal wages.
Women did not only make shells they did lots of other significant work to make up for all the men that left to fight. Although after a while some of them had to be brought back e.g. the miners were called back because they were very important to the country back in Britain. Other jobs that women did included joining the Red Cross Society’s ‘Voluntary Aid Detachment’. They came to be later knows as VAD’s, an example of a famous VAD was Vera Brittain. The VAD’s only had basic medical training so they could give soldiers basic medical treatment. Most families of the VAD’s didn’t mind them doing other jobs but they were strongly against them being VAD’s. This was because they didn’t want them to mix with lower classes – ‘Tommies’. The only forms of painkiller the VAD’s had at their disposal were aspirin and morphine. Morphine came in tablet form and had to be mixed with water and then sucked into a needle then the nurse had to find a place near the wound to inject it. VAD’s did not get paid as it was voluntary but the sisters and matrons that organised them did. Because of the non-payment most VAD’s came from a social background where not being paid wasn’t an issue. Also during the war the Women’s Land Army was created. With so many men being away someone had to keep the farms going and that’s what the women’s land army was created for. As the German U-Boats were sinking our merchant ships coming from America we had to feed ourselves. We had to become self-sufficient and that’s where the land army came into it’s own. They were paid 18 shillings a week (near enough £1 now) but 12 shillings went to board and food so they didn’t make that much money. To save fuel for the war effort all corners were cut so anything that could be done by hand was, seeds were planted by hand, harvesting was done by hand and horses were used for ploughing just like medieval times!! There was such a need for more women to join the WLA (Women's Land Army) that recruiting officers didn’t check them that thoroughly, one girl Patricia Vernon who was 14 told them she was 18 and was immediately accepted!! This to me shows two things, how desperate the country was for women to start working and also how much young women were eager to help the war effort.
Also during the war lots of military jobs opened up for women, from 1917 women were allowed to join the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps the W.A.A.C. They tried to employ women as cooks, drivers etc so even more men could go off and fight. The idea of this caught on and women were now being allowed into bigger military services. In 1918 women got their own royal navy (WRENS) and then a women’s royal air force was created the W.R.A.F. (women’s royal air force) But except from military services women still did other jobs like sewing, coal mining, factory work etc all the less glamorous jobs. Through the whole war I think women showed their patriotism and courage by making a lot of changes in their personal lives and the struggles they faced in their lives that they overcame.
For example here is one scenario that women would’ve faced working in munitions factories. By working with the chemicals in shells women could get cancer and die but they still worked on, because shells contained sulphur which there was no protection for. Women who worked with sulphur soon started to realise that the areas of their exposed skin started to turn the colour of sulphur – yellow. These women were nicknamed canaries but that wasn’t any kind of insult it was more a term of endearment as people recognised the huge importance of their work. They would also have 12-hour days and they would swap with other women every 12 hours. That meant there would be no time to clean where they slept, these places increasingly dirty and hence very unhygienic. While working making shells if one little mistake was made it could be very bad, there was one instance where a whole factory was burnt down in Silver Town 1917. Also women were still paid less and still faced sexism from the male employees that didn’t go off to fight and sometimes these men would steal things from the women like their tools etc. To me this shows again how much women really wanted to help out the war effort. If they were willing to go through all I have just described they must’ve have really wanted to play their parts. By doing this they showed how courageous they were in the country’s time of need.
Another thing that doesn’t get mentioned sometimes is that the government didn’t make women completely independent when working. They kept older male citizens that were too old to go and fight, well they kept them as kind of managers in the factories to watch over the women. These problems were only faced at work. There were other problems that women overcame in their personal lives as well. Firstly to even work a lot of middle and upper class women were forced to run away from home because their dads/husbands wouldn’t let them work. Then there were things like if their husband’s had gone off to fight as well as working long hours they would also have to take care of their homes. All the way through the war women fought these types of struggles and it didn’t go unnoticed. By the end of the war in 1918 women became a lot more independent and earned the vote.
Therefore in 1918 women got the right to vote thanks to their efforts during World War 1. During the war they showed lots of courage, patriotism, responsibility and an overall willingness to help out their country in its time of need. Men realised that without women’s efforts in the war Britain wouldn’t have survived. In recognition of that realisation they granted women the vote.
I disagree that women’s efforts in the war earned them the right to vote because of what they did before the war e.g. protesting. One of the reasons they earned the vote was because of the pre-war suffragette campaigns such as Black Friday. For a long time before war broke out the suffragettes had been pestering the government about giving women the right to vote. So you could say that it had been coming because there were signs that the government was crumbling under the constant and extreme pressure it was under. One of the most important things about the Suffragettes was that because of their approach it showed to society that women wanted the vote. Whereas peaceful protesting e.g. letter writing never got further than the MP’s they sent them to. Emmeline Pankhurst formed them in 1903 and their protests got worse and more extreme as the years passed. From starting off by letter writing then going through all extremes to end up doing stuff like damaging public property, hunger strikes and even jumping under horses at the derby in 1913. But just by reading those brief comments you can see how much they wanted the vote and how far they had to go to get it.
Another big factor, which is often overlooked, is the part the N.U.W.S.S. played in getting women the vote. A lot of people even go as far as saying that the N.U.W.S.S. were more important and instrumental in getting the vote for women. They were a lot bigger than the W.S.P.U. because they had members all over the country whereas the main percentages of the W.S.P.U. were from London. The N.U.W.S.S. were a lot different from the W.S.P.U. they believed in peaceful protesting unlike the suffragettes. They were nicknamed the Suffragists to go along with the suffragettes. There wasn’t too much in common with these two different groups apart from the leader of the suffragettes used to be in the suffragists. They made a VERY big contribution, which a lot of people do not know. The contribution I’m talking about is when the suffragettes went completely out of control the people that once supported women’s franchise were turning against it. At one time in 1900 more than half of all MP’s were for votes for women. Mrs Fawcett described the movement as ‘glacier-like, slow but very powerful’. But after 1903 many people thought that the suffragettes had gone too far because of the extremes their campaigns had reached, people were tired about hearing what they had done next. But Millicent Fawcett and the suffragists worked tirelessly on what seemed to be a lost cause, gaining back the support of public. They carried on doing the same things they had done all the years back but now it seemed that more people were taking notice. They held many meetings, gave out leaflets and collected petitions. They also did things like met with MP’s to argue their case with MP’s but did so in a dignified manner and when election times were near they would campaign for any candidate that believed women should get the vote. Mrs Fawcett wrote in 1911 that she wanted to show the whole world how to gain reforms without the need for any kind of violence a bit like the preaching’s of Mahatma Gandhi & Martin Luther King Junior. That means that maybe the W.S.P.U weren’t so important and perhaps there should be a statue of Mrs Fawcett in front of parliament rather than Mrs Pankhurst.
In the years between and after the war women were making progress in every field such as in jobs, educationally, legally and economically. They made plenty of educational progress and they even were allowed to vote to run for positions in school boards and as local councillors and such. So they probably would’ve got the vote anyway because they were progressing in all areas of their life. There status was continually increasing so eventually it would’ve increased enough for them to get the vote.
1870 1880 1890 1900 1910
I am going to use this graph to illustrate my point that progress was going up as the years went by. As the years go up on this graph so do women’s protesting and in accordance with that so does the progress made in their lives. This graph shows that women’s progress was on the rise before the war started and it would’ve carried on regardless if the war took place or not. The axis labelled progress could also be called status because as they years went by so did their status in all areas of life.
I am now going to concentrate on an individual’s contribution to the struggle for women’s emancipation. The woman I am going to focus on is Elizabeth Garret Anderson. She spent two years in a boarding school in Blackheath, her parents expected her to stay at home until she found a husband but Elizabeth wanted to concentrate more on getting a job then finding a husband. On a trip to see a friend in London in 1854 she met Emily Davies, a young woman who believed women should have equal rights. Davies introduced her to some feminists in London. In 1859 Elizabeth met Elizabeth Blackwell, who was the first woman to become a doctor in the USA. After meeting her Elizabeth decided she also wanted a career in medicine. Her parents weren’t too keen on the idea but eventually her father agreed to support her in her bid to become Britain's first female doctor. She tried to get into many medical schools but all of them refused on the grounds that she was a woman. So she was forced to become a nurse at Middlesex Hospital and she attended lectures for male doctors. The male doctors complained and she was banned from entering the lecture hall. But then she had a stroke of luck she discovered that the Society Of Apothecaries did not specify that women were banned from taking their exams. In 1865 she sat an exam and passed it but as soon as she did the Society Of Apothecaries changed their rules and banned females from taking their exams. Elizabeth now set out to start a medical practice in London with the help of her father, which she did. By now Elizabeth was a feminist and along with some of her friends formed the Kensington Society, which later went on to join up with a lot of other women’s freedom groups to create the N.U.W.S.S, which was the biggest woman’s suffrage group then. In 1866 she established a dispensary for women in London (later re-named the Elizabeth Garret Anderson Hospital) and in 1870 she was appointed a visiting physician to the East London Hospital. This was good for all women for were aspiring to be doctors because she got a high status job she could inspire other women.
Even though she had done all of this Elizabeth still wanted a medical degree and she was determined to get one. So she studied French and went to the University Of Paris where she sat the exam and passed them. But the British Medical Register refused to recognise her MD degree. She showed how determined she was to prove men that doubted women wrong by doing this. In 1870 the education act was passed and allowed women to vote and run for school board members. Elizabeth stood in London and won more votes than any other candidate. This was real progress in my eyes this showed that people were starting to trust women to do things responsibly and sensibly. The following year she married James Anderson. Elizabeth had three children who all died of meningitis. This did not halt her medical career and in 1872 she opened the New Hospital for Women in London, a hospital that had an entire staff of only women. With the creation of this hospital women could get a lot more medical jobs, which was good. Elizabeth Blackwell who inspired her to become a doctor right at the start of her career was appointed Professor Of Genecology. Then she and Sophia Jex-Blake established a London Medical School for women and in 1883 she was appointed dean of the London School Of Medicine. This was another good achievement in the education field and also to try and make more female doctors. Finally in 1902 after an eventful life she retired to Aldeburgh, but she kept her interest in politics and was elected mayor of Aldeburgh. (The first female mayor in England). This in m opinion was a really big triumph for women everywhere, for her to get such an important and prestigious job.
At the age of seventy-two she joined the suffragettes in 1908 but she left three years later because she didn’t like their arson campaign. This showed that even at her old age she still wanted to battle on for women’s voting rights. She died at the age of eighty-one. She also had two other famous sisters, Millicent and Agnes. Millicent was of course leader of the N.U.W.S.S. and Agnes was a famous furniture designer. The reason I wrote about Elizabeth Garret Anderson was because she did a lot towards women becoming doctors and in the face of adversity (the government not letting her become a doctor) she came out victorious and if it wasn’t for her maybe there wouldn’t be as many female doctor as there are now. So a lot of credit needs to be given to her because she made a lot of advancements in medicine for women everywhere. She also was the first female mayor in England, which was also a major thing because that proved that men were starting to trust women’s judgement.
Therefore I conclude that neither side I argued for has a stronger case than the other. So before the war they were making progress and they might’ve got the vote but without their efforts in the war it may have taken them a longer time to prove just how important they were. In my opinion in the end justice prevailed and women were allowed to vote and gained their freedom
.
A portrait of Elizabeth Garret Anderson.
I have decided to give you information about an individual that has had an impact on the Right for Women to Vote. Emily Davidson a member of the Suffragettes had made plans to go to the 1913 Derby to embark on a political course to draw attention to the women's movement. Her intentions to her members were unclear. When she arrived at the track she positioned herself inside the rails at Tattenham corner. Fifteen horses ran for a first prize of £6450, Craganour was the favourite. Shogun was second favourite, rank outsider at 50-1 was Anmer one of King George V's horses, rode by Herbert Jones. As the 1913 Derby began Emily Davidson waited until the kings horse was in sight and as it approached the corner Emily stepped out in front of Anmer and attempted to snatch the rains of the Kings horse. It is claimed that Emily held on for a few seconds, but the horse moving at over 30 m.p.h and weighing over three-quarters of a ton knocked her over. The horse stumbled throwing Jones violently to the ground, he and Emily both bleeding badly. Spectators rushed onto the track as the race continued. Both were taken to hospital, injuries sustained to Jones proved to be not serious. Unfortunately for Emily Davidson she never regained consciousness and died four days later. She was buried in Northumberland, the inscription on her grave stone read "Deeds, not words". Five years after her death women won the right to vote.
