Source C shows the divided view of the WSPU violent campaign. Some women felt that thought the violent campaigns they can force the Government to give in but others felt that they were only giving women a bad name. It was this conflict that ended all relationship between the NUWSS and the WSPU.
Source C shows two women outside a Liberal meeting. One is screaming at the door and is a suffragette. The other is holding onto the suffragette’s arm and is not pleased with her. She cannot understand what the suffragette is doing that will help its cause. The two women show the divided views at the time. The poster was put together by Bernard Partridge in 1906 and he has decided to call the poster ‘THE SHRIEKING SISTER’. It is obvious that he does not agree with the suffragettes views and ways of campaigning.
In terms of sources B supporting the evidence in source C, this is not entirely true. The two sources have not got a lot of similarities and are just interpretations of two different people. However both sources are primary sources and both give the impression that the suffragettes are out of control. For example source B describes suffragettes as ‘a shrill cry’ and source C describes the suffragette as ‘the shrieking sister’ but whereas the author of source B appears not to support women’s suffrage, the cartoonist of source C does support the suffrages’ methods of campaigning.
- Why, despite the Suffragette activity, had women not gained the vote by the outbreak of the First World War?
The idea of women getting the vote has been in the mind of society since 1867 when a writer named John Stuart Mill went to court with the case that the word ‘man’ also covered women and therefore women should be allowed to vote. The case went to the House of Lords where the case was lost. If the case had been won the WSPU and NUWSS would have never been formed.
However the case was lost and from 1870 an interest in votes for women grew. The first known leader of the campaign of the women’s suffrage was Lydia Becker. Lots of societies were formed including national organisations, notably the Primrose League and the Women’s Liberal Foundation. After the death of Lydia Becker, leadership was passed onto Millicent Garrett Fawcett who went on to form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage (NUWSS) in 1897. The NUWSS worked with the law to bring change. They held many meetings and managed to get a lot of bills into Parliament. But the Government always talked their way out of getting the bills passed. However there was a lot of support for the women’s suffrage both by the public and the Liberal party. Despite this a group of women felt that it was taking too long to bring change and in 1903 the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was formed. The WSPU wanted direct action and in the years to follow they responded with militant action.
It was when the WSPU started using militant action that the support for the women’s suffrage weakened. The government always said that they would grant women the vote when there was enough support from the public. This argument was used by Asquith the leader of the Liberal Party. The Liberal part always supported the women’s suffrage but there was some indication that their leader Asquith did not support the cause. Although he did not say it directly he always said that women would be given the vote when there was enough support. His common phrase was “wait and see”.
Source D is written by Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the WSPU. In the source she says that there was a lot of support for the women’s suffrage in 1906 which is true. During the time a bill got all the way the way to a second reading where it was then moved to the House of Lords where it was denied. The reason it was denied was because in 1906 the House of Lords was seated with 100% Conservatives who were strongly against the women’s suffrage. So obviously they turned down the bill.
The extract from source D speaks about how there was support in 1906 and how women were not given the vote. It suggests that the Government cannot keep promises and could not keep to their word.
One of the reasons women lost support after 1906 was because the violent approach the WSPU took to force the Government to give them the vote. They often started screaming outside Government meetings, chained themselves to railings outside 10 Downing Street and in extreme cases started planting bombs. People were appalled by their behaviour and asked why they were acting in just a disgraceful way and I petition was signed by a quarter of a million people for the anti-suffrage league.
The answer the WSPU always gave was that they were bringing the issue of women’s suffrage into people’s mind. Their attacks and violent campaign was all over the media and everyone was talking about it which is exactly what the WSPU wanted. The government always said that the public needed to be educated about giving women the vote and some argued that this was a way of doing just that.
Before the First World War there was a general perception of women. Women were seen as carers who should stay at home. They were seen as too fragile to deal with politics and would not understand. Most men felt that they were superior to women and this is brought out in source E where a Member of Parliament talks about voting against the women’s suffrage in fear that they would take over rule of the country. Men felt that that would be a disgrace and could not being allowed to happen under any circumstances. The source also suggests that women are not capable off dealing with politics and are too emotional.
However in 1910 women aged thirty and property owners nearly got the vote when the Conciliation Bill got through a few sittings but it was outvoted by the Liberals because they felt that if they gave the vote to these women they would be giving the Conservatives more voters.
However the main reason why women did not get the vote before the outbreak of the First World War was because it was just not an important enough issue for the Liberal Government. The Liberals were trying to bring in new reforms. High on their list was bringing in old age pensions, sick pay and welfare reforms. Of course all this meant that the tax rate would go up which the Conservatives were against. So the Liberals put a great fight that they did eventually win.
The Liberals also had other priorities they had do deal with including a political battle over Ireland. Large parts of Ireland were demanding home rule for their country to be free. Many Irish citizens held demonstrations and protests which the Liberals had to deal with.
All this resulted in the topic of the women’s suffrage being at the bottom of the Government’s priorities. The Liberal always planned to bring it up but there were always more important matters to be dealt with. In answer to the question, women did not gain the vote by the outbreak of the First World War for a number of reasons, the most important of which I believe to be the fact that the Liberal Government had more important priorities to deal with.
- How useful are these two sources (F and G) as evidence for the contribution of women to the war effort in the years 1914-1918?
In 1914 Britain went to war against Germany. British troops thought that they would be back victorious by Christmas that year. Little did they know that the war would drag on for four years claiming thousands of lives in the process.
At the beginning of the First World War women were very keen to play a part in the war even if it was not fighting at the battlefront. The WSPU had stopped their militant action for the war and concentrated on trying to play a part in it. Some women even volunteered to go out as nurses for injured soldiers. They were turned down. All women were encouraged to do was knit socks and scarves for the soldiers. Asquith said at the start of the war “business as usual” which he adopted as a slogan but that was soon to change.
In May 1915 there was a major shortage of shells in France. It was when the shortage was discovered that the Government realised that business was not “usual” and that the war effort had to be taken more seriously. David Lloyd George, the Minister for Munitions, immediately made every factory in Britain start producing war materials but by the end of the year there was another problem; over 2,500,000 men had volunteered to go to war and the factories were very short of workers. The Government had no choice but to bring women in to work. They issued propaganda posters to encourage women to work in the factories and source F is one of these very posters.
Source F is an example of the propaganda posters issued by the Government to get women to sign up to work in the munitions factories. The poster shows a woman dressed in factory clothes smiling. This suggests that work in factories is fun but in fact it was very dangerous and there were no safety precautions. Many woman were called ‘canaries’ because their skin turned yellow from working with explosive powder. Some even caught lung diseases or became infertile.
However despite all these risks women did respond to the posters and in great numbers as shown in source G. Source G is a list of statistics showing the number of women working in industry in 1914 and 1918. There is a very huge increase (approximately 350%) in the number of women working from 1914 to 1918. This shows that women did respond to the posters like the one in source G.
Source F is a primary source as it was made at the time the First World War was taking place. However it has very little usefulness as it only shows the positive side of working in factories and is propaganda material. The poster doesn’t really show the underlining dangers of working in the munitions factories but gives us a insight of what the British Government were trying to do to get women into work during desperate times, neither does the source by itself actually give an indication of how many women actually responded to the Government propaganda.
In contrast source G is a secondary source taken from a school textbook. It is more useful than source F because it shows figures and statistics which can be referred to from real events from took place during the war. The source is also reliable because having come from school textbook historians would have done research before putting together the table of statistics.
Although the two sources have a different level of useful both complement each other and are linked. Source F is a poster showing the campaign to get women into work and source G shows the result of that campaign which was that it was successful because the number of women working during the war years does increase. So putting both sources together makes them a very useful piece of evidence however they don’t show the whole picture. There is no indication in the two sources of the risks that women faced working in the factories which was very high and neither do they show lots of other occupations and roles women did as part of the war effort, for example joining nursing units like the FANY.
Some would ask why women chose to go and work in the munitions factories after they were turned down at the start of the war and when there were so many risks involved. The reason was because women liked the new independence the jobs gave. They were earning a lot more money that they would have doing their little home jobs and that gave them a new taste of life.
- ‘It was the work that women did during the war that earned them the vote’. Use the sources (H, I and J), and your own knowledge, to explain whether you agree with this interpretation.
When the First World War ended surviving soldiers faced coming back to the country without the right to vote! This was because under the Household Franchise all men eligible to vote had to register their vote before elections. However nearly all men had not had the chance to register because they were at war and therefore lost their right to vote under the Household Franchise. The Government knew that they couldn’t leave the situation alone because soldiers had put their lives on the line for their country and would be very angry if they weren’t repaid with the vote. So instead of tampering with the Household Franchise the Government passed a new Act in 1918 called The Representation of the People Act. This Act allowed all men over the age of twenty one to vote and a extra bit was added allowing some women to vote. The Representation of People’s Act was a huge achievement for the campaigners of the women’s suffrage as it was the first time women were ever given the right to vote.
Some would say that the thing that gave women the vote was their hard work during the war. Source H agrees a little with this concept. The source is from a history book about the women’s suffrage written in 1980. The source says that women got the vote as a “reward for their loyal wartime service”. The source suggests that women got the vote because they have also successfully brought up fighting men of the future which was the role that has always been expected from men and society. The source also mentions that only women aged over the age of thirty could vote. This contradicts the views of the source as most of the women working in the factories were younger men under the age of thirty. So really they were not rewarded for their hard work.
However source I, a book written in 1980, disagrees with source H. the source does agree that the role women played in the war helped them get the vote but it also makes it clear that this was not the only reason. It makes the statement that women’s suffrage was a small change in a series of major social political changes taking place following the war. There was also a lot of support for the women’s suffrage after the war as people saw a change in women after the change form the violent campaign of the WSPU before the outbreak of the war. Society was very proud of the effort women put into working in the munitions factories and it was obvious to everyone that without the hard work the women did the war could not have been won.
All this support from society brings us back to what Asquith said when he was elected. He said that he would give women the vote when there was enough support for the women’s suffrage in society. After the war the support from society Asquith was talking about had arrived and source J is part of a speech made by Asquith in 1917 where he talks about giving women the vote. In the speech Asquith appears to have changed his attitude to women. He recognises the huge part women has played in the war and felt the need to reward them. He also touches on the fact that the WSPU had stopped their militant campaign.
The people of Britain did not want a return of the militant campaign of the WSPU and for a start the Government could not handle another violent campaign. After the war Britain was exhausted and financially broken. They could not face another wave of attacks and so to avoid a return of them an extra bit was added to the Representation of People Act allowing some women to get the vote. The attacks from the WSPU may not have returned but he Government decided not to take the risk.
One thing that all the sources failed to mention was that there was a catch. Although all men could vote after 1918 women could not. If women wanted to vote they had to be aged over thirty and own property. The conditions were put in place so that men were still the majority voters and the Government believed that women over the age of thirty were more mature and would probably vote the same as their husbands. Also in a way the Household Franchise still lived on because before the war men could vote under the Franchise if they owned property and after the war this condition was moved onto women.
Overall there are many reasons that led up to some women getting the vote. It was not just the work they did during that war that got them the vote. It played a major part in it but there were other factors including the fact that public opinion had changed and fear of the return of a militant campaign by the WSPU. However the vote was given only to women over the age of thirty so women still had a fight to move the voting age down to twenty one, the same as men, which didn’t come about until 1928.
