In the 1830 election George lost his seat in Guildford. Caroline though her contacts got George a job as a magistrate from a man called lord Melbourne (later to become the prime minister in 1835). The beating continued after Caroline’s kindness so she started making regular visits to escape her problems, to lord Melbourne when the lord became Prime Minister George claimed that the Prime Minister had and is having an affair George then sued lord Melbourne for adultery. In the end the prime minister won the court case. George grew increasingly cross and cut contact from Caroline and her sons and cut her allowance. Caroline grew desperate even lord Melbourne had now abandoned her so she began to teach herself law. She later found out all the rights she gave up when she married. She began to gain peoples support within parliament and strived for these rights back and get her boys back. In the times she strove for women’s rights she passed, the divorce act of 1857 and the custody of children act in 1839.
Caroline Norton proved that women’s brains could handle politics.
There were many other women who proved such wrong the reasons it got desperate near the end of the century when such reasons as women were too emotional for politics and politics is mans business, women are incapable of rational thought were brought up among others.
In 1851 there was a meeting in Sheffield to discuss and start the female political union they believed that women should no longer be in suffrage (with out vote). They set out to gain the vote for women over 21 they would do this in a formal way like over dinner with important people, pamphlets ect. The NUWSS was mainly women at first but later on they gained support in high places most being pollutions. They also seeked equal rights for ALL women. By most of people there ideas seemed too far-fetched and thought that women’s equal rights would breakdown family life and the rest of society would follow. But 52 years later the NUWSS was still fighting for women’s rights and new group of suffrage protesters were born by Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst In 1903 she set up the women’s social and political union (WSPU) who later became known as the suffragettes (women campaigning for the vote). They had got bored of the polite way of getting what they wanted and they turned to violence and striking and causing a nuisance of themselves. The whole reasons of their campaign were to put the government and crown under pressure and be noticed but the rest of the public and media. They did it all right! There were protesting on the streets, assaulting police officers, vandalism and other disturbances the government were forced to put the women in to prison many people were shocked that the police would put women in such a horrible place, already the campaign was working they were getting publicity and getting in to the discussion’s at the dinner table but the women in the prison were going on hunger strikes so the prison guards had to force feed them. Many doctors and members of the public complained. The force feedings stopped and the women prisoners were released until they got better and were arrested again at later date. This was later nick named the cat and mouse act as it mimicked a cat and mouse chase. But 1913 one of the suffragettes really caught the media’s government and especially the crown in the June derby a women Emily Davison ran out in to the racecourse in front of the kings horse she nearly killed the jockey and her but most of all brought down a valuable horse. Papers like the Times said,
“The woman rushed from the rails into the course as the horses swept round the corner. She did not interfere with the racing, but she nearly killed the jockey as well as herself and she brought down a valuable horse. A deed of this kind is unlikely to increase the popularity of the women’s cause.
THE TIMES (newspaper)
The times says that this deed is unlikely to cause any popularity of the women’s cause this could be argued, but there were also some women who thought the same way as most of the men that the protesters should be mothering their children not being arrested they even set up unions themselves the anti-suffrage league, The women were also dived among them self’s this proved a main problem in later talks. But as the First World War came the suffragettes at their point of triumph gave up for the war effort. It was believed that they would gain more freedom during the war and it was true not only at home were they were doing most of the men’s old jobs like chimney sweeps, clerks, munitions workers, ship wielders etc. They were also going to the battlefield as nurses (VAD nurses). The women workers were found cheaper than men and used in dangerous jobs such as munitions workers (canaries) they were nick named the canneries because of a form of nitrate poisoning that made the skin go yellow but dramatically decreased their life expectancy when the war finished their was a broader view women’s equal rights and women later got the vote in 1928.