"Without the First World War British women would not have gained the right to vote in 1918". Do you agree or disagree with this interpretation?

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Daniel Gardner

"Without the First World War British women would not have gained the right to vote in 1918". Do you agree or disagree with this interpretation?

To a certain extent, I do agree with this interpretation. However, as to WW1 being the sole reason for women getting the vote in 1918, is still a highly debateable question and a very controversial issue. A simplistic answer to the question, "What gave British women the vote in 1918?" would be to say the First World War, but World War 1 was merely one of a few contributory factors to women getting the vote. Although I feel it was a major influence as it was the final piece of the campaign and tied all the campaign together,

In 1918, women were finally given the right to vote. This was die to the new 'Representation of the People Act' passed at this time. However, it did not apply to all women, only those over 30 were given the right to vote. This was different to the legal age of 21 men were allowed to vote. In the same year, the bill to allow women over 21 to stand for parliament became law but it was only passed just before the election. This meant female candidates had little preparation time and was probably the reason why there were so few women standing for parliament.

The campaign for votes for women had been running long before the war and began in 1866 where petitions were put up and in the next year a group was set up called the Manchester Society for Women’s Suffrage. More of these groups were set up all over the country and took part in peaceful protests in the form of lecturing and more petitions. The organisation expanded in 1897 when all the societies joined to form the NUWSS. These people were called the suffragists, and only took part in peaceful methods of protest. They were not making any progress and some of the women were becoming impatient and when Emmeline Pankhurst formed the WSSPU (Suffragettes): they attracted many women who wanted results fast. They made their first form of protest in 1905 when Christabel Pankhurst went into a meeting of a liberal party and began shouting about giving the vote to women. A policeman tried to remove her but she spat in his face and hit him. She was found guilty of assault and was sent to prison for seven days.  

This incident caused the country to take notice of the suffragettes, which is what the women wanted. Source B is a speech by Christabel Pankhurst who is trying to suggest that the only way that they will be taken any notice of is if they partake in illegal methods. She explains this by saying, “we cannot make and orderly protest because we do not have the means to do such a thing”. I believe she is trying to make an excuse for the violence. Although this source was said in 1911, I feel that it links In with the start of the violence and was a constant ethic that the suffragettes had.            

Although the women did not get the vote until 1918, in 1906, Sir Henry Campbell (prime minister) supported votes for women but his ministers were very divided and he could take no action.

The women had many reasons for wanting the vote and people who supported there cause believed that if the women gained the vote then the relations and the inequalities between men and women will improve. In addition, the British were very patriotic and proud of their country’s status. They therefore argued that other countries had women voting and Britain was falling behind. People could not bear to hear this and looked for the solution.

The next argument was that there had been changes in the roles of a woman’s working life so why could there not be changes in a political sense. This argument is shown in source E where it shows women on top of men and in jobs such as a teacher and a doctor. Whereas it shows men to be drunks and lunatics. Although this is a piece of suffragette propaganda I believe it gives a clear message of what they were trying to tell people how they felt and what there opinions were. The problem I have with this source and why I feel it could not be used, as true historical evidence is the fact that it contains some mistruths in it. This is the fact that they have included lunatics and convicts in the source but they were not allowed to vote and I feel the suffragettes put them in to exaggerate the fact that they were not allowed the vote and that the extreme failures of men were still allowed to vote. The purpose of the source was to change people’s opinions.

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The next reason people supported votes for women were because Britain was a democratic country. This meant that everyone should have an equal say. This was not the case in Britain, as only half of the population were not voting.

All these reasons obviously had counter arguments, also people are never 100% for something, and there are always going to be reasons why people did not want women to have the vote. These included: People believed that women and men had different roles in life and voting was a mans thing as cleaning and housework was a woman’s. ...

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