As had happened when the Liberals were in opposition, when the Conservatives were out of power some leading politicians tended to be more favourable to the idea that some women should be given the vote. One reason for this change was their calculation that the women they were targeting – middle and upper class women who were most likely to get the vote on the same basis as men – would be likely to vote Conservative. When they returned to power in 1886 they ‘gave “all aid short of help” to the movement despite their support for it before this’. Unfortunately for the suffrage movement they were in power until 1905 except for a brief period between 1892 and 1895 when in fact they had the balance of power.
One consequence of the Third Reform Act was the substantial increase in the number of voters and the need for the political parties to have some form of political organisation to maintain the support of these voters. Gladstone’s legislation on corrupt electoral practices and the limits this set on campaign exposure gave ‘a perfect opportunity to engage the legions of women eager to help friends and relatives campaigning for office’. From the 1880s the main political parties began to make use of the time and energy that women who supported them were prepared to donate. 1883 saw the Conservative Party’s Primrose League set up. It was hierarchical, offering different memberships at different rates to upper and lower classes. It was an immediate success with women but what is most striking is that it was a body which incorporated men and women rather than segregating them. Full women members regularly convened political meetings, brought voters to the polls on election days, and distributed campaign literature to small and remote villages. The League did not campaign in favour of women’s suffrage, but made it clear that it’s members were free to support women’s suffrage if they wished.
Also set up at the same time were Women’s Liberal Associations. These were set up to combat many Liberals’ indifference to women’s suffrage. Their growth accelerated after the success of the Primrose League but differed in that all the members were women. In 1887 they came under the control of the Women’s Liberal Federation. The experience women gained from WLAs was similar to the Primrose League, however once part of the Women’s Federal Association they attempted to broaden their membership base, often enlisting professional women of the temperance (anti-alcohol) and moral reform movement. As a result, WLA members learned not only to face the general public in door-to-door canvassing, but to confront male politicians in local meetings. Inevitably, they were introduced to the techniques of practical electioneering, and many learned their lessons well.
At about the same time as the split in the Liberal Party (shortly after the Third Reform Bill had been passed) there was also a split in the women’s suffrage movement. The main body of Liberal women remained strongly behind Gladstone, others such as Millicent Garrett Fawcett, became Liberal Unionists. Divisions were further intensified in 1888 when the central committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage (NSWS) attempted to change the way in which the organisation was structured. This caused the NSWS to split into two different groups, one supporting the new rules – the Central National Society for Women’s Suffrage (later the Parliament Street Society) - and one sticking to the old rules – the Central Committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage. It is thought that all these divisions did not help the suffrage movement during this time. Further divisions arose in 1888 over the question of different rights for married and single women and then again in July 1889 when a new group split off the Parliament Street Society - called the Women’s Franchise League (WFL). This group argued that married women should be included in any legislation giving women the vote. Also they had a wider women’s rights objective and so attracted a more radical membership. Their first leader was Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, but she was soon replaced by Ursula Bright and Emmeline Pankhurst. When Elizabeth Elmy was ousted from the leadership she set up yet another group, the Women’s Emancipation League.
Whilst there is no doubt that this splintering of the movement in the late 1880s did not increase its chance of success, these divisions within the movement should not be exaggerated. There was always a basic unity of purpose within the movement. This view is confirmed by the fact that both the Parliament Street Society and the Central Committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage cooperated with each other in the build up to the 1894 Local Government Act which gave married women the same rights as single women to vote in local government elections, to become Poor Law Guardians and to join School Boards. This Act was a significant advance for married women and removed a source of division between the Suffrage Societies. This led to a conference of all Suffrage Societies in 1896. Speakers at the Conference stressed that the ‘political difficulty’ within the movement need not divide it since Women’s Suffrage was a non-party issue.
Suffragists from all groups worked together to organise a petition in support of the franchise. In 1897 this petition was presented to Parliament and used to back the Women’s Suffrage Bill, which although did not become law, did get past its second reading and was a catalyst for the formation of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) with Mrs Millicent Garrett Fawcett as it’s president. Between 1897 and 1903 the NUWSS coordinated the campaign for women’s suffrage and it remained the focus of the constitutionalist approach after 1903.
Although, in terms of political gains for the suffragists these 23 years may have seemed to have gained very little, in fact they were invaluable in equipping the movement with knowledge and experience of political campaigning as well as raising the profile of women in the political arena. Without the work put in by women during this time gains made in later years would have been harder to achieve.
