From 1869 to 1888, women gained three new acts, these were; the Municipal Franchise Act (1869) – which entitled women who were single and ratepayers to vote in local elections, the Married Women’s Property Act (1870) – which meant husbands were no longer owning their property and women could sue for desertion without being sent to the workhouse, and the 1870 Education Act (1872 Scotland) – which guaranteed girls the same basic education as boys. However, some of the acts passed in the period between 1800 and 1870 were limited in their ability. For example, the Municipal Franchise Act assured women the right to vote in local elections, but the law asserted that the women would have to be a ratepayer and single, therefore ruling out most potential candidates. This limitation was also partially applied to working allowances; women who were married were not able to be employed because employers believed that having marital status distracted the employee away from the sole focus of her job. To further the women’s suffrage sceptics arguments, influential figures such as Queen Victoria and Florence Nightingale made speeches that damned actions for women’s right to vote. Each stated that women would change as a consequence of franchise and would be “all the worse for it” and that there were more pressing causes that needed addressing more than giving women the vote.
Although the issue of women’s rights to vote was raised in the mid 1800s, it wasn’t until the amalgamation of the ‘National Central Society for Women's Suffrage’ and the ‘Central Committee, National Society for Women's Suffrage’ (and other small societies) that the biggest impact was made. The merger formed in 1897, created the NUWSS and was led by Millicent Fawcett. The group was a particularly civil and public movement that incorporated organised petitions, public meetings, selecting of pro-suffrage candidates to run for MP, producing propaganda and literature to promote their initiative. By 1913, the NUWSS was the largest national organisation campaigning for votes for women, with over 100,000 direct or indirect members. The group had the largest support base in north-west England, in particular Manchester and Liverpool, which was where the majority of industrial work was undertaken. The ‘suffragists’ as they became to be known, arranged activity at convenient times for workers, such as lunch breaks etc. this was probably due down to the fact that most of the members of the group were working class, and could not afford to vacate work placements at shift times. Even though the number of pro-suffrage MPs in the House of Commons grew, the Suffragists got nowhere in their campaign. This was a consequence of the nature of the operation that was being used; the suffragists were losing necessary support from the Liberals at the turn of the century, and they were losing media interest in their campaign because of the lack of any “action”, but the largest flaw was the fact that they concentrated on multiple issues, not only women’s suffrage, so supporters and the public believed they were not as committed to the idea as other groups.
So in 1903, a group of ex-NUWSS members (the Pankhurst family) created a new, more militant, society to hopefully obtain the vote. This group was known as the WSPU and was created with different methods in mind, as the motto- “Deeds not Words” – showed. They became to be known as “Suffragettes” by a term coined in the Daily Mail in 1906. The first action taken by the WSPU was by interrupting a Liberal conference in Manchester at the Free Trade Hall in 1905; both Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst were arrested, this shocked the public and drew publicity. By 1906, the WSPU moved its base to London because enough attention wasn’t being received from its previous headquarters in Manchester; the fact that the Liberal cabinet also won the General Election in this year may have also assisted in the decision. They, as the NUWSS did, used; propaganda, leaflets speeches etc. and this was a key trait which linked the two groups in the early days. However, the WSPU use of propaganda was very different to the Suffragists, they requested some shops (or created new shops) to sell “Votes for Women” items. The shops were located all over Britain, predominantly in major towns and cities, and products were selling rapidly. By 1909, the Votes for Women newsletter was selling 20,000 copies per week, by 1910, Membership has reached 2,000 and employment where money was available began to appear in the group. Also in 1908, two major processions took place, one on the June 14th and the other 30th June. Both encouraged nearly 20,000 people to attend and this early stage in the WSPU movement was very popular with supporters until violence was used; which was when public opinion changed dramatically.
It was after this in 1913 that after many prisoners who sought to seek “political” status were beginning on hunger strikes that the government introduced the “Cat and Mouse” Act. This was purposely set to downgrade members to supporters, but ultimately the members were too persistent and force-feeding was re-introduced. Furthermore, by 1914, membership began to dwindle as hunger strikes took their toll and the leadership team spearheaded operations from Paris. Arguments soon replaced the real purpose of the campaign in the media and supporters were now turning against the idea, and as a result the drive lost a great amount of support. Also, the Asquith government refused to give into the “terrorist actions” that were occurring as this would have given great inspiration to crusaders of “Home Rule” in Ireland. And as the suffragettes had taken publicity to the maximum, the suffragists had been overruled in their aims and were soon left out, so when they requested the government in a civil manner later on, they were ignored. However, the ultimate reduction in campaign morale was the fact that divisions were appearing in the group as lesser-active members began to break away and so, according to the many historians – the shock of the public worsened the situation by detaching lesser-militant supporters from higher-up members.
By 1900, the suffragists had a large number of MPs as support. However, there were still multiple reasons why the majority of the general public believed that women should not get the vote. At the turn of the century, Liberal leaders were not fully willing to give women the vote, mainly because the early proposals involved only giving wealthy women the vote, so if the Liberal cabinet gained the input of women then it was feared they would vote for the opposition, the Conservatives. However, Liberal backbenchers were willing, and so this contrast opinion divided the party. The Tories were also not sure of giving the vote because they believed that if they did then women would vote for Labour or Liberal, aswell as the fact that the Conservative backbenchers were completely opposed. The new political party, Labour, was another group which interestingly decided to try to obtain the vote for women, however their overall strength (in terms of MPs) was not enough to challenge the Asquith government. Plus, James Keir Hardie and Labour wanted to get the vote for women but believed that all the working-class should get it first, but this was almost impossible as this would have included already prohibited members of society. And so because of the mixed opinion, a stalemate developed.
Additionally, there were still some marks on women in traditional culture. They were seen as ‘intellectually inept’ and giving them vote would give them ‘influence in other areas of society’. Men, and some women, generally believed that a woman’s role in life was to be housebound and be ‘enforcers of moral standards’, and their role in politics would make them ‘less feminine’. But these arguments may be understandable as women made 51% of the population, and therefore a majority if a general election was available to women. This opposition, however, was before 1900. After that date, the ultimate reason why women did not get the vote was because of the actions the campaigners took. The prison sentences from 1900 to 1914, gave negative publicity to the promoters of the cause and they lost a great deal of suffragist and suffragette members. After 1911, the action became more violent and aggression became an official policy of the WSPU. The support for the movement became disturbed by the actions and the opportunities that the suffragists had created, the suffragettes destroyed. The suffragettes had attempted to and succeeded in raising the PR of the progress, but in due course they ultimately damaged their own movement.
