Explain why women failed to gain the right to vote between 1900 and 1914.

Rachel Henderson 10E History Coursework Q.1

By 1900 women had made the first steps to having equality with men. New opportunities were being made in the world of work for middle-class and working-class girls. Between 1875 and 1907 around half a million new jobs were created in department stores. The rapid expansion of the postal service also created more counter jobs in a network of local post offices. In both of these situations, hours were long, sometimes 80 - 90 hours per week, and pay was poor. But shop work offered some free time and independence for younger girls. It was far preferable to domestic service.

One occupation which was almost exclusively a woman’s job by 1900 was nursing. By this time there were 60,000 trained nurses. But, as in other areas, they had to resign once they were married.

For better educated women, the horizons broadened even further. As technology improved and businesses grew, the opportunities for women who were literate and could operate the new technology, such as typewriters and telephones, also grew. As the Post Office expanded to take in the telephone service and the distribution of old-age pensions, the need for clerks grew. Private companies often took on women with shorthand and typing skills to cope with the increasing amount of paperwork created by modern business methods. However, men still held the skilled and responsible posts. Women were given the lower status jobs which were brought by the new technology.

The position of schoolteacher was seen as a respectable post for women, and opportunities in this field grew rapidly. The number of children in elementary schools increased after the Forster’s Education Act was passed in 1870. This made it compulsory for all authorities to provide elementary education for all children, including girls, between the ages of five and ten. Many young ladies who would have previously turned to becoming governesses now changed their minds and met the increasing demand for teachers. A career in teaching was certainly less stressful and confining than one as a governess. By 1900, about 75 per cent of teachers were women. But it was not all good, again when the women married they had to resign from their post. Also, a headmistress was paid the same as a male teacher in his first job. There were no female inspectors.

Following on from the Forster’s Act in 1870, the Mundella Act, passed in 1880 made school attendance up to the age of ten compulsory. Previously individual authorities could decide whether or not to make school attendance compulsory, and some did. But they faced many problems with enforcing this. Many families needed the children to help with work, and some could not afford the fee which was required by the school. In 1891 elementary education was made free with a fixed leaving age of eleven. This allowed girls to gain the education which had previously been exclusively for boys.

Even with the compulsory elementary education, the opportunities for women to enter selective professions were few. Some middle-class women campaigners wanted to be able to enter these selective professions, such as law and medicine. Access to such jobs was based entirely on obtaining secondary and higher education. By the middle of the nineteenth century, concern was being expressed about the quality of governesses. This led to the opening of Queen’s College, London, by the professors of King’s College, in 1848. This college was opened to educate governesses.

Frances Buss, a student from Queen’s, went on to change her private school into the North London Collegiate School for Ladies in 1853. Dorothea Beale, another student from Queen’s, went on to become headmistress of Cheltenham Ladies’ College in 1858. Both these women made important contributions to schooling for girls. Both taught subjects that were generally frowned upon for girls; maths, science and geography to name a few. They were keen for their girls to be entered for public examinations, and used the latest teaching methods to make this possible. Miss Beale kept a diary which contained the many comments ...

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The examples of these two pioneers inspired other women. Maria Gray founded, with the help of business sponsors and share certificates, the Girls’ Public Day School Trust. It began with three schools in Chelsea, Notting Hill and Croydon. By the 1890s it ran 40 schools and taught 7,000 pupils. Maria also opened a kindergarten at her school in Croydon, set up the National Union for Promoting Higher Education of Women in 1872, and in 1878 established the first teacher training college for women.

Emily Davies succeeded in persuading Cambridge, Durham and Oxford Universities to allow women to sit their examinations from the mid 1860s onwards, although they were not allowed to become students, or gain degrees. Davies opened a female college, Hitchin, 1869, which became Girton College in 1873, the first women’s college at Cambridge. Some universities went on to accept women on equal terms with men but it was a long and difficult struggle, and was nowhere near complete even by 1900. Oxford did not give equality to female students until 1947.

But even if a women went through University and became a lawyer or a doctor, in most cases they would have to resign if they got married. If they carried on working, all their wages would go directly to the husband. All a woman’s belongings would be handed over to the man when they got married. A married woman could not make a will, her belongings would go directly to the husband. If a husband divorced his wife, she would lose the right to see her children, however young they are.

The Custody of Infants Act was passed in 1839, this meant that mothers gained legal custody of children under seven years, and access to children over that age. This applied as long as she had not been found guilty of adultery.

The Matrimonial Causes Act , passed in 1857 meant that divorces could be brought through a new, Court of Divorce rather than by an expensive, private Act of Parliament which it had been before. Women who had been deserted by their husbands, now got the same rights to own or bequeath property as single women. This was important but it just made it easier for men to divorce their wives. Men could divorce their wives purely on the grounds of adultery, but women had to prove that their husband had been cruel, or had committed an offence. The divorce rate began to rise but men could still initiate divorce easier than women.

Two Married Women’s Property Acts were passed. The first in 1870 gave women the right to own property and keep their earnings from work. This act had many loopholes and a married woman’s property was not completely hers until after the second act had been passed in 1882. It took 18 attempts to get both of these acts passed by Parliament.

Two more important Acts were passed in 1886. By the Guardianship of Infants Act, the mother now became the legal guardian of the children if the father died. The Married Woman’s Act meant that when a husband deserted his wife he had to pay maintenance. In 1891 a court passed a judgement that a man could not force his wife to live with him.

The advances that had been made before 1900 were significant, but women were still inferior in marriage, barred from most professions and they could not even vote. The right to vote was seen as a key to many other changes, but as was shown in the 19th century every change, and advance to equality involved a great struggle. What were their chances with an all-male Parliament, elected by an all-male electorate? Women were going to have to fight to get the vote, seen as the most basic injustice of all. By this time women had already been campaigning for Suffrage since the 1850s.

In 1897, organisations such as the Female Political Union and the Manchester Women’s Suffrage Societies joined together to form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). These campaigners pointed out that the Franchise, the right to vote, had been extended for men in 1832, 1867 and 1884. The men franchised by the 1884 Act were generally less well off and much less educated than the suffragists. The NUWSS consisted of mainly middle-class women who were mostly well educated people. These campaigners didn’t want the vote for all women, they just thought that women should be able to qualify for the vote by means of their wealth or property, as men do.

This organisation pointed out that women made up 52.7% of the population over 21, therefore they, the majority, should be able to elect the parliament which was to run the country. Due to this inequality in numbers, many women preferred to stay single than get married. This may have also been due to the fact that they wanted to work, not have to resign due to their matrimonial state. In 1871, two-thirds of all women aged between 20 and 24 were single.

Another argument that the NUWSS used was that women, if they owned property or earned money, paid tax as men did. Surely if they are paying tax towards the government, they should be able to choose which government that tax was going to. In 1884 less than 20% of the adult population could vote.

The opposition to reform was extremely strong, even Queen Victoria opposed women’s suffrage, and her a woman herself. This is typical of one of the arguments against women’s suffrage, the fact that not all women wanted it. Another prominent woman, Florence Nightingale, was also opposed to women’s suffrage, she felt there were more important issues. The liberal leader, William Gladstone, had fought against the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act and continued to oppose extensions of women’s rights.

John Stuart Mill suggested female suffrage in 1867 he was confronted with many arguments against the measure. Women were said to be too emotional with many and impulsive to be trusted with the vote. Another argument was that the mental strain of making the decision would be too great for some women. A popular comment was that women should be protected from the harsh and sometimes grubby world of politics, because of course they are the weaker sex!

The Suffragists’ (members of the NUWSS) campaign was led by Millicent Fawcett, sister of the medical campaigner Elizabeth Garett Anderson. The early campaign achieved some success, it gained the support of many Liberal MPs, some Conservative leaders and the Labour Party, 73 MPs supported John Stuart Mill’s proposal of suffrage in 1867. The Suffragists’ campaign brought the women’s plight to the attention of the public, after the 1867 bid many local women’s suffrage societies were formed. They all came together in 1897 to form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. This society consisted of over 500 local branches. By 1902 the campaign had gained the support of working-class women as well. This was shown by the support that Eva Gore-Booth gained when she organised a petition to be taken to Parliament; 67,000 textile workers from northern England signed this petition.

The leader of the Suffragists, Millicent Fawcett to whom they argued their case. They questioned the candidates on their view of women’s suffrage at every election. This could be seen as successful, seeing as the subject was raised in Parliament 15 times before 1900. Every time it was refused, probably because no party would adopt women’s suffrage as a policy. It was a common view that women’s suffrage would eventually win at an election, but some suffragists found the wait tiresome, and could not see peaceful campaigns gaining them the vote.

Emmeline Pankhurst was one of these frustrated Suffragists, in 1903 she founded a new campaigning organisation, the Women’s Social and Political Union. This group differed from the Suffragists in many ways, but one of the main contrasts was that this new group wanted the vote for all women, whether they were rich or poor, skilled or uneducated, came from wealthy, privileged backgrounds or were working girls who needed their wages to feed themselves. Mrs Pankhurst felt that the movement had to use more radical and militant methods if it was to succeed. The ‘Daily Mail’ appointed these new radicals the title of ‘Suffragettes’, which was frequently seen in the headlines. The Suffragettes followed Emmeline Pankhurst’s lead and disrupted political meetings and harassed ministers; those who showed firm opposition to women’s suffrage were shown particularly harsh abuse, including the Liberal Prime Minister, Asquith.

The relationship between the groups, the Suffragists and the more militant, Suffragettes, was difficult. There was much rivalry, but Christabel Pankhurst (daughter of Emmeline) called for the two groups to join. But Millicent Fawcett refused because she was not prepared to join with the suffragettes, she felt that their violent methods could be counter-productive. There was also another fault to there being two separate groups, the women of the public didn’t know which group to support. How could they be expected to gain the right to vote if they were not united to get it?

The Suffragette campaign intensified and became more vocal, to the disapproval of the Suffragists. In 1905, Annie Kennedy and Christabl Pankhurst 1are arrested after they disrupted a political meeting in Manchester which resulted in them spitting at and then punching a policeman. When reports of their trial were published in the paper it encouraged them to become more violent, because they believed it would gain them positive publicity.

When the Suffragettes refused to eat whilst imprisoned the government responded by ordering them to be force fed. This was brutal and degrading but it gained the Suffragettes a lot of public sympathy. In 1913, the government passed an Act which allowed hunger strikers to leave prison, recover and return to continue their sentence. This was called the Cat and Mouse Act and it deprived the Suffragettes of one of their tools to gain sympathy, which they believed was a good form of publicity.

The Suffragettes continued to lose sympathy as their campaign became more militant. In December 1911, a group of Suffragettes, led by Christabel Pankhurst marched down Oxford Street in London and smashed the plate glass shop windows, on a signal from Christabel; this escapade caused thousands of pounds worth of damage. This incident did not cause any harm to the people that the Suffragettes were fighting, but to the shop owners, and it ruined Christmas for the public in London. This caused Pethick Lawrence to withdraw his financial support of the Suffragette movement. This showed that the Suffragettes were taking violence to a new level. This sort of behaviour lost the Suffragettes their public support and even the MPs who had previously supported their cause were beginning to question whether their actions were fitting to their fight.

The Suffragettes’ campaign had certainly raised the profile of their campaign, but they had given their opponents a reason to reject women’s suffrage. In many ways the Suffragette Campaign undid much of the good work the Suffragists had been doing since the 1850s.

So, during this period the Suffragists could not convince a majority of Parliament to support their motion, hindered by the Suffragettes’ targeting of political meetings and of the MPs themselves. The Suffragists’ campaign was left as a minor concern due to the violence and increasing militancy of the Suffragettes, which was more of a hindrance than a help. The government refused to give in to the violence of the Suffragettes because it would lead people to believe that they could get what they want through militant methods. MPs became less keen to admit that they agreed with the campaign due to the increasing opposition to the campaigns. Also the women in the public were torn whether they should support the Suffragettes with their extremist campaigns or the more conservative Suffragists. Many working girls would support the Suffragettes purely because they were fighting for the vote for ordinary women, whereas the Suffragists were only campaigning for the vote for married women, women who owned land or were able to qualify in the same way men did.

Both organisations suspended their campaigns when war was announced in 1914.