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What was the degree of support for the movement amongst the public? Did it cross all classes? [Sources: working class female workers participation, middle class female supporters] There was a large attendance at a "At Home" held at Hurst-on-Clays, East Grinstead, by kind permission of Lady Jeannie Lucinda Musgrave on Tuesday afternoon. Mrs. Archibald Colquhoun of the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League said that women had never possessed the right to vote for Members of Parliament in this country nor in any great country, and although the women’s vote had been granted in one or two smaller countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, no great empire have given women’s a voice in running the country. Women have not had the political experience that men had, and, on the whole, did not want the vote, and had little knowledge of, or interest in, politics. Politics would go on without the help of women, but the home wouldn’t. The W.S.P.U. demonstrated their agitprop approach in the first of many militant protests: Christabel, and Annie Kenney, a mill girl from Oldham, chose a meeting held by Liberal politicians Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey, in Manchester on 13 th October 1905. As result of their noisy interruptions and persistent questions, they were ejected and continued to protest outside and were later sent to Strangeways Prison. Today we might now describe their actions as controversial, but at the time they were found deeply troubling and unfeminine. The slogan ‘Deeds Not Words’ had become a reality, and a precedent for their entire campaign. Some examples of department code references you can try are shown below along with the sort of subjects you might find covered by these departments:
Edexcel – A Level History: Protest, Agitation and Parliamentary Reform in Britain c1780-1928: The Women’s Social and Political Union.Hold a debate on the case for/against the different tactics used by suffragettes or debate police/authorities responses’ to the campaign. Vanishing for the Vote: Suffrage, Citizenship and the Battle for the Census, Jill Liddington (Manchester University Press, 2014) Women’s suffrage and Government control, 1906–1922 : papers from the Cabinet, Home Office and Metropolitan Police files in the Public Record Office (CAB 41, HO 45, HO 144, MEPO 2 & MEPO 3), Marlborough, Matthew, Adam 2000, 15 microfilm reels, British Library. William Cremer was one of the leading opponents of women's suffrage. Hansard reported a speech he made in the House of Commons on women's suffrage on 25th April, 1906, he argued: "He (William Cremer) had always contended that if we opened the door and enfranchised ever so small a number of females, they could not possibly close it, and that it ultimately meant adult suffrage. The government of the country would therefore be handed over to a majority who would not be men, but women. Women are creatures of impulse and emotion and did not decide questions on the ground of reason as men did. He was sometimes described as a woman-hater, but he had had two wives, and he thought that was the best answer he could give to those who called him a woman-hater. He was too fond of them to drag them into the political arena and to ask them to undertake responsibilities, duties and obligations which they did not understand and did not care for." An anti-suffrage postcard published in 1900. These postcards trumpeted false and highly exaggerated implications that liberated women would beget on society and, chiefly, that husbands would be left to care for the house and children alone while wives would go about on their own in public.
It is important that students recognise that the same document can serve as evidence for more than one line of enquiry. Encourage students to interpret the records, spot inferences and try and detect any unwitting testimony. Here are some general guidance questions to help them evaluate and understand documents. Teachers may wish to print these out and discuss with the students before looking at the material. Cabinet Office (CAB) – discussions about the suffrage movement at the top level of government (see section 3.1) This lists women’s studies resources in The National Archives together with original documents relating to suffrage in Britain, the Empire and colonial territories. 3.8 Newspaper reportsIn an article that appeared in The Times on 27th February, 1909, Ward wrote: "Women's suffrage is a more dangerous leap in the dark than it was in the 1860s because of the vast growth of the Empire, the immense increase of England's imperial responsibilities, and therewith the increased complexity and risk of the problems which lie before our statesmen - constitutional, legal, financial, military, international problems - problems of men, only to be solved by the labour and special knowledge of men, and where the men who bear the burden ought to be left unhampered by the political inexperience of women." Anti-suffragette postcard (1909) Women’s Freedom Leaguewas formed in 1907 following a split within the Women’s Social and Political Union.
While we may be more coded in our anxieties about women’s progress today, America’s most powerful institutions—and the men who run them—still stake their control on the assumption that women do not deserve the right to self-determination. For proof, consider the #MeToo movement, the gender pay gap, or the sheer reality that Donald Trump, who bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy,” was elected president. For women of color, the attempts at degradation are only amplified, as suppression of racial equality—when not presenting itself outright—pulses beneath our politics, culture, and economics as powerfully, and surreptitiously, as it did in that 1920s poster. A surprising ending Chloe: In Uganda, the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) have established a radio station called Community Green Radio where women’s stories are broadcast. Radio staff source stories from local women’s groups, with prominent topics including the gendered impacts of land grabs in Uganda and climate change and pollution. NAPE creates Listeners' Clubs, where women can gather with radios to listen to the station. The leaders of the Anti-Suffrage League claimed that the vast majority of women in Britain were not interested in having the vote and that there was a danger that a small group of organised women would force the government to change the electoral system. 320,000. Girls I Didn’t Marry (1911)
Oral histories on the suffrage movement carried out in the 1970s. Listen to an interview about the organising of Emily Wilding Davison's funeral.
Search Discovery using keywordsalong with department code referencesMEPO for the Metropolitan Police, PCOM for the Prison Commission and HO for the Home Office. Use these departmentcodes in the ‘search for or within references’ fields, along with akeyword and dates (if you wish)in the appropriate fields. OCR – A Level History: England and a New Century c1900-1918: Political issues: the issue of women’s suffrage 1906-1914. Independent Labour Partycollection contains correspondence between Emmeline Pankhurst and Keir Hardie, along with the letters of many other women’s suffrage campaigners. Although the following photographs show Suffragettes marching and a peaceful unidentified suffrage poster procession, this does not signify that their demonstrations were non-violent.Representation of the People Act (allowed some women over 30 to vote in national elections) – this represented 40% of total population of women
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