Government Attitudes to Female Suffrage and the WSPU

Question 1

What opinion did Conservatives have towards female suffrage?

Answer 1

• Most Conservative MPs were hostile to female suffrage

Question 2

How did the Conservative Party want to capitalise from the suffragette movement?

Answer 2

• Saw potential for property owning women to have the vote as a potential source of increasing right-wing support
• 1884 Representation of the People Act increased the number of centre-left voters

Question 3

What opinion did the Liberal Party have towards female suffrage?

Answer 3

• Majority of members openly supported or were willing to consider female suffrage

Question 4

What was the main concern of the Liberal Party giving women the vote?

Answer 4

• Giving the vote to women might increase the strength of some pressure groups, like those supporting temperance laws

Question 5

An absence of universal suffrage made the liberals realise that?

Answer 5

• It was more likely that new women voters would support the conservatives

Question 6

What was the Labour Party’s opinion toward female suffrage ?

Answer 6

• Labour Party did support female suffrage but they would not distinguish it from universal suffrage for all classes of men and women

Question 7

It did not particularly matter which government was in power… why?

Answer 7

• Overall lack of consensus meant there was no real government support for female suffrage
• For example, 1906 400 out of 650 MPs favoured some form of female suffrage yet no bills were successfully passed until 1918

Question 8

As militancy increased government responses became more dominant…

Answer 8

• Police were sent out to break up protests and to arrest women carrying out vandalism

Question 9

Women responded to police arrests by…

Answer 9

• Learning jiu jitsu - caused a level of confusion
• One one hand the violent actions had to be opposed, yet on the other, images in the newspaper of women being physically restrained and complaints of police brutality did was not popular

Question 10

How did the government use fines and short prison sentences?

Answer 10

• Some areas, courts managed to limit the effect of the protests by giving fines rather than prison sentences - reduced publicity
• Prison sentences were kept short