Key Figures of Female Suffrage

Question 1

Name the 5 leading Suffragists & Suffragettes

Answer 1

• Lydia Becker
• Millicent Fawcett
• Emmeline Pankhurst
• Christabel Pankhurst
• Sylvia Pankhurst

Question 2

Summarise the role of Lydia Becker

Answer 2

• leader in the early British Suffrage movement

Question 3

When did Becker live

Answer 3

• 1827-90

Question 4

Lydia Becker

What happened in Jan 1867

Answer 4

• convened first meeting of the Manchester Women’s Suffrage Committee

Question 5

Lydia Becker

Give evidence of Becker’s opportunistic tactics

Answer 5

• Lilly Maxwell mistakenly on names register,
• Becker encouraged her to vote at the polling station
• & immediately began encouraging other women heads of households in the region to petition for their names to appear on the poles

Question 6

Lydia Becker

What happened in April 1868

Answer 6

• first public meeting of the National Society for Women’s suffrage was held, at which she spoke

Question 7

Lydia Becker

What did Becker notably achieve in 1869

Answer 7

• Successfully secured the vote for women in municipal elections

Question 8

Summarise the role of Millicent Fawcett

Answer 8

• Leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) - (after the death of Becker)
• She spearheaded the campaign for women’s suffrage

Question 9

What was Millicent Fawcett’s view on militancy

Answer 9

• tried to distance herself from the WSPU’s militancy as she thought it would harm women’s chances of securing the vote

Question 10

What evidence is there of the NUWSS’s support

Answer 10

• Retained higher support than the WSPU
• NUWSS has 305 constituent societies & 50,000 members, compared with the WSPU’s 2,000 members in 1913

Question 11

During the war how did Fawcett continue the efforts for female suffrage

Answer 11

• used the situation to its advantage by pointing out the contribution women had made to the war effort

Question 12

What was wrong with the NUWSS’ tactics

Answer 12

• The NUWSS avoided outdoor meetings, public appeals and by-election interfering -
• the very tactics that had secured anti-CDA protesters influence with parliament

Question 13

Fawcett

The NUWSS’ tame tactics and limited ideas produced…..

Answer 13

little success

Question 14

Where had the growing movement for women’s suffrage originated from in the 1870s

Answer 14

• from the political organisations that had developed to support the political parties

Question 15

From 1897, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) under Millicent Fawcett had specifically focused on the vote for women by…

Answer 15

• unifying the many different groups campaigning for female suffrage

Question 16

Who formed the WSPU

Answer 16

• Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel

Question 17

Why did Emmeline form the WSPU

Answer 17

• Emmeline Pankhurst had been involved in campaigning with the Independent Labour Party (ILP) but became frustrated at the lack of progress

Question 18

How did the WSPU centre itself around the 3 Pankhursts

Answer 18

• The leadership style was very autocratic and the Pankhursts demanded complete obedience
• They had no constitution, no annual meetings and no accounts, unlike most political groups

Question 19

In what way did the WSPU’s aims clash with the ILP

Answer 19

• They felt that the male-dominated ILP was not sufficiently prioritising the campaign
• Further, their focus on suffrage, which was based upon social status rather than simply universal female suffrage, divided support within the Labour Party
• Keir Hardie (the ILP leader) did support the WSPU’s policies but many ILP members wanted to see more equal suffrage

Question 20

How did Christabel view the campaign

Answer 20

• Christabel saw the campaign for the vote as a part of a wider issue of freeing women from an enslaved social role where they had insufficient rights

Question 21

How did the view that women were enslaved dictate the WSPU’S campaign

Answer 21

• The campaigning of the WSPU was generally by women, as opposed to the other groups like the NUWSS, which were represented by men as well as women
• Pankhurst once said Women, we must do the work ourselves.’

Question 22

Who did Emmeline & Christabel wish to appeal to

Answer 22

• It is hard to see how class divisions after 1906 did not dominate the WSPU’s membership, but Emmeline and Christabel were always eager to stress that their movement was not socially elite
• They appealed to all women as sisters in their campaign for suffrage - persuasive

Question 23

Why was appealing o the w/c always difficult for the WSPU

Answer 23

• Questions still remained as to whether it was preferable to work for universal suffrage, which would be hard to achieve,
• or to aim for limited property-based suffrage,
• which, though hardly aiding working-class women, would establish the principle of votes for women

Question 24

Even before the WSPU split from Labour, why was securing the support of working-class men difficult

Answer 24

• Many in Labour feared women would vote Conservative or Liberal, while their admission to the workplace would drive wages down
• The relations between the WSPU and Labour were always strained, with working-class men disliking middle- and upper-class women interfering in their movement
• To many, the Pankhursts appeared overly dramatic and privileged
• One notable exceptic was the Labour leader Keir Hardie, who was a personal friend of the Pankhursts before 1906

Question 25

By 1907, however, the Labour Party conference rejected…

Answer 25

• women’s suffrage, preferring instead to link female suffrage with the campaign for extended male suffrage

Question 26

In what way was the leadership of the WSPU divided between the 3 Pankhursts

Answer 26

• Sylvia Pankhurst as sceretary
• Overall leadership remained with Christabel & Emmeline

Question 27

What was Christabel largely responsible for in 1906

Answer 27

• Christable severed the organisation’s alliance with Labour & moved the WSPU’s base from Manchester to London

Question 28

How did Christable & Emmeline capitalise on their split from the WSPU

Answer 28

• encouraged socialist members to tone down their politics to aid this gentrification , in which Britain’s social elite could be recruited