Key Figures of Female Suffrage Flashcards
Name the 5 leading Suffragists & Suffragettes
- Lydia Becker
- Millicent Fawcett
- Emmeline Pankhurst
- Christabel Pankhurst
- Sylvia Pankhurst
Summarise the role of Lydia Becker
- leader in the early British Suffrage movement
When did Becker live
- 1827-90
Lydia Becker
What happened in Jan 1867
- convened first meeting of the Manchester Women’s Suffrage Committee
Lydia Becker
Give evidence of Becker’s opportunistic tactics
- 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
Lydia Becker
What happened in April 1868
- first public meeting of the National Society for Women’s suffrage was held, at which she spoke
Lydia Becker
What did Becker notably achieve in 1869
- Successfully secured the vote for women in municipal elections
Summarise the role of Millicent Fawcett
- Leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) - (after the death of Becker)
- She spearheaded the campaign for women’s suffrage
What was Millicent Fawcett’s view on militancy
- tried to distance herself from the WSPU’s militancy as she thought it would harm women’s chances of securing the vote
What evidence is there of the NUWSS’s support
- Retained higher support than the WSPU
- NUWSS has 305 constituent societies & 50,000 members, compared with the WSPU’s 2,000 members in 1913
During the war how did Fawcett continue the efforts for female suffrage
- used the situation to its advantage by pointing out the contribution women had made to the war effort
What was wrong with the NUWSS’ tactics
- The NUWSS avoided outdoor meetings, public appeals and by-election interfering -
- the very tactics that had secured anti-CDA protesters influence with parliament
Fawcett
The NUWSS’ tame tactics and limited ideas produced…..
little success
Where had the growing movement for women’s suffrage originated from in the 1870s
- from the political organisations that had developed to support the political parties
From 1897, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) under Millicent Fawcett had specifically focused on the vote for women by…
- unifying the many different groups campaigning for female suffrage
Who formed the WSPU
- Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel
Why did Emmeline form the WSPU
- Emmeline Pankhurst had been involved in campaigning with the Independent Labour Party (ILP) but became frustrated at the lack of progress
How did the WSPU centre itself around the 3 Pankhursts
- 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
In what way did the WSPU’s aims clash with the ILP
- 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
How did Christabel view the campaign
- 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
How did the view that women were enslaved dictate the WSPU’S campaign
- 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.’
Who did Emmeline & Christabel wish to appeal to
- 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
Why was appealing o the w/c always difficult for the WSPU
- 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
Even before the WSPU split from Labour, why was securing the support of working-class men difficult
- 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
By 1907, however, the Labour Party conference rejected…
- women’s suffrage, preferring instead to link female suffrage with the campaign for extended male suffrage
In what way was the leadership of the WSPU divided between the 3 Pankhursts
- Sylvia Pankhurst as sceretary
- Overall leadership remained with Christabel & Emmeline
What was Christabel largely responsible for in 1906
- Christable severed the organisation’s alliance with Labour & moved the WSPU’s base from Manchester to London
How did Christable & Emmeline capitalise on their split from the WSPU
- encouraged socialist members to tone down their politics to aid this gentrification , in which Britain’s social elite could be recruited
