The Women's Social and Political Union 1903 - 1914

Question 1

Why was the late 19th century a disappointing time for women’s activists?

Answer 1

• the 1884 Reform Act had given the vote to women to many working-class men, and although 40% of men remained unenfranchised, it was feared women had missed their chance to secure the vote.
• an amendment to the Reform Act in 1884 to enfranchise 100,000 propertied women had been wrecked by Prime Minister William Gladstone, who had persuaded 104 Liberal MPs to reject the measure. This was a severe blow to women’s hopes.
• fears abounded that the age of reform was over and the opportunity gone.
• between 1886 and 1892, women’s suffrage was not discussed once within the House of Commons.
• NUWSS spearheaded the campaign for women’s suffrage, but their tame tactics and limited ideas produced little success. Avoided outdoor meetings, public appeals and by-election interfering - the very tactics that had secured anti-Contagious Diseases Acts protesters influence in parliament.

Question 2

What reasons were there for the growing consensus that that female suffrage would eventually be achieved?

Answer 2

• Britain in the early 1900s witnessed increasingly radical and often violent forms of political protest, inspiring many female activists e.g rise of the ILP provided a socialist voice to the nation’s industrial workers.
• the Irish Home Rule movement completely divided parliament, with the Liberal Party seeing many of its members cooperate with the conservatives in opposing Irish self-governance.

Seeing that increased militancy within both the labour movement and Irish home rule campaign was putting pressure on parliament to introduce fundamental reforms, many women grew impatient and were inspired by this militancy.

Question 3

Even before the WSPU split from Labour, why did many in Labour fear women having the vote?

Answer 3

Feared they would vote Conservative or Liberal, while their admission to the workplace would drive wages down.

Question 4

Relations between the WSPU and Labour were always…

Answer 4

strained, with w/c men disliking middle and upper class women interfering in their movement.

Question 5

To many, how did the Pankhursts appear?

Answer 5

Overly dramatic and privileged. However, one notable exception was Labour leader Keir Hardie, who was a personal friend of the Pankhursts before 1906.

Question 6

By 1907, what had the Labour Party conference done?

Answer 6

Rejected women’s suffrage, preferring instead to link it with the campaign for extended male suffrage.

Question 7

When was the WSPU founded?

Answer 7

1903

Question 8

Where was the WSPU founded?

Answer 8

Manchester

Question 9

Who were the founding members of the WSPU?

Answer 9

Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel.

Question 10

How was the leadership of the WSPU different to that pf the NUWSS?

Answer 10

Whereas the NUWSS was an alliance of groups, the WSPU was very focused around the leadership of the Pankhursts and two of her daughters, Sylvia and Christabel. 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 11

From 1905, where were the WSPU now based?

Answer 11

In London to have more political involvement.

Question 12

How did the WSPU popularise the cause of female suffrage?

Answer 12

Emmeline and Christabel were always wage to stress that their movement was not socially elite. They appealed to all women as sisters in their campaign for suffrage. This was a persuasive rallying cry.

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

Question 13

Which union was formed in 1897 to campaign for women’s suffrage and why did they not have much success?

Answer 13

Millicent Fawcett’s National Union of Women’s Suffrage (NUWSS). Their tame tactics and limited ideas produced little success. Avoided outdoor meetings, public appeals and by-election interfering - the very tactics that had secured anti-Contagious Diseases Acts protesters influence in parliament.

Question 14

Give factors which helped the cause of female suffrage in the early 1900s.

Answer 14

• Increasingly radical and violent forms of protest
• rise of the ILP secured electoral significance in the 1906 election, providing a socialist voice to the nation’s industrial workers
• IHR movement dividing parliament.

Question 15

Why did some women (e.g WSPU) turn to militancy?

Answer 15

• saw the suffragist’s campaign as ineffective and slow
• wanted to being greater publicity to the movement
• inspired by Parnell and IHR
• Liberal government repression

Question 16

The WSPU sought suffrage for which groups of women?

Answer 16

They did not seek votes for all women but votes on an equal status to men. In effect, since only 30% of males could vote, this meant that 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗮𝗶𝗺 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗼 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲.

Question 17

What did one critic say about the the WSPU and their campaign for female suffrage.

Answer 17

That they did not want votes for women, but votes for ladies.

Question 18

Why did the Pankhursts put pressure on the ILP and how did their campaign divide support within the Labour Party?

Answer 18

• Pankhursts were concerned that the Independent Labour Party was not working with enough focus on female suffrage. They felt that the male-dominated ILP was not sufficiently prioritising the campaign.
• Their focus on suffrage, which was based upon social status rather than simply universal female suffrage, divided support within the Labour Party. Keir Hardie did support WSPU’s policies but many ILP members wanted to see more equal suffrage.

Question 19

Why was campaigning of the WSPU mainly by women?

Answer 19

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.

Therefore, the campaigning of the WSPU was generally done by women, as opposed to 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 20

So what were the WSPU’s aims?

Answer 20

• to achieve female suffrage
• to pressure the ILP
• the free women from “slavery”

Question 21

By 1906, what was the WSPU’s leadership organised into?

Answer 21

An unelected central committee, consisting of Sylvia Pankhurst as secretary, Annie Kenney as paid organiser, and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence as treasurer. Overall leadership remained with Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst.

Question 22

What was the unelected central committee assisted by?

Answer 22

A sub committee made up mainly of friends and family of the Pankhursts.

Question 23

Where was central leadership based?

Answer 23

Lincoln’s Inn Field, London

Question 24

What did the central committee do?

Answer 24

Controlled all WSPU publications, finances and paid appointments.

Question 25

In 1910, how many office working women were there in London?

Answer 25

98, along with 26 individuals responsible for regional districts.

Question 26

What example is there of tensions arising between the London WSPU and its provincial organisations?

Answer 26

The Liverpoool branch of the WSPU, founded in 1906, was a very working-class organisation. Instead of the more fashionable drawing-room meetings typical of the middle and upper class WSPU in London, the Liverpool branch preferred open-air meetings, which were more popular with working class women.

When the central WSPU leadership demanded the Liverpool branch hold drawing-room meetings to encourage middle-class membership, the Liverpool branch refused.

Question 27

How did the social base of the WSPU change between 1903 and 1914?

Answer 27

While at first it was largely composed of northern working-class women, with connections to the ILP, in 1906 Christabel severed the organisation’s alliance with Labour and moved the WSPU’s base from Manchester to London. This move was because of an increasing disillusionment with the ILP in terms of its seriousness in securing women the vote, and also to secure the movements’s popular support outside of Manchester.

Question 28

How did this changing social base benefit the WSPU?

Answer 28

This geographical and political adjustment transformed the WSPU’s social composition. Without its socialist connotations, wealthy women were encouraged to join. The WSPU’s ability to recruit from Britain’s social elite, facilitated by the shift away from Labour, was very good for its finances.

Question 29

Why was the WSPU’s ability to recruit from Britain’s social elite good for its finances?

Answer 29

Wealthy women were recruited - had more money to donate and more free time to devote to demonstrations.

Question 30

How much money did the WSPU spend on campaigning between 1906 and 1907, but how much was it able to raise?

Answer 30

Between 1906-1907, the WSPU spent £2,494 on campaigning, but by 1907 it was able to raise £20,000.

Question 31

The WSPU soon employed more staff than…

Answer 31

than the Labour Party.

Question 32

Christabel and Emmeline encourage socialist members to…

Answer 32

tone down their politics to aid this gentrification of the WSPU.

Question 33

What did the WSPU quickly become?

Answer 33

A fashionable, elitist, London-centric movement, dominated by wealthy socialites. This made it particularly uncomfortable for w/c members. Despite creating a class divide, the Pankhursts emphasised that gender was the uniting factor of the WSPU.

Question 34

It is possible to ascribe too much credit for the increased support for the women’s suffrage movement to the WSPU, what other organisation noticed an increase in popularity?

Answer 34

The NUWSS noticed an increase in popularity before the WSPU’s formation, growing rapidly between 1902 and 1906, increasing from 17 to 31 branches.

Question 35

What was crucial about the NUWSS’s tactics?

Answer 35

Its practice of pressing the question of women’s suffrage to all parliamentary candidates in 1903, before the general election of 1906, and working to ensure local political associations only selected candidates pledged to women’s votes was crucial.

Question 36

What evidence is there of the NUWSS being successful in their work?

Answer 36

Ensured that in 1906, regardless of WSPU militancy, the House of Commons included 415 MPs committed to female suffrage. It was the NUWSS and the not the WSPU that made sure the 1906 Liberal government included a majority of members who would react sympathetically to women’s suffrage campaigning.

𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗦𝗣𝗨 𝘄𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗨𝗪𝗦𝗦 𝗽𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗲𝗴 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗳𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

Question 37

Why was the WSPU successful?

Answer 37

Won the much needed publicity. Scale and organisation was important. Between 1905 and 1908, WSPU galvanised the women’s franchise movement.