A suffragette was a member or supporter of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), an activist women's group agitating for votes for women, which in the early 20th century broke away from the much larger, peaceful and longer lasting National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), whose supporters were known as suffragists. Both organisations campaigned for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. However, the Women's Social and Political Union, a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, engaged in direct action and civil disobedienceStrachey, Ray (1928). The Cause: A Short History of the Women's Movement in Great Britain. p. 302. as a result of what they saw as slow progress towards universal suffrage. In 1906, a journalist writing in the Daily Mail coined the term suffragette for the WSPU, derived from suffragist (any person advocating for voting rights), reportedly to 'indicate that special revolutionary quality of impatience which marked the new variety of suffragist', although Elizabeth Crawford, a researcher and author on the women's suffrage movement, has suggested it was to 'belittle and to show that they were less than the proper kind of suffrage worker'. Whatever the truth was, the militants embraced the new name, even adopting it for use as the title of the newspaper published by the WSPU.
Women had won the right to vote in several countries by the end of the 19th century; in 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country to grant the vote to all women over the age of 21. When by 1903 women in Britain had not been enfranchised, Pankhurst decided that women had to "do the work ourselves";Pankhurst, Christabel (1959). Unshackled: The Story of How We Won the Vote. London: Hutchison, p. 43. the WSPU motto became "deeds, not words". The suffragettes heckled, attacked and injured politicians, tried to storm parliament, chained themselves to railings, smashed windows, and carried out a nationwide bombing and arson campaign. In turn they were attacked, and sometimes sexually assaulted, during battles with the police. Suffragettes faced anger from large parts of the British public, and ridicule in the media. When imprisoned they went on hunger strike, not eating for days or even a week, to which the government responded by force-feeding them. The first suffragette to be force fed was Evaline Hilda Burkitt. The death of one suffragette, Emily Wilding Davison, made headlines around the world when she ran in front of King George V's horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby along with 17 other women. The WSPU campaign had varying levels of support from within the suffragette movement; breakaway groups formed, and within the WSPU itself not all members supported the direct action.
The suffragette campaign was suspended when World War I broke out in 1914, when the WSPU ceased all agitation for women's suffrage and supported the White Feather Campaign but the work of the NUWSS continued and immediately after the war, the Representation of the People Act 1918 gave the vote to some women, but because so many men had died in the war, and to avoid an immediate female voting majority, it was initially only for women over the age of 30 who met certain property qualifications. Ten years later, women gained electoral equality with men when the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 gave all women the right to vote at age 21.
Background Women's suffrage Although the Isle of Man (a British Crown dependency) had enfranchised women who owned property to vote in parliamentary (Tynwald) elections in 1881, New Zealand was the first self-governing country to grant all women the right to vote in 1893, when women over the age of 21 were permitted to vote in all parliamentary elections.Harper, Ida Husted. History of Woman Suffrage, volume 6 (National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1922) p. 752. Women in South Australia achieved the same right and became the first to obtain the right to stand for parliament in 1895. In the United States, women over the age of 21 were allowed to vote in the western territories of Wyoming from 1869 and Utah from 1870, as well as in the states of Colorado and Idaho from 1893 and 1896 respectively.Kingman, John W. "Woman Suffrage in Wyoming. Six Years' Practical Workings." Testimony delivered before the Massachusetts legislature on 18 January 1876. Microfilm. Woodbridge, CN: Research Publications, 1 reel (part), 35 mm. (History of women, reel 946, no. 8824)
Earlier British suffragists In 1865 John Stuart Mill was elected to Parliament on a platform that included votes for women, and in 1869 he published his essay in favour of equality of the sexes The Subjection of Women. Also in 1865, a women's discussion group, The Kensington Society, was formed. Following discussions on the subject of women's suffrage, the society formed a committee to draft a petition and gather signatures, which Mill agreed to present to Parliament once they had gathered 100 signatures. In October 1866, amateur scientist Lydia Becker attended a meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science held in Manchester and heard one of the organisors of the petition, Barbara Bodichon, read a paper entitled Reasons for the Enfranchisement of Women. Becker was inspired to help gather signatures around Manchester and to join the newly formed Manchester committee. Mill presented the petition to Parliament in 1866, by which time the supporters had gathered 1499 signatures, including those of Florence Nightingale, Harriet Martineau, Josephine Butler and Mary Somerville.
In March 1867, Becker wrote an article for the Contemporary Review, in which she said:
Two further petitions were presented to parliament in May 1867 and Mill also proposed an amendment to the 1867 Reform Act to give women the same political rights as men, but the amendment was treated with derision and defeated by 196 votes to 73.
The Manchester Society for Women's suffrage was formed in January 1867, when Jacob Bright, Rev. S. A. Steinthal, Mrs. Gloyne, Max Kyllman and Elizabeth Wolstenholme met at the house of Louis Borchardt. Lydia Becker was made Secretary of the Society in February 1867 and Richard Pankhurst was one of the earliest members of the executive committee. An 1874 speaking event in Manchester organised by Becker, was attended by 14-year-old Emmeline Goulden, who was to become an ardent campaigner for women's rights, and later married Pankhurst becoming known as Emmeline Pankhurst.
During the summer of 1880, Becker visited the Isle of Man to address five public meetings on the subject of women's suffrage to audiences mainly composed of women. These speeches instilled in the Manx women a determination to secure the franchise, and on 31 January 1881, women on the island who owned property in their own right were given the vote.
Formation of the WSPU
In Manchester, the Women's Suffrage Committee had been formed in 1867 to work with the Independent Labour Party (ILP) to secure votes for women, but, although the local ILP were very supportive, nationally the party were more interested in securing the franchise for working-class men and refused to make women's suffrage a priority. In 1897, the Manchester Women's Suffrage committee had merged with the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) but Emmeline Pankhurst, who was a member of the original Manchester committee, and her eldest daughter Christabel had become impatient with the ILP, and on 10 October 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst held a meeting at her home in Manchester to form a breakaway group, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). From the outset, the WSPU was determined to move away from what they saw as the staid campaign methods of NUWSS and instead take more positive action:
Charles E. Hands
The term "suffragette" was first used in 1906 by the journalist Charles E. Hands in the London Daily Mail to describe militant activists in the movement for women's suffrage, in particular members of the WSPU..Walsh, Ben. GCSE Modern World History 2nd ed., (Hodder Murray, 2008) p. 60."Mr. Balfour and the 'Suffragettes.' Hecklers Disarmed by the Ex-Premier's Patience." Daily Mail, 10 January 1906, p. 5. The WSPU embraced the term, saying "suffraGETtes" (hardening the 'g'), implying not only that they wanted the vote, but that they intended to 'get' it.Colmore, Gertrude. Suffragette Sally. Broadview Press, 2007, p. 14 The non-militant suffragists found favour in the press, as they were not hoping to get the franchise through 'violence, crime, arson and open rebellion'.
WSPU campaigns
At a political meeting in Manchester in 1905, Christabel Pankhurst and millworker, Annie Kenney, disrupted speeches by prominent Liberals Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey, asking where Churchill and Grey stood with regards to women's political rights. At a time when political meetings were only attended by men and speakers were expected to be given the courtesy of expounding their views without interruption, the audience were outraged, and when the women unfurled a "Votes for Women" banner they were both arrested for a technical assault on a policeman. When Pankhurst and Kenney appeared in court they both refused to pay the fine imposed, preferring to go to prison to gain publicity for their cause.
In July 1908 the WSPU hosted a large demonstration in Heaton Park, near Manchester with speakers on 13 separate platforms including Emmeline, Christabel and Adela Pankhurst. According to the Manchester Guardian:
Stung by the stereotypical image of the strong minded woman in masculine clothes created by newspaper cartoonists, the suffragettes resolved to present a fashionable, feminine image when appearing in public. In 1908, the co-editor of the WSPU's Votes for Women newspaper, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, designed the suffragettes' colour scheme of purple for loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green for hope. Fashionable London shops Selfridges and Liberty sold tricolour-striped ribbon for hats, rosettes, badges and belts, as well as coloured garments, underwear, handbags, shoes, slippers and toilet soap. As membership of the WSPU grew it became fashionable for women to identify with the cause by wearing the colours, often discreetly in a small piece of jewellery or by carrying a heart-shaped vesta case and in December 1908 the London jewellers, Mappin & Webb, issued a catalogue of suffragette jewellery in time for the Christmas season. Sylvia Pankhurst said at the time: "Many suffragists spend more money on clothes than they can comfortably afford, rather than run the risk of being considered outré, and doing harm to the cause". In 1909 the WSPU presented specially commissioned pieces of jewellery to leading suffragettes, Emmeline Pankhurst and Louise Eates.
The suffragettes also used other methods to publicise and raise money for the cause and from 1909, the "Pank-a-Squith" board game was sold by the WSPU. The name was derived from Pankhurst and the surname of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, who was largely hated by the movement. The board game was set out in a spiral, and players were required to lead their suffragette figure from their home to parliament, past the obstacles faced from Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and the Liberal government. Also in 1909, suffragettes Daisy Solomon and Elspeth McClelland tried an innovative method of potentially obtaining a meeting with Asquith by sending themselves by Royal Mail courier post; however, Downing Street did not accept the parcel.
In 1911 suffragette organisations urged women and supporters of women's enfranchisement to boycott the 1911 census. Some wrote "Votes for Women" or other slogans on their census returns and others evaded the census by hiding overnight. Most famously, Emily Wilding Davison hid in the House of Commons overnight so that she could be enumerated in Parliament.