Welcome, dear listeners, to another fascinating episode of
the London History Podcast, where we dive into the vibrant
and diverse past of this great city.
I am your host, Hazel Baker, a qualified London tour guide and
founder of London guidedwalks.co.uk.
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In today's episode, we're journeying back to the turn of
the 19th century, to a time when the streets of London and beyond
were stages for one of the most significant campaigns in the
fight for women's rights, the battle for the right to vote.
The quest for suffrage in Britain saw the emergence of two
distinct yet interconnective movements, each leaving an
indelible mark on the fabric of society and the course of
history. On one side we had the
Suffragists, a group that championed peaceful, lawful
tactics to win the vote. These women and men, united
under the banner of the National Union of Women's Suffrage
Societies, N UW S s believed in patience, persistence and
persuasion. They lobbied, they educated, and
they organised, all with the steadfast belief that reasoned
argument and moral high ground would win them the rights they
sought. Contrastingly, the stage was
shared by a more militant faction, the Suffragettes of the
Women's Social and Political Union, WSPU.
Unwilling to wait in the shadows of gradual progress, these women
took the struggle to the streets with a fervour and passion that
could not be ignored. Their motto, deeds not words,
saw them employ tactics that were bold, sometimes bordering
on the radical. From changing themselves to
railings to enduring imprisonment and hunger strikes,
their actions sparked controversy, conversation, and
ultimately, change. In this episode, we're not just
recounting a tale of historical activism.
We're exploring the nuanced dynamics between these two
movements. How did their strategies differ?
What did it mean for the women's suffrage campaign as a whole?
What can the divergent paths of the suffragists and the
suffragettes teach us about the broader spectrum of social and
political activism? And importantly, how do their
legacies live on in the contemporary fight for equality
and rights? Joining me today is Kirsty
Shedden, a City of Westminster and Borough of Camden tour guide
who offers a very interesting suffragettes in Westminster.
Walking tall together. We'll unravel the complex
tapestry of the suffragists and suffragettes, exploring not just
their differences but also their shared vision, a world where
women could stand as equals in the eyes of the law.
So whether you're a history aficionado, an activist at
heart, or simply curious about the forces that have shaped our
society, this episode promises to enlighten, inspire, and
provoke thought. Stay with us as we dive into the
heart of the battle for the ballot, a story of resilience,
courage, and the enduring quest for justice.
Hello, Kirsty. Could you maybe start by giving
our listeners an overview of the differences between the
suffragists and the suffragettes?
OK, so the basic difference between the two was that the
suffragists had peaceful methods for their campaign to get the
votes for women. So in order to get their message
across, they would do things like hold lectures where there
would be speakers, They produced pamphlets, they sent articles to
various magazines. In fact, they had their own
magazine as well. Common Cause, whereas the
suffragettes were more militant and became increasingly militant
during the period of their existence.
They did ordinary things like marches and they also had their
own magazine as well as suffragette.
Well, we started life as votes for women and that they also are
gravitated to more direct action, I think we'd call it, or
millicency. Some people would have said that
they were almost terrorists by the time they'd finished, but
this was in order to get publicity, and greater
publicity, they felt, than the suffragists were getting for the
cause for votes for women. So tell us a little bit more
than about the suffragist movement and the beginning of
Votes for Women campaign before the creation of the the
Suffragettes. The suffragettes began life in
1903, but they owed a huge debt, of course, to the suffragists
who had been going since the 1860s.
You could say, possibly even before that, writers such as
Mary Wollstonecraft were talking about women being equal to men
and how they should have better rights and better access to
education. She in fact was one of the
people that said if you don't educate people, how can they
contribute in the way that you're suggesting in parliament
and running the country. But it was really in the 1860s,
so there had been in 1832 an extension of the franchise for
men due to protests. And in 1860 this whole debate
was hotting up still further and many working class people, many
middle class people were agitating for the vote.
The parliament deemed it necessary to introduce further
reform. So this was seen as a chance by
people who did believe in votes for women to begin the process,
if you like, of adding women to the franchise.
A group had started in London called the Kensing Society of
Middle Class Women who had been educated and who understood
about affairs of the country and wanted to be involved.
And but they were sort of private group.
They they had chats and talks over things.
But in 1867 they had the opportunity to have a an
amendment to the ACT, the 1867 Act that was going to go through
Parliament. And this was because John Stuart
Mill believed in the equality for women.
He was a philosopher and economist, and also happily an
MP for Westminster, and he agreed to propose an amendment
if a petition was signed. So petition was got ready and it
was presented to Parliament. And then they had.
Then John Stuart Mill introduced the amendment.
It failed by 196 to 73 votes, although John Stuart Mill and
others such as Henry Fawcett, who were supporters of the
amendment, were quite pleased that they felt this was actually
a good starting point, even if they couldn't get it through at
this particular point in time. And it was then that a society
started to build up and become more formal to press for the
vote. So it was the London Society
that grew out of the Kensington Society, and they had committee
members. The secretary was a woman called
Emily Davis. She banning Girton College,
Cambridge so that women could be educated for degrees.
Of course they couldn't actually take them at Cambridge and
awarded them. They could take the exams, they
could take the courses, but they couldn't say they had a degree
until 1948. So that does show you the reason
for the slow process. So even by the beginning of the
20th century, things were very slow moving and from that time
onwards women started to speak at these meetings.
Melissa Fawcett, who was to lead the suffragist movement later
on, she was a committee member and she was only 19 and she gave
talks. Her husband, she married Henry
Fawcett, that other member of Parliament I mentioned, and she
began campaigning, touring the country, speaking at lectures.
And so did other women. So it became a more public thing
and more societies around the country grew up.
You mentioned the other earlier groups as well as the the London
Society. Can you tell us a little bit
more about those? Yes, another place that was very
significant at this early time was Manchester, which was also
the founding city. In fact for the WSPU, the
suffragettes in 19 O3. They founded the Manchester
National Society for Women's Suffrage in 1867 in the wake of
that Act of Parliament, and they met in the Free Trade Hall in
April 1868 and started speaking out again publicly.
Manchester was, incidentally, also the place where Lily
Maxwell, a shopkeeper, became the first known woman to vote in
a parliamentary election because she'd been mistakenly included
in the register electors following the 1867 Reform Act.
And of course, that was because she owned a shop and ran it in
her own right. There were other societies,
well, in places like Edinburgh and Birmingham, so it was quite
extensive. The Manchester Society had
members on the committee, such as Richard Pankhurst, who
married Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader who became the leader of
the suffragettes, Lydia Becker, also very well known in women's
rights. She was the secretary and they
wanted, at this particular point in time, votes for women on the
same conditions as all might be granted to men.
And at 11 years old, Emily in Pankhurst heard Lydia Becker
speak. So that's why I say the
suffragettes had a debt, if you like, to the past suffragists
both in London and Manchester. Why was the National Union of
Women's Suffrage Societies? It's amountful, isn't it?
The N, UW, s s. Why was that created?
I think more and more groups were being set up all the way
around the country based on wanting women's suffrage, but in
1884 there was the 3rd Reform Act that was passed and once
again women were not included in the voters.
So this extended the franchise to many working class men and
others. But yet again there was no talk
of adding women to the franchise.
And so this again spurred on more interest in the movement.
And so there was, there were so many sort of disparate groups
that it was decided that you were much more likely to get
what you wanted if you had a national movement that was
coordinated. And then you could share
resources, share ideas and all of that kind of thing.
And so the Nuwss was created in 1897, and in 1907, Millicent
Fawcett became the leader. OK.
I mean, it wasn't all plain sailing.
Because by this time there were doubts in some people's minds
about whether or not a parliament would ever give women
the vote on the basis of men, and whether or not they should
campaign for a sort of less success in the hope that could
then be built on. And other people who by this
time by the end of the 19th century were really focused on
universal suffrage, so all men and all women gaining the boat,
and so women's suffrage being part of that idea.
And what about the suffragettes of the Women's Social and
Political union, the WSPU? OK, so Emmeline Pankhurst and
her husband, Richard Pankhurst had spent some time down in
London. Doctor Pankhurst was a key
member of the Liberal Party. Or they never actually became an
MP himself. And he was very concerned with
women's rights and in fact other issues that needed reforming.
And they were down in London. But when they couldn't afford to
be down in London, so they came back to Manchester, which as I
said, was a sort of real centre for campaigning for women's
suffrage. And it was also a big area that
where people were trying to have a unionism, poor, that kind of
thing there. And Emmeline Pankhurst really
got involved in that. Richard got very upset with the
Liberal Party. He believed in the end that they
wouldn't do anything, so he joined the newly formed
Independent Labour Party and Emmeline followed suit.
But she got very disillusioned with this whole idea that we
want the men to get the vote 1st and we don't want women being
involved in this act because it will slow things down for us.
The Labour Party, although many members were, supported women's
suffrage, others thought that the men should get the vote
first. So Emmeline was quite
disillusioned with this. And she and her daughter
Christopher back on the suffragist movement and decided,
you know, this had been going on for a really long time and women
still didn't have the vote. So they decided that what they
needed was publicity. They needed to get noticed and
so they decided that there's christabel said to go out and
get it, to get the vote for women.
And their motto became deeds not words and their first deed.
One of their first deeds was in 19 O 5, when Christabel and
Annie Kenny went to the Manchester Trade Hall and
disrupted a Liberal Party meeting.
The election had been called and so candidates all over the
country were going to speak and they shouted out are you going
to introduce votes for women, etcetera?
And then they were shown out and were taken out of the hall and
Christabel spat at the policeman, thus getting arrested
and went to prison having refused to pay the fine.
So that's got into the newspapers and this was their
their method, the start of their methods to get noticed and get
in the papers. To our listeners, you might have
heard the name Annie Kenny there, and it's worth mentioning
that Kirsty has also done an earlier episode #121, so that's
121. And in there you can hear about
the capsulating life of Annie Kenny, who was a working class
woman who ascended to the forefront of the suffragette
movement. But you can have a listen to
that. I'll put the link in the show
notes. So, Kirsty, can you maybe
describe a typical event for each of these separate groups?
How did they? What were the differences
between the suffragists and the suffragette events?
OK, let's take 1908. We're a few years into the
suffragettes campaign and the suffragists are gaining more and
more support. In 19 O 8, Asquith became Prime
Minister and one of the things he wanted, so he claimed was
that he needed to understand how many women really wanted the
vote. And so marches seemed like a
good idea because they would have a large numbers of people
attend them. So in 19 O 8, the Nuwss
organised their second March ever in London, a highly
coordinated event. Train tickets were bought and
paid for women who wanted to come to London to be on the
March who couldn't afford it. Food and drink was provided and
off they marched through London, ending up in the Royal Albert
Hall, where speeches were delivered by Millicent, Fawcett
and others. There were banners, there were
singing, but there was no violence, no malicancy and no
police action either, and nobody ended up arrested.
Asquith didn't really react to this March, he said.
I'm still not sure that women really want the vote or that the
majority of women really want the vote, and there was very low
level publicity for this event. Contrast that in June, the last
day of June, the suffragettes had already had a March, very
successful March. I talk about that on my walk.
But they decided to organise a demonstration in Parliament
Square. Thousands attended with a large
police presence and this turned into a huge clash between the
women and police as they tried to get into parliament and lobby
MPs. Although worse abuse was to come
in the following years when this was pretty, but this was a
pretty violent clash. In protest, 2 suffragettes took
a taxi to Downing St. and they managed to get some stones out
of their pockets and smash the prime Minister's windows at #10.
Of course they were arrested. They got sent to Holloway
prison. All of this was reported in the
press, but you know, the suffragettes really like to make
the most of their actions. So when Mary Lee and Edith knew
those were the two suffragettes in prison in Holloway were
released, several 100 suffragettes waiting for them,
and they were taken by coach to the Queen's Hall.
A breakfast had been prepared, there was a March along behind
the carriage. Speeches were made.
So the suffragettes were making enormous capital out of their
event. Direct action, militancy,
sympathy, talking about the appalling treatment meted out to
the women, all of those kind of things made their events quite
different from the N UW S. S it must be so frustrating.
You've got an end point to target and no one up there is
actually able to make that changes.
Even wanting to listen. And even though showing 4000
women on the streets and still going, oh, I'm not.
Quite sure. Exactly.
Neither organization succeeded in persuading the Liberal
government in the early 20th century change the law any more
than their predecessors, which is really rather disheartening.
What were the reasons do you think?
So I think there were a number of things, I think, throughout
the 19th century, and this continued on into the early 20th
century and even far beyond that, this whole idea that
women. Were supposed to be the home
makers that they were supposed to be, bringing up a family and
looking after the house. Their world was private and
their world was not in the public domain.
Now of course this was fairly ridiculous.
By this amount of time, laws had been passed which enabled women
to, for example, be a mayor, to vote in local elections, to work
in various posts like a Paul or guardian.
They could be a factory inspector.
We're not talking about all women, but somehow this was the
last male bastion that they didn't really want women
involved in, that They thought that women could not manage to
understand the complexities of the world, or maybe their place
was in the home. So there was this sort of
attitude, which wasn't an attitude of all men, but
unfortunately during that early part of the 20th century it was
the attitude of the leadership. There were also a whole bunch of
women who didn't agree with women getting the vote.
And in 19 O 8, the Women's National Anti Suffrage League
was established in London. And a huge leading light here
was a woman called Mary Ward. And she was exactly the sort of
person that you'd have expected would have been a suffragette,
really. She had her own money.
She was a novelist, and her book Robert Ellesmere had made her a
millionaire, I think, I believe. And she, along with the prime
minister's wife and others, were very vocal in denying that women
should have the vote. They wanted women to vote in
local councils, but out in the big wide world, they didn't
think women should have the vote.
And so this was a a kind of excuse, if you like, that the
government could use to say, but we're not sure that all women
want the vote. So therefore even though some
people do, it wouldn't be right to give them the vote.
Their militant tactics, of course, was something that the N
UW S s blamed the suffragettes discrediting the movement for
the votes for women. They wanted to be seen as
rational, thoughtful, and the people who had the best
argument, who had the argument for votes for women.
And the militant tactics spoiled that they felt to some extent,
but also, and probably a very big factor with this political
fear, the fear of what would happen if women were given the
vote. There were more women than men
time, and so the electorate will be swamped by women.
And then what would happen? The liberals feared that if you
only gave the vote to some women, the wealthier women, they
would all vote conservative. Others had a different view.
But all of these things came together to mean that there
wasn't going to be a government. Less legislation, if you like,
supported by the leadership through parliament Now you've.
Had a little listen of suffragettes and suffragists,
what would you have been back then?
I encourage you to have a little think in your own time.
And all I'll say is that well behaved women rarely make
history. Kirsty, thank you very much.
Thank you. So we.
Have lots more episodes about women's history, but the ones
about suffragettes and suffragists include episode 131
the previous week Endle St. and its military Hospital.
Also episode 121 which is suffragette Annie Kenny and then
also episodes 103 and 104 which is about Annie Besant and mid
19th century London. So plenty for you to listen to.
Thanks for joining us. Until next time.