The rise of the #MeToo movement and the increased focus on gender equality in contemporary society has sparked both a renewed interest in the campaign for women’s suffrage and the importance of celebrating the recent centenary of the Representation of the People’s Act.
In contrast to the popular narrative which suggests there was a single cohesive public campaign for the vote, historians have focused on the disparate voices and strategies within that movement and, above all, the contribution of two dominant factions: the Suffragists and the Suffragettes. These two faces of the women’s suffrage movement were polar opposites that differed along a number of key dimensions.
The two factions did not even share an identical timeline. Although the Suffragists are most closely associated with the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) that was instituted in 1897, the genesis of the movement arguably traces back to Mary Wollstonecraft’s campaign in the 18th century and certainly at least as far back as the 1860s, in the meetings of a discussion group called the Kensington Society who attempted to lobby for the amendment of the Second Reform Act.
In the years that followed, societies for Women’s Suffrage would emerge up and down the country, ultimately culminating in the formation of the NUWSS. The Suffragettes were the children of these Suffragists’ perceived failures. Those activists who were frustrated by the glacial nature of change that protest by peaceful means was delivering rallied under the banner of Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903.
The fundamental schism between the two factions was around strategy. The Suffragettes deployed radical tactics that have become fixed in the public conscious: including the hunger strikes, the rowdy protests and clashes with the police and, above all, Emily Wilding Davison’s death. Many militant Suffragettes resorted to acts of protest that endangered not only themselves, but also the public.
The Suffragette newspaper documented 300 incidents of arson and bombing between 1913 and 1914 and from this point on, the focus of the attacks was extended beyond political targets to private property, such as golf clubhouses, railway stations and cricket pavilions. Unsurprisingly, the Suffragettes’ attacks prompted an outraged response from the establishment. The Daily Express described the leaders of the movement as “…‘a missing link’ between humanity and the apes”, and claimed they were morally equivalent to “housebreakers, white slave dealers and murderers”.
In contrast, the guiding principle of the Suffragist movement was that all campaigning activities should be legal and moral, in order not to undermine the case for women’s rights. They used entirely peaceful means, such as petitions, public meetings, sending letters to MPs and vigorous propaganda campaigns, especially before elections. Whilst the majority of Suffragists publicly condemned the more violent activities of the Suffragettes (fearing that they would damage the cause) some took a more nuanced line. Millicent Fawcett, for instance, insisted that the government was responsible for provoking the women to violence; she also held a banquet in honour of Suffragette prisoners in December 1906.
The two groups interacted with the political establishment in very different ways. The Suffragists attempted to change the system from within, whilst the Suffragettes applied pressure from without. Although not formally allied with any political party before 1913, the NUWSS had many ties to the Liberal party. Indeed, many of the middle-class Suffragist leaders were related to prominent Liberal party members. These connections and their strategy of legal protest made it easier for the Suffragists to influence politicians and ultimately policy.
In 1911, the Suffragists met with the key Liberal leaders of the day – Asquith and Lloyd George – paving the way for the Conciliation Bills of May 1911 and February 1912, which could have given the vote to around a million women, had Asquith not changed suddenly tactics and focused instead on a male suffrage bill. The Suffragists were shrewd political operators and pivoted to ally with the Labour Party, and in the process applied political pressure on Asquith to change his position. In contrast, the Suffragettes were unable to apply meaningful pressure on the political class through traditional channels. Following one failed attempt to introduce a suffrage bill via MP Bamford Slack, the WSPU proceeded to attack whichever political party was in control.
Another key differentiating factor was their numbers. The Suffragists were a much larger organisation than the Suffragettes. Countless protest movements throughout history have demonstrated that when it comes to affecting change, size matters. The Suffragists understood this, and aimed to appeal to, and ultimately gain the support of, as wide an audience as possible. According to Julia Bush’s estimates in Women against the vote.
Female anti-suffragism in Britain, the NUWSS had 50,000 members to the WSPU’s 5,000 in 1914. This was no coincidence. Some activists, like the Pethick-Lawrences, disagreed with the militant tactics of the Suffragettes on principle. Others could not afford to pay the price of membership. To be a Suffragette was to act outside the law and to be ready, willing and able to face the consequences.
It is unclear whether the myth that the middle classes – “full of fashionable ladies in rustling silks and satins” – were over-represented in the WSPU has any basis in fact, but it would not be altogether surprising. Working class women could less afford to pay the penalty the authorities meted out to the Suffragettes: around 1,000 WSPU members went to prison at some point during their campaigning.
The final differentiating factor is how the two groups are represented in the mythology of the suffrage movement. The Suffragists were active for a far longer period of time, were far more numerous and far more actively engaged in the political process than the Suffragettes.
And yet it is the Suffragettes not the Suffragists who have become synonymous with the struggle for the vote. Sophie Walker, the leader of the UK’s ‘Women’s Equality Party’ from 2015 to 2019, was dubbed as one of the ‘New Suffragettes’ by Vogue in 2018. For every one search on Google for the ‘Suffragists’ in England and Scotland in 2019 there were twenty-four for the ‘Suffragettes’. It is as if the Suffragists have been air-brushed out of the public narrative.
The Suffragists asserted their role as ‘ladies’ who were members of civil society, who acted within the constraints of the era in order to advance their cause and promote a positive public perception of the suffrage movement. To a modern audience that sounds at best anachronistic, and at worst counter-productive to the cause: perpetuating chauvinistic stereotypes.
In contrast, the mindset of the Suffragettes with their shock tactics that so outraged respectable society at the turn of the nineteenth century is more inspiring to a modern audience. Perhaps then it is no surprise that the Suffragettes have become the emblem of the women’s suffrage movement.
By Layla Barwell.
Layla is a Year 12 pupil at Dartford Grammar School studying history
References
BBC – 100 Women: Suffragists or suffragettes – who won women the vote? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-42879161
Early suffragist campaigning – Parliament’s website https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/overview/earlysuffragist/
Records from the 1866 suffrage petition:
National Archives’ Suffragette Records https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/suffragettes-on-file/
The National Archives’ Education Service Britain 1906-1918 Gallery Three and Four: “Early 1900’s Women’s Suffrage” and “Gaining Women’s Suffrage”
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk › pdf › gallery-3-suffrage-case-studies
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk › pdf › gallery-4-suffrage-case-studies
Suffragettes vs Suffragists: Did violent protest get women the vote? – Channel 4 mini-feature https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw0IAFIhVfA&feature=emb_title
Millicent Fawcett’s Biography on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-33096
Emmeline Pankhurst’s Biography on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-35376
The Pankhursts: The History of One Radical Family By Martin Pugh (accessible on Google Books)
Women of the Right Spirit: Paid Organisers of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), 1904-1918, By Krista Cowman (accessible on Google Books)
Women Against the Vote: Female Anti-Suffragism in Britain By Julia Bush (accessible on Oxford Scholarship Online).
Humanists UK – Mary Wollstonecraft – https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/the-humanist-tradition/enlightenment/mary-wollstonecraft/
Biography on Bamford Slack, which includes his support for women’s suffrage: http://dmbi.online/index.php?do=app.entry&id=129
The Daily Express’ Reporting of Suffragette Crime 1913, paper by Sadie Clifford, Sheffield University, UK accessible here: www.sheffield.ac.uk › polopoly_fs › file › clifford
Did militancy help or hinder the granting of women’s suffrage in Britain? – Jane Purvis, from a 2019 Women’s History Journal, accessible here https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2019.1654638
Museum of London – Suffragette City: How did the ‘votes for women’ campaign affect London 1906–1914? www.museumoflondon.org.uk › files › suffragette-city-pocket-history
Google Trends for search data about Suffragettes and Suffragists (data recorded from January 2019-January 2020) https://trends.google.com/trends/
