Source Database
Section 9: Women’s Suffrage
(9.1) Louisa Garrett used to tell a story of a scene she witnessed at Alde House, Aldeburgh. The three women were her two daughters, Elizabeth and Millicent, and their friend, Emily Davies.
Before the bedroom fire, the girls were brushing their hair. Emily was twenty-nine, Elizabeth twenty-three and Millicent thirteen. As they brushed, they debated. ‘Women can get nowhere’, said Emily, ‘unless they are as well educated as men. I shall open the universities.’ ‘Yes,’ agreed Elizabeth. ‘We need education but we need an income too and we can’t earn that without training and a profession. I shall start women in medicine. But what shall we do with Milly?’ They agreed that she should get the parliamentary vote for women.
(9.2) In a book she wrote in 1939, Louise Garrett Anderson described how in 1859 a group of women under the leadership of Barbara Bodichon, began meeting at Langham Place in London.
In 1859 Barbara Bodichon had started an office in Langham Place to act as a bureau for helping women to find paid work. By 1861 Emily Davies, Elizabeth Garrett, Sophia Jex-Blake, Louise Smith, Emily Faithfull, Anne Proctor and many others met there. It was a centre of feminism. They were comrades and worked for a great end. The need felt by women for openings to paid employment was written in the office books. Louie Smith said to her hairdresser: ‘Surely, now, hairdressing is a calling suitable for women?’ ‘Impossible, madam, he said, ‘I myself took a fortnight to learn it.’
(9.3) In 1867 Lydia Becker had an article, Female Suffrage, published in the Contemporary Review.
The principle of confining political privileges exclusively to one sex, though persons of both sexes are equally affected by the course pursued in deciding political questions, is now challenged, and the case must be fairly judged on its merits. The sheer novelty of the proposal is the weakest part of the case for the petitioners; the opposition will find their most formidable stronghold in taking up the position that women have never voted in choosing members of Parliament, and therefore they ought not to do so now.
(9.4) In her book Women’s Suffrage published in 1911, Millicent Garrett Fawcett described the organisation of a petition on women’s suffrage.
In 1866 a little committee of workers had been formed to promote a parliamentary petition from women in favour of women’s suffrage. It met in the house of Miss Elizabeth Garrett (now Mrs. Garrett Anderson) and included Mrs. Bodichon, Miss Emily Davies, Miss Rosamond Davenport Hill and other well-known women.
(9.5) In 1866 Barbara Bodichon, Emily Davies, Elizabeth Garrett and Dorothea Beale organised a petition in favour of women’s suffrage. Louise Garrett Anderson explained what happened on the day the petition was presented to Parliament.
John Stuart Mill agreed to present a petition from women householders… On 7th June 1866 the petition with 1,500 signatures was taken to the House of Commons. It was in the name of Barbara Bodichon and others, but some of the active promoters could not come and the honour of presenting it fell to Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett…. Elizabeth Garrett liked to be ahead of time, so the delegation arrived early in the Great Hall, Westminster, she with the roll of parchment in her arms. It made a large parcel and she felt conspicuous. To avoid attracting attention she turned to the only woman who seemed, among the hurrying men, to be a permanent resident in that great shrine of memories, the apple-woman, who agreed to hide the precious scroll under her stand; but, learning what it was, insisted first on adding her signature, so the parcel had to be unrolled again.
(9.6) Lady Amberley, a committed supporter of women’s rights, attended one of the first meetings of the Women’s Suffrage Society in 1870. She recorded details of the meeting in her diary. Lady Amberley died, aged thirty-two, soon after giving birth to her son, Bertrand Russell.
The meeting of the Women’s Suffrage Society… was in the Hanover Square Rooms. I sat on the platform in front between Lord Amberley and Miss Taylor. The room was full of well-dressed people… Miss Helen Taylor made a long and much studied speech; it was good but too much like acting. Mrs. Harriet Grote’s was short but natural – Mrs. Millicent Fawcett’s uninteresting and Mrs Taylor was inaudible from a sore throat. It went off very well and was a great success.
(9.7) Selina Cooper joined the Women’s Suffrage Society in 1899. She later explained why she made this decision.
I carefully watched the proceedings and policy pursued by such great unions as the Miners, Cotton Spinners and Engineers, who all pressed for State interference with the object of improving their industrial conditions. I was compelled to recognise the power
of Parliament… Those well-organised industries had the ballot-box as a lever to raise their standard of life, but the women workers, however well they combined, had no such lever to help them in their demand for the redressing of their grievances.
(9.8) Margery Corbett Ashby joined the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies when she was studying at Newnham College, Cambridge.
I was deeply interested in the work of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and so I decided to take a job with the organisation. I became editor of the NUWSS’s newspaper, The Women’s Franchise, and I learned by experience how to select, produce and edit material… I also organised petitions, deputations and processions.
(9.9) Louisa Martindale became interested in the subject of women’s rights in the 1860s and eventually became a leading figure in the Sussex Women’s Liberal Association. Hilda Martindale wrote about her mother’s involvement in the movement in her book From One Generation to Another.
In the 1860s mother began reading widely, and learnt how Mary Wollstonecraft had vindicated the rights of women in burning words, how Caroline Norton had struggled for her rights over her children, and how Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson showed what determination was needed by young women who wished for academic or professional education. She read Barbara Bodichon’s Englishwomen’s Journal, which discovered and exposed the obstacles to the employment of educated women, and she learnt about Florence Nightingale and her work on the vast problem of nursing and sanitary administration. In the 1860s women realised that the only way to civil rights, higher education, and equal status lay through the parliamentary franchise… My mother became friends with Marie Corbett of Danehill, a remarkable woman who not only threw herself heart and soul into the cause, but also educated her daughters (now Mrs Margery Corbett Ashby and Mrs Cicely Corbett Fisher) to take the leading place they have in public life.
The overwhelming victory of the Liberal Party at the polls in January 1906 gave them fresh hope but many of the most ardent women political workers were disillusioned; amongst these was my mother…. Henceforth she worked chiefly for the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, which was carrying on the work of organisation amongst those women who believed that the cause of freedom could be won without violence.
(9.10) In 1907 Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy outlined the arguments for women’s suffrage in her booklet Women’s Franchise: The Need of the Hour.
Women demand our immediate enfranchisement on the same terms as men because we have, by long and painful experience, proved the absolute impossibility of securing any further redress of the many legal wrongs from which we still suffer, and because we fully realise the great danger of further careless, mischievous, and unjust legislation, greatly imperilling the well-being of women.
(9.11) In July 1911, Frances Balfour gave a talk on women’s suffrage at Coombe House, East Grinstead. The speech was reported in the local newspaper, The East Grinstead Observer.
Lady Frances Balfour gave a talk on Women’s Suffrage. Lady Balfour told the meeting that as the law stood women were classed with paupers, felons and lunatics as being unfit to exercise the franchise… She went on to speak of the great struggle women had in the matters of education, the difficulty they had in getting into the medical profession and taking part in local government… One of the arguments used against women having the vote was that they could not fight, therefore they had no right to a voice in these matters dealing with wars, but this was ridiculous, for who was it who suffered most in time of war? Women, because they lost their husbands and sons.
(9.12) In her book, The Militant Suffrage Movement, published in 1911, Teresa Billington Greig attempted to explain why so many women joined the suffrage movement at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Rebellion is the necessary result of injustice. It may not always achieve its purpose, or be intended to do so, but a conviction of injustice endured must precede articulate rebellion. Nor is it always certain that injustice will be followed by rebellion – it would be very much better for the world if this was the case. But where the victims of aggression or custom are ignorant and disunited the opportunities for reasoned and effective revolt are practically reduced to nothing…
For these feelings of revolt there was little outlet in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Women whose work was chiefly confined to private and domestic channels
were honeycombed with unrest, vague, spasmodic, and entirely unorganised. The spirit was willing; but there seemed no way of action clearly defined… At the beginning of the twentieth century more and more women came to realise the great possibilities of electoral power… They turned their attention to the winning of the parliamentary vote.
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