Suffragettes

Question 1

What was the Women’s Social and Political Union 1903-14?

Answer 1

• The WSPU was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia.
• They were frustrated by years of defeat for the suffrage , caimpaign and wanted to form a more effective political machine.

Question 2

What was the makeup of the WSPU?

Answer 2

• The leaders of the WSPU were mostly from
  affluent, middle-class families. They were usually married to wealthy men or came from monied backgrounds.
• The WSPU relied on unpaid work so its members had to be economically independent if they were to devote themselves to campaigning.
• They also recruited many working class (as well as middle-class) women who did valuable propaganda work in the textile towns while Sylvia Pankhurst established the WSPU branch in the working-class east end of London.

Question 3

How was the WSPU organised?

Answer 3

• The WSPU was run in a highly authoritarian, top-down manner. From 1906, its policies were decided by an unelected Central Committee dominated by the Pankhursts.
• There was little debate and discussion among members of the WSPU, vvhich led one suffragette to comment that, although Emmeline Pankhurst “wishes women to have votes, she will not allow them to have opinions”.

Question 4

How was Emmeline Pankhursts leadership effective?

Answer 4

• Emmeline Pankhurst had experienced many years of argument and. discussion in the nineteenth-century suffrage movement and wanted to control her organisation to prevent disagreements getting in the way of action.
• There was no official membership list and anyone could attend a WSPU meeting.
• Many local branches enjoyed , considerable autonomy and much of the later militant action was initiated at local level.
• As they embarked on more militant and illegal tactics and the government became more hostile, so quick responses and secret, military-style planning became necessary.

Question 5

What were the beginnings of militancy in the WSPU?

Answer 5

• May 1905, another one of the many bills for women’s suffrage was talked out in Parliament: MPs actually debated to compel carts on the road to carry rear lights. They did this in order to avoid giving time to a women’s suffrage bill.
• For the WSPU leaders this was the last straw, a sure sign that they would have to force the government to grant women the vote.
• In October, Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney interrupted the speeches of two leading Liberal Party politicians at an election rally in Manchester.

Question 6

What were the reasons for increasing