Votes for Women: Suffragists, Suffragettes, and 1918
A Question Parliament Refused to Answer
By the 1860s, working-class men had begun to win the vote (1867) and the secret ballot was introduced (1872), but no woman could vote in a parliamentary election. The legal doctrine of coverture meant a married woman had no legal identity separate from her husband, and the dominant Victorian ideology of ‘separate spheres’ held that politics was a male world. Repeated parliamentary bills to give women the vote were blocked. By the early 20th century the patience of women campaigners had run out.
The Suffragists: Constitutional Pressure
In 1897 Millicent Fawcett brought together regional women’s suffrage groups into the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Its members became known as suffragists. The NUWSS used the methods that had worked for the anti-slavery movement and the Anti-Corn Law League: petitions, public meetings, parliamentary bills, lobbying MPs, and pamphlets. The campaign was patient and law-abiding. By 1914 the NUWSS had around 50,000 members — roughly ten times the size of its more famous rival.
The Suffragettes: ‘Deeds Not Words’
Frustrated by Parliament’s repeated rejections, in 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Manchester. Its members became known as suffragettes, and their motto was ‘Deeds not words’. From 1905 they heckled cabinet ministers, chained themselves to railings, smashed shop windows on Oxford Street, and burned letters in postboxes. After 1912 the campaign escalated to arson attacks on empty country houses, paintings (the ‘Rokeby Venus’ slashed in 1914) and the bombing of David Lloyd George’s holiday home.
Two movements, two methods. The NUWSS (1897, Millicent Fawcett) were ‘suffragists’ — peaceful, constitutional, around 50,000 members by 1914. The WSPU (1903, the Pankhursts) were ‘suffragettes’ — militant, around 5,000 members but huge media coverage. They overlapped early on but split after 1912.
Imprisoned suffragettes went on hunger strike. From 1909 the government began force-feeding them: a tube down the throat or nose, often by male warders. The horror of the practice produced sympathy that arrests alone had not. In 1913 the government replied with the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act, nicknamed the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’: weak hunger strikers were released, then re-arrested when they recovered. The act extended the political conflict and kept the cause in the newspapers.
In June 1913 Emily Davison stepped onto the Epsom Derby racecourse and was struck by the King’s horse. She died of her injuries four days later. Whether she meant to commit suicide or simply pin a banner to the horse is still debated, but her funeral procession through London — tens of thousands lining the streets — gave the movement a national martyr.
War and the Vote
When war broke out in August 1914 the WSPU suspended militancy and threw itself into the war effort, demanding women be allowed to do war work. The NUWSS continued its constitutional campaign. By 1917 around 1.7 million women were employed in munitions, transport, agriculture and the auxiliary armed services. The argument that women were ‘unfit’ for political responsibility looked harder to sustain when the same women were keeping factories and fields running.
There was also a practical political problem. The existing male franchise required residence; soldiers serving abroad would lose the vote when they returned. Parliament had to legislate. Once the franchise was being redrawn, including women became a political possibility for the first time.
The Representation of the People Act 1918
In February 1918 Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act. All men over 21 could now vote; women over 30 who met a property qualification (or were married to a property holder, or graduates) gained the vote for the first time. The electorate almost tripled, from about 7.7 million to over 21 million, of whom around 8.4 million were women. Women aged 21-30 were excluded, partly because politicians feared female voters would outnumber men if both sexes were given the vote on equal terms. Equal franchise came with the 1928 Equal Franchise Act, which gave women the vote on the same terms as men at 21.
Most historians now argue that suffragette militancy alone did not deliver the 1918 Act. By 1913 militancy had alienated some MPs who had previously been sympathetic, and the campaign was on the back foot when war broke out. What swung the result was a combination of factors: decades of suffragist constitutional pressure that had built a Commons majority of supporters; women’s war work in munitions and on the land; the practical need to redraw the male franchise to enfranchise returning soldiers; and the political memory of the militant campaign as a warning of what suspended pressure could mean. The exam reward is for arguments that weigh several factors, not for crediting one group with the whole victory.
After 1928: The Long March to Equality
The vote was a beginning, not an end. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 opened the legal and accountancy professions to women. The Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 attacked workplace discrimination. The Equality Act 2010 consolidated protected characteristics into a single framework. But the gender pay gap, the under-representation of women in Parliament (just over 40 per cent of MPs after the 2024 election), and ongoing campaigns on violence against women all show the work the 1918 generation began is unfinished.
The 1918 Representation of the People Act gave the vote to all men over 21 and women over 30 with a property qualification. The electorate almost tripled to about 21 million; around 8.4 million women could vote for the first time. Equal franchise at 21 came with the 1928 Equal Franchise Act.
The Factor Thread
Votes for women is the AQA classic 16-mark question and the cleanest test of weighing factors. Role of the individual: Fawcett, the Pankhursts, Davison. War: 1914-18 reshaped what women could be seen to do. Ideas: equality and democracy gathered pace from the 1860s onwards. Government: Asquith’s hostility versus the practical need to redraw the male franchise. Communication: the suffragette papers Votes for Women and The Suffragette, and (by 1918) early newsreels. Top answers do not pick a single winner; they show how these factors combined and which mattered when.