Suffragettes debate

It’s a great pity if school students are not told the whole story of suffrage campaigning ( Letters, July). In 50 years of reading about it, and teaching it at university, I’ve noticed no suppression of suffragette violence but an active debate about whether it aided or hindered the cause. Everyone should know about it, in a balanced way. In aiming to damage property not people – and succeeding – it was very different to IRA and more recent terrorist horrors. No one died.

Its tactics were unique among militant movements in modern British history. Perhaps this is why Historic England has listed as National Heritage sites 41 places of ‘Suffragette Protest and Sabotage’, including bomb sites, advised by suffrage historians who have no interest in covering up anything. To discover the true story of suffragette militancy, people should visit these sites, listed on Historic England’s website along with the background stories. Professor Pat Thane, London