FIRST ELECTED
Party: Labour Seat: Rusholme, Manchester Emmeline was already a formidable force in the women’s rights movement before the election, as a treasurer of the Women’s Social and Political Union – the official title for the suffragettes. She founded the publication Votes for Women with her husband Frederick, who later became a baron, in 1907. They were both imprisoned in 1912 after demonstrations that involved breaking windows. Party: Women’s Party Seat: Smethwick
The eldest daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, Christabel was a major driving force in the increasing militarism of the suffragette movement.
A staunch patriot and supporter of the war, she was the only woman candidate endorsed by PM David Lloyd George. She was defeated by just 775 votes and went to America, and joined the Plymouth Brethren. Party: Labour Seat: Stourbridge
She was the first female representative on the Union’s National Executive and founded the National Federation of Women Workers. Experience as a journalist helped her get support for campaigns. Activist work made her well-known by the 1918 election but, under Edwardian tradition, she had to use her husband’s name on the ballot paper. The unknown name Mrs W. C. Anderson deterred people. Party: Liberal Seat: Mansfield
Chesterfield-born Violet was a well-known anti-suffrage campaigner, once writing: “Men have looked after us in the past and will continue to do so.” That did not stop her standing in 1918, after years of work in education reform, including as the president of the Chesterfield Settlement. She continued her passion for social reform after the poll, becoming Chesterfield’s first female mayor in 1927. Party: Liberal
The 1918 general election was the first of seven unsuccessful attempts at constituencies including Birmingham, Richmond and Watford by suffragist Margery to get into Parliament. Her only child, Michael Ashby, was a neurologist who gave evidence at the 1957 trial of suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams. Party: Labour Party: Independent Seat: Richmond Anti-German militant suffragette Norah was in Holloway Prison in 1914 before being released on licence. A pamphlet from 1918 said: “Anyone protecting German influence should be tried, or shot.” After the failed election, she defected to the British Union of Fascists. She was one of 10 female BUF candidates in the 1937 general election that never happened and went to Holloway again for involvement with the BUF. Seat: Birmingham Ladywood Party: Sinn Fein Seat: Belfast Victoria
The other Irish woman to stand in the election was less successful – losing out in a strong Unionist area.
Catholic and Irish Republican Winifred had been at James Connolly’s side in the GPO building in Dublin throughout the Easter Rising in 1916, for which she was jailed.
She married Protestant and Battle of the Somme survivor George McBride in an unlikely but happy pairing. Seat: Battersea North
Before the election, Charlotte was heavily involved in the Women’s Tax Resistance League and, in 1909, she met Gandhi, in London, through her work with the organisation. The daughter of Irish Captain John Tracy William French of the Royal Navy, Charlotte later became involved with Sinn Fein. She moved to Ireland in 1921, where she lived with Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne.