Celebrating Welsh vote campaigners

ON THE centenary of women being granted the right to vote in Britain, the actions of the Welsh campaigners of 100 years ago have been celebrated.

February 6, 1918, saw the Representation of the People Act 1918 come into force, granting women over 30 who “occupied premises of a yearly value of not less than £5” the right to go to the ballot box.

It took another decade for the voting age for women was lowered to 21 in line with men, but the first lurch towards equality meant that 8.4 million women were now able to vote.

It marked a victory for the women’s suffrage movement, made up of radical suffragettes and moderate suffragists.

Among those remembered for their actions is Rose Mary Crawshay, who married into the greatest iron dynasties of 19th century Merthyr.

She was one of the most vocal members of the early feminist movement and her name is one of 26 women who gave Welsh addresses when they signed the first women’s suffrage petition in 1866.

She set up soup kitchens, and when 49 men were killed in a colliery explosion, she visited every family. Her legacy lives on today in a literary prize, awarded to a female author, and run by the British Academy.

Dame Hermione Lee is a fellow of the British Academy and previous winner of the prize.

“I think she’s a fantastic example of someone who, in her life, wasn’t terribly well known. She hasn’t had the recognition of Emmeline Pankhurst but Rose worked locally for suffrage. She made a big difference in her local environment.”

She added: “Her efforts are an oldstyle feminist endeavour – to help women in particular disciplines on her way and to move them on. It’s a wonderful and rare thing”.

Another fondly remembered South Wales suffragist is Annie Mullin a Liberal councillor in Roath, Cardiff. She is described by historian Ursula Masson as having put “women before party”.

Her great-great-granddaughter, Elizabeth Clark – who has herself has been a Liberal Democrat councillor in the city – said: “She got involved with the suffragist movement and also encouraged other people to get involved in politics.

“Her stance to boycott anti-suffrage candidates [in 1910] was no doubt controversial.”

The family know that she had the ear of those in power. Keir Hardie and Philip Snowden were guests at her Pontcanna home, as was Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell.

Elizabeth added: “I feel particularly proud of her. How she pulled it off, I don’t know.

“She stood up for her beliefs for women’s rights against her political party and she wouldn’t compromise.

“She knew that women just had to have the vote and at the same time was cultivating these relationships to spread that message.”