A century on, let’s remember not all women wanted the vote

History is never kind to the losers. In some cases they are written out of history altogether – and that is especially true of the women who fought against having the vote.

You thought the suffragists’ problem was entirely with men, fusty politicians like Asquith? What’s forgotten is that a sizeable proportion of women didn’t want the vote; possibly the majority.

Half a million women signed an anti-suffrage petition before the First World War. Bright, feisty women campaigned against it, as well as self-effacing ones who felt they were better off minding their homes than being involved in politics.

The passing of the Representation of the People Act a century ago is being celebrated today. It’s a big anniversary party for feminism and, inevitably, there’s not much space for organisations like the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage – whose members were mostly women.

We take gender equality so much as read now, it’s hard to get our heads round the idea that women then could think that getting the vote was bad for them. But they did. Distinguished educationalists like Mary Ward, who helped set up Somerville College for women in Oxford, and Elizabeth Wordsworth, the head of Lady Margaret Hall, campaigned actively against women getting the vote.

Asquith, who spent much of his time in office before the war dodging young suffragettes, declared that he would grant female suffrage if he were sure that it was what women actually wanted. His own wife, Margot, was an anti. His Cabinet seriously considered a referendum on the issue which would have included women and men. The anti-suffragists were confident enough of their support to be keen on the idea, and when they canvassed women voters in municipal elections they found most were not looking for the vote for parliament.

It’s baffling for us, in the Theresa May era, celebrating the centenary of an obvious good. But if we are to take women’s voices seriously, we should listen to the losers too. And what many said was that women and men had separate spheres of responsibilities, with women caring not just for homes and families, but for local government and charities, and community work. Men, with their wider experience of the world, were, they felt, better able to deal with defence and imperial matters.

Some anti-suffrage literature is comic now: the (male) author of Woman Suffrage: a National Danger, in 1912, observed that Germany could hardly take Britain seriously as a world power if it were run by women. But other campaigners, like the anonymous female author of An Englishwoman’s Home, expressed her fury, as a working woman, at being told what was best for her by wealthy women with time on their hands (think Mrs Banks in Mary Poppins): “How can these richer women who now clamour for new responsibilities know us? We are the toiling, invisible millions, the unorganised women, the great majority of womankind… we do not parade on the streets.”

Of course, the antis lost. The Bill was passed by MPS by 385 votes to 55. Any other outcome seems inconceivable now. But, when we raise a glass to Millicent Fawcett and Emmeline Pankhurst, let’s spare a thought for the women for whom it was a defeat, not a victory.

Read more at telegraph.co.uk/opinion