History: Celebrating 100 years since women won the vote
This year marks the centenary of women winning the right to vote in elections after years of struggle by the suffrage movement, explains Kate Chapman
The campaign to secure votes for women was a long and often violent struggle. But suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett never lost faith, and now, 100 years on, the influential feminist is still making history.
A century after she played a pivotal role in securing landmark legislation, Millicent has finally been honoured with a historic statue in Parliament Square – the first and only of a woman – which was unveiled in April this year during an emotional ceremony in London.
The bronze casting, created by artist Gillian Wearing, now stands proudly alongside 11 others commemorating male leaders, including Sir Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. It is also the first statue in Parliament Square created by a woman.
It’s a fitting tribute to Millicent Fawcett, a clever and accomplished woman who was widely published on women’s issues, and a public speaker on women’s rights. She was also passionate about education, and later helped found the womenonly Newnham College at the University of Cambridge.
But perhaps the saddest thing about her is that, despite being the single most important person in achieving votes for women in the UK, many people now don’t recognise her name, remembering instead Emmeline
Pankhurst, who was the leader of the much smaller (and ultimately less successful) group, the suffragettes. Because suffragettes used radical and violent tactics to draw attention to their cause, often involving great self-sacrifice, the truth is they are just more exciting for historians to write about!
Millicent’s courage
Born in Suffolk in 1847 and educated in London, Millicent launched her first petition calling for women’s suffrage when she was just 19 years old.
Although she took a moderate stance, she was a tireless campaigner, leading marches and speaking at rallies where she declared, ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere, and its voice cannot be denied’. Her rousing words have been immortalised in new likeness.
Not only is the statue a lasting memorial of her commitment to equality, it also serves as a timely reminder to women everywhere to make sure we honour her legacy, and always take up our right to vote.
Battling injustice
Demands for votes for women began gathering momentum in the mid-19th century, when many felt that, as ratepayers
and subject to the laws of the land – just like men – they should be able to vote and influence Parliament too.
A growing sense of injustice led many women to join together, and they started campaigning en masse, when they became known as suffragists.
The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) was created, campaigning under the leadership of Millicent
Fawcett, using peaceful tactics. But, because Millicent’s approach did not achieve immediate victory, a defeated parliamentary vote prompted the later formation of the small breakaway group, the Women’s
Social and Political Union (WSPU), known as suffragettes. It was led by Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) and her daughters Christabel, Sylvia (named Estelle Sylvia at birth) and Adela, who all favoured more radical, violent protests.
‘Deeds, not words’
Pankhurst wanted a more radical approach, thinking ‘deeds not words’ would make Parliament to give in to the women’s demands. The WSPU launched a campaign of law-breaking, which the newspapers called the ‘Suffragette Outrages’. One of the earliest incidents, in November 1909, saw a young Winston Churchill attacked by a suffragette on a railway platform with a horse whip.
Bank and post office windows were smashed, trunk telegraph wires were cut in London and postboxes were also targeted, but the most infamous incident involving a suffragette happened at the Epsom Derby horse race in 1913, when militant fighter Emily Wilding Davison rushed on to the track into the path of King George V’s horse and died as a result of the horrific collision, from a fracture to the base of her skull.
War changes everything
When WWI broke out, men joined up in their thousands, leaving vital jobs open – and women quickly stepped in to fill the gaps. Working on farms, in factories and in munitions manufacture, women worked so hard and successfully that the respect they won was key to the change of the Government’s attitude to the whole question of suffrage. Crucially, while Emmeline Pankhurst stopped campaigning, Millicent Fawcett’s suffragists continued their fight all through the war, until their eventual victory in 1918!
David Lloyd George replaced anti-suffrage Asquith as the new Prime Minister in 1916, and this also helped turn the tide in Parliament.