Playing cat and mouse with the hunger strikers
This is the final feature in our series on suffrage in Rochdale and the surrounding area, written by local studies assistant at Touchstones, Rochdale. N earlier article (please see below) was printed in the Rochdale Observer in March 1907, reporting ‘Rochdale Suffragettes in Gaol’.
The suffragists in question were Miss Eliza Ann Schofield, Miss Wilkinson and Mrs Sheard, all residents of Rochdale at the time of arrest.
Suffragettes were quite joyful to go to prison. They refused to eat and went on a hunger strike.
The government was very concerned that these women might die in prison hence giving the movement martyrs. Fearing this, the prison governors were ordered to force feed the suffragettes.
As a result, this caused a public outcry as forced feeding was usually a method used to feed lunatics as opposed to educated women.
The government of Asquith responded with the Cat and Mouse Act. When a Suffragette was sent to prison, it was assumed that she would go on hunger strike as this caused the authorities maximum discomfort.
The Cat and Mouse Act allowed the Suffragettes to go on a hunger strike and let them get weaker and weaker.
Force feeding was not used. When the Suffragettes were very weak they were released from
Aprison.
If they died out of prison, this was of no embarrassment to the government.
However, they did not die but those who were released were so weak that they could take no part in violent Suffragette struggles.
When those who had been arrested and released had regained their strength, they were re-arrested for the most trivial of reason and the whole again.
This, from the government’s point of view, was a very simple but effective weapon against the Suffragettes.
As a result, the Suffragettes became more extreme.
The most famous act associated with the Suffragettes was at the June 1913 Derby when Emily Wilding Davison threw herself under the King’s horse at the Derby race. process started
She was killed and the Suffragettes had their first martyr. However, her actions probably did more harm than good to the cause as she was a highly educated woman.
Many men asked the simple question – if this is what an educated woman does, what might a lesser educated woman do? How can they possibly be given the right to vote?
Emmeline Pankhurst opened a WSPU branch in Rochdale in 1907.
The address of the branch was given in the Rochdale Times as the second floor of 84 Yorkshire Street, which was at that point a shop - Miss M.A. Butterworth, Fancy Arts Repository.
The working Class Movement have in their archives the minute books of the Rochdale branch.
They continued up until 1915. Included in the minutes, there is a list of nearly 50 members and women friends who attended the ‘monster demonstration’ on June 21, 1908.
When between 200,000-300,000 women gathered in Hyde Park to further their campaign for votes for women.
Many meetings took place in the Rochdale Public Hall, Town Hall and the like and the turnout was always greater than expected.
The cause that these brave women fought for was a ‘sacred cause’. To them it meant the uplifting of humanity: better homes; more recreation for the workers; higher ideals for men and women; better lives and a greater opportunity for the children and for future generations to come.
There was support from some of the men who were pillars of the community and politically influential.
For example, Richard Cobden, whose daughter also fought for the cause and was imprisoned. John Bright and his brother Jacob Bright supported the suffragettes along with his sister and daughter who were members of the Rochdale branch. ●●Miss M A Butterworth, Fancy Arts Repository in Yorkshire Street – the Rochdale branch of the WSPU had its headquarters upstairs
A succession of rebellious and extremely intense movements formed the basis of the Vote for Women’s campaign in Britain in the early 1900.
Fourteen years later, During the First World War, the suffragettes put patriotism to Britain before their demands and postponed their activities to support the war.
The suffering, stress and determination finally paid off in 1918, after women had proved themselves during the war by taking on the jobs which the men would have been doing (farming, mill work, munitions etc.).
The 1918 Representation of the Peoples Act gave propertied women over the age of 30 the right to vote. Their determination paved out successfully in gaining women’s rights and allowing to vote.
The war although a terrible thing, gave a helping hand to the women’s cause. They proved themselves by taking on the roles of men whilst they went to war.
This helped bring about voting when the Representation of the People Act 1918 Act was passed.
This meant that women in Britain over the age of 30, meeting certain property qualifications, were given the right to vote and in 1928 suffrage were extended to all women over the age of 21.
Their struggles for change within society, along with the work of such advocates for women’s rights as John Stuart Mill, were enough to spearhead a movement that would encompass mass groups of women fighting for suffrage.
Mill introduced the idea of women’s suffrage on the platform he presented to the British electorate in 1865. He was subsequently joined by numerous men and women fighting for the same cause.
With that, suffrage in Britain was at last universal, and The Equal Franchise Bill 1928 gave women equal rights to those of men.
Soon after this success, women were seen representing their associations on council committees such as housing in May 1919.
The battle for votes for women had been fought for more than 60 years.
However, opinion amongst Historians today, is divided as to whether the militant tactics of the suffragettes helped or hindered their cause.
Although we are living in the 21st Century where women have more liberation than they did in the 1800’s, many women still feel they can relate to the hardships and struggles the women experienced back then. Single mothers, unemployed women and women in violent and abusive relationships sympathise with the women from the 19th Century.
Thanks to the suffrage movement, women are healthier than their Victorian foremothers.
They have smaller families and a lot more freedom. Women are able to cast their votes today without being questioned. This paved the way for women to have a say in the laws affecting their lives.
For example; having the right to divorce, buying property, Maternity benefits, birth control, the right to an education and the right to work in a field equally to that of the opposite sex to name just a few.
Women have proved their intellect and equality to men over the years.
Since the passing of the vote, Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister, reaching the highest political office in the land. The 21st century females continue to demonstrate their strong willed and strong-minded abilities and the determined few stand shoulder to shoulder with their male counter parts as world leaders and are involved in important decision making roles.
Women have become exceptionally vocal and carry out protests across the globe showing unity amongst women’s liberation.