Gabriel Lambert British 6 - Suffrage

Why was women’s suffrage delayed for so long?

The suffragists ‘must try and realise that anti-suffragists are as firmly persuaded of the value of
women’s work to the State as the suffragists themselves, only that they seek to give a different
direction to that work.’1 In the historical debate about the timing and nature of suffrage legislation in
Britain it is tempting, though misleading, to see the right of women to vote in Parliamentary
elections as the inevitable or even natural outcome of the various suffrage movements of the 19th
and early 20th century. Such a teleological narrative is unhelpful for, as the National Review
indicates the debate around the vote for women was not a simplistic pitting of progressive, rational
voices against prejudiced traditional and patriarchal ones (both male and female). Rather there was
a constantly evolving discourse that underpinned the actions of all the extra-Parliamentary groups, a
discourse that covered on the role of women in society, the potential capacity of women to
contribute to public life, the potential value of enfranchisement (as a means to broader
emancipation or as a ‘good’ in itself) and the tactics to be employed to achieve these different
objectives. Thus in questioning why suffrage came in the 1918 rather than 1867 or 1884 (or indeed,
earlier in the 20th century) it is not enough to point to factors that inhibited an inevitable ‘march of
progress’. Rather one has to evaluate the views of women and men who were for, against and
ambivalent about female suffrage to try to pick out as many strands of the complex debates taking
place as possible, and then to assess the degree to which the political leaders were affected by such
ideas.

Satisfactory political participation can take many forms and if one can demonstrate that women had
avenues of meaningful involvement before suffrage was granted, it may be possible to see why more
did not support the predecessors of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWS) and
the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in the 19th century, and why many continued to feel
satisfactorily involved in politics in the 20th century to preclude the need for the vote. Women were
integral parts of many elections – they campaigned on behalf of candidates, with Mrs Gwynne
Holford championing her husband in 1837 more vigorously than he did himself 2 or offering implicit
threats to their tenants if they did not vote for their chosen candidate. In 1868 H. E. Bruton wrote to
her tenants simply saying ‘Sir – I request you will vote for my father, J. W. S. Erle-Drax Esq. On
receipt of this.’3 Women were clearly regarded as potential targets for electioneering too – they
were more likely than their husbands to be at home when the campaigners called. It was remarked
by the Monmouthshire Beacon in October 1868 that it was important for candidates to ‘woo’ the
local women (physical attractiveness helped) and kiss their children. In the canvassing books it was
revealed that the vote was often seen as family property, or even as being controlled by a
domineering wife – in Caerarfon in 1837 it was written of one potential voter that ‘the wife is a
decided Conservative and she wears the breeches!!!’ 4 Women also participated in electoral
corruption – the threat of ‘exclusive dealing’ (ie: to remove one’s custom if the provider did not vote
for one’s chosen candidate) was a powerful one. The examples so far assumed a certain level of
wealth, but lower class women could bargain for their husbands vote – in 1859 a Mr Nanson asked
for William Graham’s vote and his wife, uninvited by her husband, suggested that the candidate
supply them with a spirit licence in return. 5 There were also cases of women specifically requesting a
change of policy from candidates, showing that women could have direct influence on potential
MPs. Late examples of political participation included extra-parliamentary pressure groups such as
the Navy League and the Tariff Reform League which often had autonomous or semi-autonomous
women’s branches which offered a more public outlet for women’s political energies. Thus many
1
National Review 55, August 1919
2
M. Cragoe ‘Jenny rules the roost: women’s electoral politics 1832–68’ p155
3
Ibid p156
4
Ibid p158
5
Ibid p162
Gabriel Lambert British 6 - Suffrage

may have questioned why they needed the vote – if it was bargained for as a family object, or if
women found meaningful political expression without needing suffrage many may have questioned
its use.

Similarly, in the late 19th century many important pieces of legislation were passed that widened
women’s social role. In 1869 the Municipal Corporations Amendment Act, championed by Jacob
Bright allowed women with the appropriate property qualification to vote in municipal elections,
while the 1870 Education Act allowed women to vote and serve in local school boards. The 1882
Married Women’s Property Act removed some of the potential injustices within marriages with
regards to property ownership, while the 1894 Local Government Act gave all women the local
franchise, essentially ending the controversial issue of coverture that had split the National Society
for Women’s Suffrage (NSWS). Crucially, many of these advances were accomplished through the
work of the NSWS and its supports in Parliament, demonstrating that the 19th century suffragists
were not the ‘lame’ group they were later accused of being by the Pankhursts. Yet with many of the
most serious grievances held by women’s movements being removed, some must have questioned
the need for further reform. There was also an ideological difference between education and local
affairs on the one hand and national politics on the other – the former could be incorporated within
the traditional role of women as mothers concerned for their children’s upbringing and the
environment in which they were raised, while the latter was a bold departure from such
maternalism.

The key players in the suffrage debate were ultimately MPs – without a constitutional foothold,
suffragists had to rely on Parliament to pass the legislation they wanted. Before addressing their
success, John Stewart Mill’s commentary needs to be considered. Mill argued that the suffrage
debate was so hard to win because opponents of women’s rights based their argument on feeling
rather than logic – when they were defeated logically they relied even more on their entrenched
customs and traditions for support.6 This led to the placement of the burden of proof on those
arguing for suffrage for women. Though Mill attempted to do this in his work, he argued it was
impossible to know the ‘nature’ of women because they had never been free from patriarchal
influence and since society’s knowledge of the complex processes through which human character
was fashioned was minimal, conclusive evidence could not be brought to bear (other than the rare
historical incidences of female rulers demonstrating their prowess as governors). 7 He also discussed
the fact that women were conditioned to be obedient to men because the latter desired their
affection and so ensured their education promoted submission and acceptance of male domination. 8

Was this irrational and instinctual defence of patriarchy present in the political sphere? To a certain
extent, it was – the various private members’ bills brought before the Commons were often used as
an excuse to make insulting comments about women. For instance, the 1909 discussion of forcible
feeding provoked laughter amongst the MPs, a detail picked up on by the suffragist press. 9 Asquith
essentially ignored the Hyde Park demonstration in 1908, provoking more dramatic militarism while
Lloyd George took ‘childish delight’ at torpedoing the Conciliation Bill of 1910. 10 It is difficult to
compare the success with which the various suffragist bodies lobbied Parliament or individual MPs in
comparison with other pressure groups (like the Navy League) but the patronising attitude taken for
much of the 19th and early 20th centuries towards the issue of female suffrage reveals some validity
in Mill’s accusation. Even if Asquith was blind to suffrage as a status question, the Liberal
government did have logical reasons for delaying or ignoring suffrage – Asquith resisted the simple

6
J.S. Mill, The Subjection of Women pp119-120
7
Ibid p139
8
Ibid p133
9
M. Bentley and J. Stevenson, High and Low Politics in Modern Britain p84
10
Ibid p85
Gabriel Lambert British 6 - Suffrage

removal of sex disability because of the tension this would create amongst the working class
supports and ultimately preferred adult suffrage, thereby aligning his party on the left, closer to the
Labour party that was attracting increasing numbers of disillusioned Liberal women. It was probably
very difficult to gauge the extent of popularity of the movement – while there were public
demonstrations and petitions (the government could never been seen to yield to violence) there
were counter-demonstrations and internal divides within the suffrage movements that prevented a
united suffragist ideology from emerging.11 Working class issues were apparently more pressing,
especially because a limited female franchise would probably give the Conservatives more support
and push even more of the suffragists to the Labour party. Indeed many working class women felt
tension between their support of the Labour party and the support of a suffrage group – did the
latter detract attention from the former? Would attention devoted to votes for women take away
from more pressing economic concerns or even be a betrayal of the working class? For if simple
sexual equality was granted, many working class men as well as women would still not have the
vote. But, for Asquith, foreign issues and welfare reform were also increasingly demanding his
attention.12 Thus while there was certainly prejudice against women in Parliament, and though this
probably influenced many of the votes on private members’ bills, it cannot be solely responsible for
the Liberal delay to extend the franchise – they had party political reasons for focusing their
attention elsewhere.

There was a serious discourse on the suffrage issue throughout the 19th century and especially in
the early 20th that split different suffrage groups and gave rise to competing anti-suffrage
movements. Some of the splits were for personal reasons – Dora Montefiore was expelled by
Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst for her misgivings about militancy and the attention she
attracted through tax resistance – attempts to make the WSPU more democratic were rejected
causing the formation of a splinter group in 1907 called the Women’s Freedom League. 13 Some of
the divides were less serious than reported – Fawcett did admire the WSPU and partly credited them
with the rapidly rising membership of her own NUWS even if the two did occasionally clash over
elections. After the WSPU’s tactics became increasingly militant many NUWS members were
concerned they were undoing the image of women as potentially responsible political individuals.
But there were serious ideological debates throughout the whole period. Coverture, the surrender
of legal rights to the husband on marriage, was a key point of contention among suffragists in the
later part of the 19th century, and the degree to which women’s organisations should be ‘moralising’
or libertarian was also contested. But the biggest split was between the suffrage groups and the
Anti-Suffrage League, formed in 1908. The crucial point is that the latter still saw itself as ‘feminist’
(as the introductory quotation suggests) – they simply argued that women’s primary duty was that
of a mother, a role increasingly important in the face of military and economic competition. 14 Indeed
they were actually borrowing from the Wollenstonecraftian redefinition of motherhood as women’s
natural duty. Wollenstonecraft, like the anti-suffragists also felt very few women were suited to
public life though, like the ‘antis’ also supported female education. 15 But she also felt the state was
an aggregate of the private and public spheres – thus it was a woman’s patriotic duty to society to be
a good mother.16 Thus women had a role in society, and the antis valued that role highly, they simply
felt it was fundamentally different from the position offered by the various suffragists. Thus the
discourse surrounding women may have shifted in the suffragists’ favour, but it was still very much
alive – this can partly explain the lack of a clear popular picture for the Liberals to use to provide a
popular justification for suffrage for women.

11
Ibid p107
12
Ibid p112
13
J. Purvis, Women’s History Britain, 1850-1945 p291
14
M. Faraut ‘Women Resisting the Vote : a case of anti-femininism?’ p606
15
Ibid p609
16
Ibid p612
Gabriel Lambert British 6 - Suffrage

Thus a combination of existing, non-Parliamentary political involvement, Parliamentary prejudice,

Bibliography
J.S. Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869) CUP edition
M. Cragoe ‘Jenny rules the roost: women’s electoral politics 1832–68’ in K. Gleadle & S. Richardson, Women in
British Politics (2000)
E.Elspeth 'The Scottish women's suffrage movement', in E.Breitenbach & E.Gordon, Out of bounds: women in
Scottish Society, 1800–1945 (1992)
C. Murphy, Cliona. ‘The religious context of the women's suffrage campaign in Ireland’. Women’s Hist. Rev. 6
(1997),
M. Faraut ‘Women Resisting the Vote : a case of anti-femininism?’ Women’s Hist. Rev. 12 (2003)
K. Gleadle and S. Richardson, eds. Women in British Politics, 1760-1860 The Power of the Petticoat
J. Purvis, Women’s History Britain, 1850-1945
M. Bentley and J. Stevenson, High and Low Politics in Modern Britain