Britain and the suffragettes: the campaign for women's suffrage, the suffragists and suffragettes, militancy and the government response, the impact of the First World War, and the winning of the vote.

What this dot point is asking

This WJEC depth study asks you to explain in detail why the campaign for women's suffrage grew and to assess how far militancy helped or hindered the winning of the vote. Depth studies reward precise knowledge (names, organisations, dates, legislation) and close, balanced analysis rather than narrative. The central historiographical question is whether constitutional persuasion, militant pressure or the First World War mattered most in 1918.

The answer

The growth of the campaign

Local suffrage societies, active since the first mass petition presented by John Stuart Mill in 1866, merged in 1897 into the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Women's growing role in work, education and local politics (they could vote in and stand for local elections) made exclusion from national politics ever harder to justify.

Suffragists and suffragettes

The two wings shared the aim of votes for women but disagreed sharply over tactics. The NUWSS, with over 50,000 members by 1914, dwarfed the WSPU in numbers but the suffragettes commanded the headlines. Their relationship was often tense, and Fawcett publicly distanced the NUWSS from violence.

Militancy and the government response

WSPU militancy escalated from heckling (Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney, 1905) and demonstrations to window-smashing (1912), arson and attacks on property. Imprisoned suffragettes adopted hunger strikes; the government responded with force-feeding and then the Prisoners' Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health Act of 1913 (the "Cat and Mouse Act"), which released and re-arrested weakened prisoners. Emily Wilding Davison's death under the king's horse at the 1913 Derby became the campaign's most famous image. Historians dispute whether militancy publicised the cause or hardened opposition in Asquith's Liberal government.

War and the winning of the vote, 1914 to 1928

The WSPU suspended militancy in 1914 to support the war effort. Women's wartime work in munitions, transport, the Land Army and the auxiliary services helped shift political and public opinion, and the need to re-enfranchise servicemen reopened the whole franchise question. The Representation of the People Act (1918) enfranchised women over 30 who met a property qualification (about 8.5 million women), while the Equal Franchise Act (1928) finally gave women the vote on the same terms as men.

Examples in context

Model paragraph (judging militancy). The net effect of militancy is best read as double-edged. On one hand the WSPU's campaign from 1905 transformed a marginal issue into front-page news, energised activists and made suffrage impossible to ignore, so that no politician could treat it as settled. On the other, the escalation to arson and the spectacle of force-feeding alienated moderate opinion and handed Asquith a pretext to stall, while splitting the WSPU itself (the expulsion of the Pethick-Lawrences in 1912). The historian Martin Pugh argues the steady constitutional growth of the NUWSS, not WSPU violence, did most to build support, and that the war was decisive in 1918. Militancy therefore raised the campaign's profile but probably delayed legislative progress, so its contribution lay in publicity rather than in directly winning the vote.

Try this

Q1. What were the NUWSS and the WSPU, and how did their tactics differ? [3 marks]

• Cue. The NUWSS (suffragists, Fawcett) used peaceful constitutional methods; the WSPU (suffragettes, Pankhurst) used militant direct action.

Q2. What did the 1918 Representation of the People Act do for women? [2 marks]

• Cue. It gave the vote to women over 30 who met a property qualification; full equality came in 1928.

Q3. To what extent did militancy help the suffrage campaign before 1914? [20 marks]

• What the marker wants. A balanced judgement weighing publicity and pressure against alienation and government resistance, plus other factors, with dated evidence.