Suffrage after 1903: Introduction

The early twentieth century saw some decisive shifts in the women’s movement[1]. The few years of political clamour surrounding the militant suffragettes from around 1906-7 until the outbreak of war in 1914 has served to mask very effectively not only alternative feminist tactics of that same period but also the range of activity preceding it in the nineteenth century. The historical distortion, largely a product of the dominant Pankhurst view of the movement meant that all women’s struggles other than that of the suffragettes were either invisible or insignificant and has been a major factor in focusing our historical definition of feminism on the fight for the vote[2]. However, there was no sign at the opening of the twentieth century that the government would legislate for female suffrage. Parliamentary efforts on the question revived in 1904. The Liberal MP, Sir Charles McLaren introduced a resolution that passed the Commons by 182 to 68. However, they came as before only from the backbenches.

How far did the women’s movement become factious between 1903 and 1914?

By 1903, the suffrage movement was divided into two distinct groups, each of which further divided into a number of factions. By 1912, the whole movement was a complex web of such groups.

The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS)

Origins. This organisation was created in 1897 when the existing suffrage societies merged under the leadership of Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the wife of Henry Fawcett, a Liberal MP. By 1913, the NUWSS had 400 societies that were split between 19 federations covering the country. It had about 500,000 members and an annual income of £45,000.

Tactics. The NUWSS women were ‘constitutional suffragists’, believing in peaceful methods to achieve their objectives. Their tactics centred round discussion, public meetings and processions like the aptly called ‘Mud March’ of 7^th February 1907 because of the atrocious weather, publishing their views in a newspaper The Common Cause and petitioning parliament[3].

The NUWSS used the ploy of asking sympathetic MPs to sponsor private members’ bills. Between 1870 and 1914, almost thirty such bills were introduced. However, without government backing, they had little chance of success. The NUWSS did have some contact with other suffragist organisations such as the WSPU but abhorred the use of violence to achieve the vote. They felt that peaceful methods would strengthen their case by displaying women as rational beings who would be capable of using the franchise. In 1912, the NUWSS made it official policy to back Labour Party candidates in elections. Labour was the only political party to put female suffrage into its political manifesto.

The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)

Origins. Emmeline Goulden was born in 1858. She first attended a suffrage meeting in Manchester in 1872. In 1879, she married a leading Manchester lawyer, Richard Pankhurst, and had four children -- Christabel, Sylvia, Henry and Adela. The two elder girls and their mother were to become prominent figures in the Suffrage Movement. Emmeline Pankhurst held public office as a Poor Law Guardian and Registrar of Births and Deaths. By the time she was widowed in 1898, she was a committed socialist. It seemed possible that the Independent Labour party would commit themselves to the vote in a way the Liberal party would not. Emmeline Pankhurst, spurred on by Christabel, formed The Women’s Social and Political Union at her home 62, Nelson Street, Manchester in 1903 with the aim of obtaining votes for women ‘on the same terms which it is, or may be, granted for men’. In 1905, the WSPU moved its headquarters to Clement’s Inn, London (and to Lincoln’s Inn in 1911-12). Other prominent members at this time were Annie Kennedy, a cotton-mill worker, and Mr and Mrs Pethick-Lawrence, who edited the WSPU publication, Votes for Women. By 1910, the WSPU had a reputed membership of 36,000 and an annual income of £35,000.

Splinter groups. In 1907, Mrs Charlotte Despard and Mrs Teresa Billington-Greig established The Women’s Freedom League (WFL), a breakaway group from the WSPU. The WFL had the specific intention of evading the Inland Revenue, saying that they would not pay any taxes until they had the vote, and in 1911, they refused to co-operate with the Census. Another reason for the split was that they disliked the fact that WSPU was totally dominated by the Pankhursts, who were now dictating WSPU policy. In 1912, the Pethick-Lawrences left the WSPU and established their own organisation The Votes for Women Fellowship or United Suffragists. Finally, in 1913, Sylvia Pankhurst formed the East London Suffrage Federation. She had become disillusioned with the WSPU because it had become middle class oriented and had apparently abandoned working class women. The result of these splits was to leave the original WSPU as a dwindling band dominated by Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst. The degree to which this mattered depended on perspective. At the grass roots, the distinction between militants and non-militants was much less clear-cut than it appeared from the perspective of London.

Tactics. At first, the WSPU adopted similar tactics to the NUWSS and sought to educate the public on female suffrage. In 1904, however, the Pankhursts witnessed a Private Member Bill on Women’s Suffrage deliberately talked out by MPs in the House of Commons. Their anger at this caused them to reconsider their tactics. It became obvious that men would not listen to their case and they decided that militant action was necessary: ‘Deeds not words’ became official WSPU policy. They adopted tactics such as heckling government ministers at meetings, obstructing ministers at by-elections and holding an annual ‘Woman’s Parliament’. In October 1905, Christabel and Annie Kennedy heckled Edward Grey at a Liberal Party rally in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall. They were removed from the Hall and imprisoned: this was the first militant act of the WSPU. In 1906, the Daily Mail labelled members of the WSPU ‘suffragettes’ in view of their militant stance, thus distinguishing them from the moderate suffragists of the NUWSS. In 1912, Mrs Pankhurst declared ‘war’ and sanctioned attacks on property in the cause of winning the vote.

In 1978, Jill Liddington and Jill Norris published One Hand Behind Us. It gave a new view of the women’s suffrage movement. They argue that the traditional view gave too much credit to the militant tactics of the WSPU and the role of the Pankhursts and ignored the contribution made by the ‘Radical Suffragists’. They were working class female cotton-workers in Lancashire who objected to the violent tactics of the WSPU and the domination of the NUWSS by middle class activists. The Radical Suffragists were, in essence, a breakaway faction of the NUWSS. They were closely allied to the trade-union movement and believed fervently in winning the vote for working class women by means of ‘grassroots diplomacy’. Prominent in the movement was Esther Roper, Eva Gore-Booth, Cissy Foley and Ada Nield Chew. The Radical Suffragists allied themselves politically with the Labour Party and were in favour of full womanhood suffrage that they saw as the gateway to improving the social condition of working class women. They opposed female suffrage based on a property qualification, as it would only enfranchise upper and middle class women.

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[1] Two works provide a general overview on this issue: Lesley A. Hall Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880, Palgrave, 2000 and Sue Bruley Women in Britain since 1900, Macmillan, 1999.

[2] On the Suffragettes, see Susan Kingsley Kent Sex & Suffrage in Britain 1860-1914, Routledge, 1987 for an analysis of the issues and concerns about sexuality that permeated the women’s suffrage movement from the 1860s through to 1914. Andrew Rosen Rise Up, Women! The Militant Campaign of the Women’s Social and Political Union 1903-1914, Routledge, 1974 and Roger Fulford Votes for Women: The Story of a Struggle, Faber, 1958 are the most readable studies of the Suffragettes. Fulford’s work is a sound, if ‘masculinist’ narrative while Rosen is more analytical. Both need to be read in conjunction with more recent ‘feminist’ work.

[3] Much work on women’s suffrage focuses on London. Leah Leneman ‘A truly national movement: the view from outside London’, in Maroula Joannou and June Purvis (eds.) The Women’s Suffrage Movement: New feminist perspectives, Manchester, 1998, pages 37-50 and June Hannam ‘I had not been to London: women’s suffrage – a view from the regions’, in June Purvis and Sandra Stanley Holton (eds.) Votes for Women, Routledge, 2000 pages 226-245 gives the story from the provinces. Leah Leneman A guid cause: the women’s suffrage movement in Scotland, Aberdeen University Press, 1991, 2^nd ed., 1998 is the leading text on Scotland. Deidre Beddoe Out of the Shadows: A History of Women in Twentieth Century Wales, University of Wales Press, 2000 provides a sketch of women’s suffrage in Wales while Kay Cook and Neil Evans ‘The Petty Antics of the Bell-Ringing Boisterous Band? The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Wales 1890-1918’, in Angela V. John (ed.) Our Mothers’ Land: Chapters in Welsh Women’s History 1830-1939, University of Wales Press, 1991, pages 159-188 is more detailed. Cliona Murphy The Women’s Suffrage Movement and Irish Society in the Early Twentieth Century, Temple University Press, 1989 is a good introduction to the movement in Ireland.

Governing Norman Lands

How far was there an administrative policy peculiar to Norman rule in Normandy, England, southern Italy and Sicily and Antioch, the crusading kingdom established in the early twelfth century?  In 1969, D.C. Douglas stated the case as follows[1]:

“Before the twelfth century was far advanced, monarchies established by the Normans controlled the best organised kingdoms in Europe and a Norman prince ruled the strongest of the Crusading states.  This success was, however, not due merely to the facts of conquest or even to the establishment of notable rulers supported by strong feudal aristocracies.  It derived from a particular administrative policy which was everywhere adopted by the Normans.  In all the states they governed, the Normans at this time were concerned to give fresh vitality to the administrative institutions that they found in the conquered lands and to develop these constructively to their own advantage.”

In Sicily, as in England, historians have implied that the Norman rulers chose the best practices and institutions and incorporated them into the Norman system that their 'genius of adaptation' then developed into one that was more efficient and more successful than its predecessor. 

The claims made by Douglas and his predecessors have been strongly challenged for England by James Campbell and W. L. Warren.  They suggest that the evidence for Anglo-Norman administration is open to a fundamentally different interpretation[2].  Warren attacked the ‘myth of Norman administrative efficiency’:

“Until the end of the eleventh century, Anglo-Norman England was largely managed by Englishmen.  The crisis in continuity emerges not at the Conquest but as the generation personally familiar with pre-Conquest practice dies off and the Normans had to cope for themselves.  The critical questions are how far were they able to master the Anglo-Saxon inheritance and how far they understood it.  The innovations in administrative practices were...at least in part a response to problems which the Normans themselves inadvertently created and an attempt not so much to improve upon the Anglo-Saxon system as to shore it up and stop it collapsing...Under the Normans, the Anglo-Saxon system became ramshackle.  Norman government was a matter of shifts and contrivances.  Nevertheless, there is a break in continuity, not at the Conquest itself...but within fifty years.  The break occurred not because the Normans did not wish to preserve the Anglo-Saxon inheritance but because they did not know how to...”

What is now clear is that.  First, in the immediate post-conquest period, in England and Sicily, the Norman rulers sought to adapt native administrative practices to their own needs.   Secondly, in both areas a generation after the conquest, there was a break in continuity caused by a failure of the conquerors to preserve the administrative structure inherited from the previous rulers.   Finally, in Sicily, as in England, Norman rulers then introduced administrative innovations to repair the damage done to the pre-conquest system; innovations that underwent rigorous selection through a process of trial and error and rapidly developed in new directions.

There were, however, important differences between the ways in which the Norman rulers of England and Sicily adapted native administrative processes to their own needs.  In England, the Norman rulers initially perpetuated the Anglo-Saxon inheritance by employing native administrators.  Until 1071, a significant group of English earls and thegns retained power and status and played a significant role in the post-conquest settlement.  After 1071, at the level of the shire a small but vital administrative community of Anglo-Saxons survived ensuring the continuity of Anglo-Saxon customs and traditions.  After the conquest of Sicily was completed in 1091, no Muslim lords held land in fief from the Normans.  Although Sicilian Arabs must have been employed within the early Norman administration, we know the name of only one before 1130 while an entire class of Greek Christian administrators was imported from east Sicily and Calabria to manage and adapt the Arab and Islamic institutions through which the island was administered. 

Linguistically, there were parallels between England and Sicily.  Both islands had become 'trilingual' as a result of the conquest though it is important to recognise that a concentration on three big languages oversimplifies the complex linguistic structure of the islands.  For example, it ignores the linguistic diversity of north and west Britain and the wide variation of Romance vernaculars in the Sicilian kingdom.  It also neglects the Scandinavian communities in Britain and the presence of some Normans who still had Norse personal names.   In England, although Old English (Anglo-Saxon) was the administrative language before 1066, Latin was already the dominant literary language and soon after the conquest (around 1069) replaced Old English as the language of records, though it retained the unwritten language of local government.  French (Anglo-Norman) was introduced after 1066 as the language of the victorious elite, but, except in the king’s court, French-speakers were soon assimilated into English-speaking society.  French was soon established as a literary language but it was not until the mid-13^th century that it was widely used as a language of record.

In pre-conquest Sicily, Arabic was the dominant language of administrative at all levels, of literary culture and of religion. Greek was confined to monasteries and to the Greek urban societies of eastern Sicily.  Even the non-Muslim minorities (Jews and Greek Christians) seem to have been predominantly Arabic-speaking.  After the conquest, Arabic continued to be used in some documents for a generation but was then dropped.  Greek was established as the language through which the Normans ruled and rapidly became the dominant language of administration on the island.  By 1110-15, the almost complete replacement of Arabic by Greek and of Arab Muslim by Greek Christians in the central administration hastened the collapse of the pre-conquest administrative system far more than the, as yet, insignificant introduction of Latin.  The new Greek structure incorporated some things salvaged from the pre-conquest Muslim administration but it was essentially new and foreign.  Latin lords and their Arab 'villeins' used, respectively Latin (or a Romance vernacular) and Arabic with Greek Christians acting as intermediaries between the two communities.  In post-conquest England, an educated person might read and write Old English, Latin and French but in Sicily, such ‘trilinguism’ was uncommon and confined largely to the Greek Christian community.  In the long term, the language of the Norman conquerors enriched English but was replaced by it as English became the dominant language throughout Britain.  In Sicily, the Romance vernaculars of the Normans had almost completely ousted Arabic by the end of the 13^th century and medieval Sicilian contained only some three hundred words of Arabic derivation.

The Anglo-Saxon and Muslim inheritances were fundamentally different from each other and the Norman rulers sought to adapt these inheritances in England and Sicily in very different ways.  This contrast is reinforced by the ways in which Henry I and Roger II each sought to make good the damage done to the pre-conquest systems.   In England, Henry I replaced existing Anglo-Saxon social mechanisms with a series of innovations amounting to a rapid expansion of the early state and the administrative machinery through which it was governed.  Roger II sought to preserve and to restore the system inherited from Muslim Sicily by importing administrative practices, institutions and personnel wholesale from the contemporary Muslim world so that the Arabic administrative of Sicily in the mid-12^th century resembled the classical Islamic system as exemplified by contemporary Fatimid Egypt.  In England, the existing Anglo-Saxon system was close to collapse.  Henry I had little choice but to innovate.  In Sicily, Roger II sought to repair the existing native system and gave a new lease of life to previously decaying Arabic and Islamic administrative systems and institutions.    At the same time, Roger II and his successors introduced a series of far-reaching innovations in the Greek and, especially in the Latin branches of the administration. 

There are important differences in the ways in which the Normans in England and Sicily responded to a common problem: how should they react to the collapse of existing native institutions?  ‘Administrative efficiency’ was not the consequence of the conquests but a necessary response to Norman failure to maintain the administrative systems they inherited.  Good governance had to be created in England after 1100 and recreated in Sicily after 1120.  This was the administrative achievement of the Normans. 

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[1] D.C. Douglas The Norman Achievement 1050-1100, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1969, pages 181-182.  Douglas was here following the view expressed by C. H. Haskins in his ‘England and Sicily in the twelfth century’, English Historical Review, volume 103, (1911), especially pages 433-5 where he stressed that a ‘genius for adaptation’ characterised Norman government in Normandy, England, Italy and Antioch.

[2] James Campbell ‘Observations on English government from the tenth to the twelfth century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5^th series, volume 25, (1975), pages 39-54 and W. L. Warren ‘The myth of Norman administrative efficiency’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5^th series, volume 34, (1984), pages 113-132.