Population growth: Malthusian ideas and sources

What happened to Britain's population during the nineteenth century? [1].  In 1803 Thomas Robert Malthus [1766-1834] published a second edition of his An Essay on the Principles of Population, a work that had been first published anonymously five years earlier[2]. He drew attention to the consequences of untrammelled population growth, arguing that it would double every twenty-five years and that existing resources would not rise sufficiently to support such growth.

1. Although the ultimate check on population for Malthus appeared to be want of food arising from the different rations according to which population and food supplies increased, the immediate checks 'are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and misery'.
2. Of these, the 'positive checks', as Malthus called them, included 'all unwholesome occupations, severe labour and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plague and famine'.
3. The 'preventive checks' could largely be equated with 'restraint from marriage which is not followed by irregular gratifications', while 'promiscuous intercourse, unnatural passions, violations of the marriage bed and improper arts to conceal the consequences of irregular connections, are preventive checks that clearly come under the head of vice'.

In England, Malthus argued, the checks to population were much affected by social class, the opportunities for employment and the physical, especially urban, environment. Self-imposed restraint on marriage operated with 'considerable force throughout all the classes of the community'. The population model Malthus developed was one in which the rate of demographic growth was influenced by mortality, fertility and net migration. Put simply

• If the rate of population growth begins to rise there will be an increase in the price of food and this will reduce the level of real wages.
• Lower real wages may lead to increased mortality or affect the prospects of marriage that will automatically increase the level of temporary or permanent celibacy.
• As a result fertility will fall and the growth of population slow down as it would if mortality were to be increased.

This is called a self-regulation or homeostatic system. There is much in what Malthus wrote that is relevant to the post-1830 period but during the nineteenth century four ways were found to escape from the weight of Malthus' law

1. The association between population growth rates and food prices appears to have been broken even during Malthus' lifetime.
2. While the relationship between mortality and real wages persisted, the latter began a long-term improvement. Mortality was probably reduced as a result, though difference between classes persisted and may have been widened towards the end of the century. Improved standings of living were only one of many potential reasons for falling mortality.
3. Marital fertility took the place of nuptiality as the principle influence on changes and variations in general levels of fertility. Family limitation came to be widely practised.
4. The closed system described by Malthus was thrown open to new forms of destabilising influences. Cities grew at the expense of villages; America and the Empire at the expense of Britain.

How do we know?

To call the nineteenth century 'the age of statistics' is highly appropriate. The first British population census was conducted in 1801 and repeated every ten years thereafter. The civil registration of births, deaths and marriages was begun in England and Wales in 1837 and in Scotland in 1855. While civil registration did not replace the recording of ecclesiastical events, like baptism and burial, it did mean that parish registers lost their position as the principal source for demographic study[3].  As all historians know only too well -- sources condition interpretations. Before the 1830s precise information of population is problematic for historians. However, after 1850 information about the population's age structure, for example, drawn from censuses, can be matched with data on age or cause from death from civil registration to create a relatively clear account of at least patterns of mortality. It is possible to illustrate how certain changes in content and reliability have affected the ability of contemporary and modern historians to construct a more accurate and comprehensive picture.

1. The availability of a series of population censuses makes it a far simpler task to chart the changing size, composition and distribution of population.
2. The operation of the hundred-year rule restricting the disclosure of information about individuals recorded in the nineteenth century censuses has effectively limited public access to the more recent census enumerators' books. However, historians do have access up to the 1891 and 1901 census material and have the ability to consider household structure, occupation, and lifetime migration and to trace the characteristics of individuals and households from census to census. This has remarkably enhanced our knowledge of mid-Victorian society, but especially urban society.
3. The creation of the General Register Offices in London in 1837 and Edinburgh in 1855 and especially the contribution of William Farr [1807-1883] brought a sense of rigour to what could merely have become a matter of data collection. Farr was responsible for the first official English life tables, preparing special reports on cholera and devising classifications of cause of death.

Despite the various methodological problems in using the data, the development of civil registration from 1837 and the considerable improvement in the population censuses from 1841 mean that it is the demography of the first half of the nineteenth century that remains obscure in comparison with later decades.

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[1] There is a range of books available on demographic developments in the nineteenth century. N. Tranter Population and Society 1750-1940:  Contrasts in Population Growth, Longman, 1985 provides the most straightforward   discussion   of the problems. E.A. Wrigley   and R.S. Schofield The Population History of England 1541-1871, Edward Arnold, 1980, revised edition, CUP, 1988 is a standard work, difficult but useful for reference.  T. Baker and M. Drake (eds.) Population & Society in Britain 1850-1980, Batsford, 1982 is a seminal collection of articles. R. Woods The Population History of Britain in the Nineteenth Century, Macmillan, 1992 and R. Mitchison British Population since 1860, Macmillan, 1977 are simple and short guides. More detailed references can be found in the bibliography section 4.2.

[2] Contemporary attitudes to population are best approached through T.R. Malthus Essay on the Principle of Population, various editions but Penguin, 1970 has a useful introduction by A.Flew. The most recent short discussion of Malthus is by D.Winch, OUP, 1987.

[3] On  the nature of the nineteenth century census and problems in  using them see R. Lawton (ed.) The Census and Social Structure, Cass, 1978 and E.A. Wrigley (ed.)  Nineteenth  Century Society: Essays in the  Use  of Quantitative Methods for the  Study  of Social  Data,  CUP,  1972. W.A. Armstrong Stability and Change in an English County Town: a social study of York 1801-1851, CUP, 1974 shows how census material can  be used.

Nineteenth century society in context

The concept of Victorian Britain brings to mind a whole series of popular images. The Thatcher government of the 1980s spoke repeatedly of a return to 'Victorian values': self help; a market-oriented, laissez-faire economy; the role of the family in social control; and national self-confidence, patriotism and pride forged through war, either directly as in the case of the Falklands or indirectly in government belligerence over the European Union. This still remains a leit-motif in government with Gordon Brown recently writing an introduction to Gertrude Himmelfarb's study of the Englightenment and the dominance of the market in government thinking.  This contemporary perception of 'Victorian values' is, in many respects, simplistic and creates stereotypes that represent neither the complexity of Victorian Britain nor the diverse impact they had on regions and individuals. The context for Nineteenth century society will be approached by examining a series of claims historians can make about Britain after 1832.

Claim 1: Britain had undergone an industrial revolution by 1830

The dominant image of the Industrial Revolution is one of 'the landscape of fire'. Blackened tubs of coal clanking to the pit-head and tipping into wagons and barges; brooding factories shrouded in steam and smoke and echoing with the clang and clatter of machines; bales of cotton piled high in warehouses and swung down into the holds of high-masted sailing ships[1]. Although this is not an altogether misleading picture, it fails to capture the complexity -- the multiple histories -- of industrialisation. This image of dramatic, revolutionary change fired the imagination of many contemporary writers but it needs to be treated with some caution.

1. Many of the changes that occurred in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were, in many senses, remarkably traditional.
2. Most historians now agree that industrialisation was a long-drawn-out process and that it is inappropriate to think of it as a cataclysmic transformation. 'Change in slow motion' is currently the orthodox view of the industrial revolution.
3. The idea of an 'industrial revolution' only became commonplace during the 1830s and with good reason. Even with an exaggerated definition of 'revolutionised industry' only one worker in five was employed in those branches as late as 1841. Most were concentrated in a narrow band of counties and in those areas many industries were reliant on the strength and skill of the individual worker rather than the repetitive movements of machines. The factory worker was in a minority.
4. Most work took place in small workshops or in the home by workers who used traditional manual machinery rather than new technology. In these industries women retained an important economic role while in the so-called 'revolutionised industries' their role was marginalised and the better-paid jobs monopolised by men.

This means that we have to revise our 'heroic' assumptions about the industrial revolution. Take, for example, the place of the steam engine in the transformation of the cotton industry and its role in manufacturing industry more generally. For A.E. Musson the 'steam revolution was predominantly in cotton' but even here the frontier moved slowly. By 1879 steam engines supplied 97 per cent of power in the cotton industry and 85 per cent in the woollen industry. Yet the textile industries accounted for nearly half of all manufacturing steam power. Most manufacturing operations were still unmechanised and whole areas of the industrial economy remained far from the advancing frontier. As mechanisation proceeded, it did not so much push back the boundaries of manual labour as create new relationships and dependencies between hand- and steam-powered technologies. This was therefore combined but also uneven developments. What we have are parallel and interlocking systems of manufacture. Some industries were revolutionised, while others remained largely unchanged. Some regions saw revolutionary changes in the nature of work while others did not. The British economy in the eighteenth century was already highly integrated, a process brought to a peak by the emergence of railways as a rapid integrating transport system. However, behind this was an intricate and changing mosaic of economic interdependence, a patchwork of distinctive local and regional communities.

Claim 2: Between 1830 and 1890 there was both stability and change

Queen Victoria's long reign [1837-1901] provided underlying continuity to profound economic and social changes. The country had largely recovered from the effects of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars [1793-1815] and, with the exception of the Crimean War [1854-56] which claimed 25,000 British lives and cost about £70m, Britain remained free from conflicts in Europe until 1914. Elsewhere, with the exception of some 'colonial' wars and the Boer War [1899-1902], Britain remained at peace. This almost unparalleled period of peace and Britain's dominance as a world power created stability that assisted economic growth and social change.

This sixty-year period was one of almost continuous national economic growth. This wealth was, however, unevenly distributed between regions and social groups and, by the last quarter of the nineteenth century Britain's economic and imperial power began to be called into question. Carefully prepared political propaganda and improving standards of living persuaded most social classes in Britain to share these beliefs and values. The materialism that underpinned mid-Victorian prosperity was tempered by a set of religious and moral values that both legitimated the accumulation of wealth and, in some at least generated a moral consciousness that contributed towards nineteenth-century social reform. Yet this deceptively reassuring framework was shot through with changes, challenges and contradictions that substantially altered the social and economic geography of Britain.

There was an increasing democratisation of society. Parliamentary reform led to the progressive extension of the right to vote. The Reform Act 1832 retained the principle that property was the main qualification for the vote and increased the total electorate by only some 217,000 males, less than a 50 per cent increase. There was, however, a significant redistribution of parliamentary seats: 43 new boroughs, most northern industrial and commercial towns, gained MPs in Parliament. The Second Reform Act further extended male franchise in England in 1867 and Scotland the following year. Although the total electorate -- still entirely male -- was under 10 per cent of the population, together with a further redistribution of seats towards large urban centres, the political voice of the middle classes and some of the skilled working class was strengthened. The secret ballot was introduced in 1872 reducing opportunities for intimidation and further Reform Acts in 1884 and 1885 extended the vote and redistributed more seats to industrial towns. By the 1890s

1. A significant proportion of men had the opportunity to express their views through the ballot box.
2. The economic and demographic structure of Britain had been reflected in a redistribution of parliamentary seats.
3. National politicians were beginning to realise that the views of an increasingly working class electorate should be taken seriously.

Changes and challenges were stimulated by urbanisation and economic expansion. Urban growth and industrialisation had a major impact on all regions and all strata of society. Though women and many ordinary working men were excluded from the effects of parliamentary reform, all were affected by the massive economic and social changes. But the effects were contradictory

1. Economic growth offered new opportunities and opened new horizons.
2. Economic growth provided new constraints and condemned many to poverty and hardship in rapidly growing industrial towns.

Victorian economic development is epitomised by the growth of the railways. They offered new and growing opportunities to move between regions, to travel long distances for business or pleasure and cheapened the movement of news and goods. However, not everyone benefited from the growth of railways. Railway construction extracted a substantial toll of misery and death; the growth of new routes quickened rural out-migration and assisted the long-term decline of many communities; in towns it led to extensive demolition of houses, increased overcrowding and contributed to an increasingly noisy and polluted environment. Many people were simply too poor to benefit from the railways. The social effects of the Victorian economic 'miracle' were complex, unstable and uneven.

Changes in attitudes and values created greater national uniformity while perpetuating regional and local diversity. Attitudes to Protestant nonconformists and Roman Catholics had gradually become more tolerant during the late eighteenth century but they remained barred from public office. Anglicanism or the Church of England, the official state religion, dominated England and Wales despite substantial Nonconformist and Catholic minorities.

1. In 1828 the Test and Corporations Acts that discriminated against Nonconformists were repealed and in 1829 the Roman Catholic Relief Act achieved Catholic emancipation.
2. In theory Catholics, Nonconformists and Anglicans should have had equal opportunities from the 1830s onwards.

The effects of these acts varied considerably from region to region. While Nonconformists were readily accepted into society, perhaps because many were in the successful middle classes, Catholics were often discriminated against. This especially occurred where the Catholic threat was perceived to be significant, or where Catholicism was equated with other negative things, such as immigrant Irish communities. Sectarian violence and discrimination was common in Glasgow, Liverpool and other industrial cities in the nineteenth century. Discrimination was not confined to religion. The small population of Blacks in Victorian Britain, concentrated in London, Bristol and Liverpool, was discriminated against far more severely than even the Irish. Jews, migrating in substantial numbers from Eastern Europe from the 1880s, encountered similar segregation and racism. Victorian Britain was also male-dominated and sexism was commonplace in all aspects of economy and society.

In other areas of national life, however, there appears to have been some convergence of values. The dominant vision of self-help is said to characterise Victorian attitudes to work, thrift and community life. In reality a vast range of popular institutions such as co-operatives, working men's clubs and friendly societies implemented these values in different ways in difference communities. Despite the gradual movement towards a national system of education, there were great variations in the quality of schooling and in the level of attendance in different localities.

Between the 1830s and the 1890s significant changes were projected on to a backcloth of apparent national stability and security. There was not one Victorian Britain but many. Trends towards greater uniformity at the national level was paralleled by an increasing diversity in the ways in which these trends worked in particular communities.

Claim 3: From the 1890s there was increasing social instability

At home traditional political values were challenged by the rise of the labour movement. Social and cultural values were questioned by the rise of secularism. Progressive involvement of women in work and in politics and the development of state welfare transformed society; and the effects of depression and competition rocked the economy.

1. Economic challenges. The tide of the international economy was turning against Britain. From the 1880s imports of both foodstuffs and manufactured goods increased rapidly and the balance of trade worsened despite the upturn in economic growth between the 1890s and 1914. Competition for markets in textiles was inevitable once major importers like North America, India and the Far East began to supply their own home markets and to compete internationally. By 1914 Britain was second best to the USA and Germany in steel making and some of the new industries -- electrical and precision engineering, many branches of the metals and chemical industries -- and trailed the USA in the assembly industries, especially automobiles.
2. Political challenges. Political initiatives for social reform during the nineteenth century and influences from the rest of Europe led to the formation of the Independent Labour Party in 1893. By 1906 the newly formed Labour party had 29 seats in Parliament. This combined with the increasing membership of trade unions resulted in the growing politicisation of the working population and posed a challenge to the existing political structures.
3. Challenging values. Victorian social values were challenged on a number of fronts after 1890 and in some cases led to significant legislation. Most importantly the role of women in society changed. Although economic opportunities for women were beginning to broaden in the late nineteenth century, in 1914 there were still only 212,000 women employed in engineering and munitions industries, 18,000 in transport and 33,000 in clerical work and Victorian domestic slavery still dominated. Attitudes to women gradually changed and, following energetic campaigning by the Pankhursts and others, the franchise was extended in 1918 to include some women.

It was to take the First World War [1914-1918] for these challenges to have their full impact but between 1890 and 1914 they were clearly evident and beginning to confront existing perceptions.

Claim 4: The diverse challenge of change must be seen in the context of the culture of continuity.

Change and continuity were perceived and experienced by people living in different parts of Britain whose activities and cultures helped create regional diversity and distinctiveness. The outlook of businessmen and workers in Liverpool, Birmingham or Glasgow was different from that in London. The view of change and continuity from Scotland, Wales or North East England was quite distinct from that in rural South East England. Within the national framework strong regional distinctiveness was based on persistent cultural and economic differences: Scotland and Wales had strong cultural and linguistic identities while the English regions had cultural characteristics that transcended successive economic and social changes. To be born and bred in, for instance, Cornwall or Yorkshire was important for people of these counties and ever-increasing internal migration did not destroy such loyalties.

Perceiving self? For many people between 1832 and 1914 the most important region was that of their own locality. They identified with the neighbourhood, locality or village where they had been born, worked, raised their own families, had their friends and lived out their lives. These home areas were, however, perceived differently by people of different age, gender, class and race. Irrespective of where they lived an active adult travelled more widely round a town or through the countryside than a child or an elderly person whose sense of place was constrained and who identified mainly with the home and street rather than a larger region. Most women lived more circumscribed lives than men. Even when they worked outside the home, extra burdens of childcare and household duties meant that their time was more home-centred: the region or locality with which they identified was often smaller than that of their male counterparts. Lack of income constrained mobility for most people, regardless or age or sex.

Two nations? The forces that produced structural and regional imbalances in contemporary Britain were apparent by the mid-nineteenth century. Divisions were not only geographical but also social, reflecting the varying degree to which people of different gender, class and race benefit from the opportunities in their localities. Some groups within society were consistently disadvantaged in all regions.

1. Migration shifted the younger and more skilled workforce to areas of economic growth, so regions of economic decline, particularly the old industrial districts of northern and western Britain, were increasingly marginalised.
2. During the nineteenth century structural imbalances not only produced variations in regional prosperity, but also equally marginalised certain sectors of the population. Contemporary commentators were well aware of the disparities between the rich and poor as characterised in Disraeli's 'two nations' of 1845 -- one rich and one poor, one privileged and one underprivileged -- and Mrs Gaskell's North and South of 1855 -- the one industrial, the other rural.
3. Disadvantage in Victorian Britain was at least as complex as that existing today. Mid-eighteenth century agricultural wages were highest in southern England, but by the mid-nineteenth century commercial and industrial growth led to generally higher wage rates than those in southern England. In the 1830s wage rates for printers -- a high status, skilled, artisan occupation -- varied between 30 shillings per week in London to 18 shillings per week in Scotland.

A matter of language. Where cultural identity is associated with the protection and promotion of a minority language, distinctive linguistic and cultural regions may be identified. The most distinctive minority languages of nineteenth century Britain were Welsh and Scottish Gaelic. Dialects also had distinct cultural associations. In regions such as South Wales, the Black Country, Lancashire, Yorkshire, North East England and London, they were reflected in contemporary social and political comment as shown in the work of the many dialect poets of the industrial regions.

Administrative regions. The administrative geography of nineteenth century England familiar to most people was still the parish and the shire. The parish provided the social and cultural focus of the church and chapel; the framework within which locally raised poor relief was dispensed; the body through which the roads were maintained; and via the parish vestry the means through which most aspects of rural life were regulated. The shire was the link to national frameworks of civil and, in times of emergency, military organisation of the region. The county sessions reflected their place in the administration of justice; the offices of Sheriff and Lord Lieutenant provided links with central government and the Crown.

1. By the 1850s these older administrative geographies were beginning to change in response to the new demands of an industrialising society.
2. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 amalgamated parishes to create Poor Law Unions for the administration of the Poor Law and the provision of workhouses.
3. Reform of urban administration, begun in 1835, progressively replaced ancient town and borough councils by municipal corporations.
4. That process was not completed -- and then ineffectively and at the expense of separation of increasingly interrelated urban and rural areas -- until the Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1894

The result of these developments was the creation of a multiplicity of administrative boundaries created for different purposes -- health, education, housing etc. -- that actually had meaning for the people that lived within them. The extent to which this was the case is, however, a matter of some debate.

The economic and social developments of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have to be seen within a framework of diverse lives and experiences. Neither change nor continuity was uniform.

Claim 5: The issue of sources

Britain has some of the best historical data in the world, most statistical time-series and archival sources, whether relating to national and regional trends or to particular sectors of the economy and society. However, there is often a lack of continuity of material and sources are often based on different, often non-comparable, criteria. As a result many of the key questions about the social transformation of Britain after 1832 can only be partially answered. Before 1830 there are considerable difficulties with many sources. Parish registers from 1538 provide one means of reconstructing vital trends but there are particular difficulties in their use. There are few precise and continuous statistics on particular sectors of the economy. Information on occupations, for example, was collected only in a rudimentary form in censuses before 1841.

In contrast to the pre-1830 paucity of statistics, the Victorian Age was obsessed with numbers. Problems of urban government, working conditions and the results of trade fluctuations for the nation's economy and people led to a growing number of enquiries by Parliament, local government and trade and welfare organisations. The setting up of the Statistical Society of London in 1834 -- it later became the Royal Statistical Society -- epitomises the Victorian's attitude to issues ranging from demographic trends to international trade, and from individual industries to crime and education.

1. The main agency of investigation was government. The need for fuller knowledge of population led to the establishment of civil registration in 1837 and of the office of Registrar General in England and Wales and in Scotland in 1855. Much fuller censuses from 1841 and the compulsory civil registration of births, deaths and marriages gave the basis for a much better understanding of both national and regional trends in population and economic activity. However, the opportunity to gather census data on production units was lost, despite some figures on the size of farms and industrial workplaces in 1851. So too was the chance to investigate systematically cultural and social trends, apart from the never-repeated censuses of education and religious observance in 1851.
2. The picture of industry remained fragmentary until the first Census of Production in 1907. Concern about basic reserves of coal, iron and other metals was reflected in annual figures of output from 1854 and in the number and size of coal mines from 1864. But major sources of information on key industries can be found in the enquiries of Select Committees and Royal Commissions often generated by problems in working conditions or fear of decline due to recession or falling resources. Similar concerns over working conditions led to the setting up of the Factory Inspectorate, which produced annual figures of employment and power from 1838.
3. Agriculture was regularly reported on. This occurred notably in a series of essays on the farming of individual counties in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society between 1843 and 1878 and in other individual studies such as James Caird's letters to The Times in 1850-51 or Rider Haggard's survey of rural England in 1902. The first systematic statistics awaited the annual 'June Returns' from 1866. Gathered from farms throughout the country they record parish details of crops and livestock and are an essential complement to the frequent Parliamentary Committees on agriculture especially the Royal Commissions of 1881-2 and 1894-7.
4. Rural distress attracted much attention in these and in evidence to and Reports of the two great Poor Law Commissions of 1834 and 1905-9. However, the major focus of social, environmental and health investigations was the towns. Cholera and other epidemics, the scandal of poor sanitation, poor water supply and housing drew government into a wide range of surveys and subsequent legislation. Some investigations were the work of individuals like Edwin Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of 1842 or the great surveys of London and York by Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree in 1890-1903 and 1901 respectively.

There are problems with using any of these sources that historians have to keep in mind. It is, however, valid to argue that these sources do provide an unparalleled archive from which to draw and a means of effectively analysing nineteenth century society, its concerns, perceptions and the problems it faced.

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[1] On the iconography of industrialisation see Asa Briggs Iron Bridge to Crystal Palace: Impact and Images of the Industrial Revolution, Thames and Hudson, 1979 and Francis Klingender Art and the Industrial Revolution, 1947, revised edition, 1975.

Nineteenth century society

My blogs so far have concentrated on Chartism, the experience of women in the nineteenth century and the Normans.  Although I still have material on each of these areas that I intend to add to the blog, I intend to spend the next few months considering nineteenth century society in a variety of different ways.  This is preparatory to writing a book on the subject now that I have completed my study of three rebellions: the Newport Rising, the rebellions in the Canadas in 1837 and 1838 and the Eureka Stockade in 1854 that will be published later this year or early next.

The bog will consider a variety of different areas beginning with population and working through the key issues faced by nineteenth century society including education, crime, religion, working conditions and so on.  These general topics will be interspersed with more detailed material on specific topics that interest me and on which I have written papers including some studies of early Romantic poets and their historical significance. 

Women get the vote: What happened during the War?

Why did the wartime government conclude that women should be given the vote? There are five main reasons why this took place.

1. Women’s suffrage slipped off the political agenda on the outbreak of war, but it reappeared as a bi-product of concern over the male electorate. The war obliged millions of people to leave their homes to join the armed forces or for employment. Existing rules meant that voters had to be resident for a year. As a result, many serving soldiers became ineligible to vote. This mattered to politicians because the life of the existing parliament ran out in December 1915 and they anticipated that a general election would be held during the war. The need to restore male voters to the electoral registers re-opened the pre-war debate about electoral reform.
2. The balance in Parliament swung towards female suffrage. The end of Asquith’s premiership in December 1916 brought in the supportive Lloyd George. The resultant Coalition government may be regarded as useful in breaking the deadlock and promoting a compromise solution. Certainly, it brought into office suffragists such as Arthur Henderson (Labour) and Lord Robert Cecil (Conservative) to reinforce Liberals such as Sir John Simon.
3. The suspension of the suffrage campaigns and women’s contribution to the war effort made it easier for anti-suffragists like Asquith to retreat from their entrenched position without loss of face. In broad terms people lost interest in women’s suffrage and this was recognised by both militant and non-militant suffragists. The attitude of politicians towards women’s work and the expressions of sympathy that occurred can be seen in a rather more cynical than altruistic light. It was clear that government expected women to give way to men in relation to employment. Despite abandoning their anti-suffragism men like Asquith privately continued to see women in politics in a very negative light. MPs recognised that women were going to acquire the vote if not immediately after the war then very soon after. They were not prepared to alienate potential supporters. Few anti-suffragists were prepared to die in the last ditch in defence of their views. Pragmatism prevailed.
4. The setting up of the coalition government in 1915 meant that there was less division within parties, allowing an all-party agreement to be made and removed fears that one particular party would benefit from the measure.
5. There was an international trend towards women’s suffrage and this put pressure on the government to act. Women’s suffrage was not implemented on a federal basis in the United States until 1920 though it had been adopted in a growing number of states since 1869. New Zealand had given women the vote in 1893 and Australia followed suit in 1902.

The issue of female suffrage remained in the background until August 1916 when the question of a new voting register was raised. All agreed on the need for a new register. The NUWSS, while insisting that it did not which to dissipate the government’s energies by a controversial argument stated that it would not stand by and allow voting rights to be extended to thousands of serving men while nothing was done for serving women. For the first time, Asquith agreed. ‘Votes for women’ became a subject of open debate and this time, it had clear support from the public, politicians and the press.

Manhood suffrage and limited women’s suffrage were introduced and carried as part of the domestic reconstruction that began to be an important concern for government in 1916. An Act of 1915 extended the life of the existing Parliament from five to six years and postponed the revision of the electoral register on the ground that one composed in wartime would be unreliable. The Parliament and Local Elections Act of 1916 extended the existing Parliament again for a further eight months and another Act of that year provided for a new electoral register to be drawn up. A growing number of MPs believed that there should also be an extension of the franchise and a redistribution of seats arrived at by inter-party agreement. On 14^th August 1916, Asquith, in a speech to the Commons on the Parliament and Local Election Bill, implied that he was now turning from habitual opposition to support for women’s suffrage. Walter Long, Conservative President of the Local Government Board, soon after also declared his conversion of the female vote. Nevertheless, Asquith ruled out the prospect of a bill for women’s suffrage during the war. However, by October 1916, the Cabinet had (on the suggestion of Walter Long) placed the whole question of the franchise, registration and constituency reform in the hands of an inter-party conference.

The gathering was known as the Speaker’s Conference, as it was chaired by the Speaker of the House of Commons, James Lowther. An opponent of women’s suffrage when he had ruled against amendments to the Franchise and Registration Bill in 1913, Lowther was now more conciliatory largely because he did not want a return to the militancy of the pre-war years. Apart from the chairman, there were 34 other members of the conference: 13 Conservative (11 MPs and 2 peers), 13 Liberal (10 MPs and 3 peers), four Irish Home Rulers and four representing the Labour Party. It began work in 12^th October 1916 meeting twenty-six times and produced a comprehensive set of proposals on 26^th January 1917. Towards the end of their work, the committee members addressed the issue of women’s suffrage and voted (15 to 6) in favour of making some sort of concession. They narrowly rejected (12 to 10) equal franchise with men and in order to avoid creating a female majority among voters recommended that women over the age of either thirty or thirty-five and on the local government electoral register (or whose husbands were on the electoral register) should be given the vote.

The Speaker’s Report was in Lloyd George’s hands by 27^th January 1917 but it was two months later, on 26^th March that the Cabinet decided to support the introduction of a bill embodying the recommendations. The Speaker’s Conference presented women’s organisations with a fait accompli. It took place behind closed doors and all Millicent Fawcett could do was to lead a deputation representing 22 suffrage societies to meet the minister responsible. On 28^th March 1917, Asquith opened the Commons debate on the Speaker’s Report by moving that a bill be introduced in accordance with its recommendations. His clear public support for the reform was significant coming from one who had been a noted opponent of it. The reasons he gave for his advocacy included women’s war war-work, the right of women to participate directly in matters of post-war reconstruction that would affect them and the absence during the war of “that detestable campaign that disfigured the annals of political agitation in this country”. The Commons approved the introduction of the bill by 341 votes to 62. The Labour Party and the suffrage societies opposed the limited concessions recommended by the Speaker’s Conference but agreed to support a Bill if the age limit for women was lowered to 30. This concession was granted. After the first reading of the bill in the Commons on 16^th May, the second reading passed on 23^rd May by 329 votes to 40. On a free vote on 19^th June 1917, the Commons approved the women’s clause by 387 to 57 votes. This incorporated over eight million, largely married women. This allayed Liberal and Labour fears and the Conservatives found it easier to accept the women’s vote as part of a broader package. The remaining parliamentary hurdles were crossed (the expected opposition in the House of Lords did not materialise) and the Bill became law on 5^th February 1918.

The Representation of the People Act (the ‘fourth’ Reform Act) gave the vote to women over the age of 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property with an annual rent of £5 or graduates of British universities. MPs rejected the idea of granting the vote to women on the same terms as men. This obviously was a breakthrough, but critics of the Act have pointed to the fact that many women who contributed to the war effort were under 30 and from the working class. Why had they not received the vote? In the words of Martin Pugh, it was an ‘unspectacular victory’. It was not until 1928 that the vote was extended to women on the same ground as men. Women had their first opportunity to vote in a General Election in December 1918. Several of the women involved in the suffrage campaign stood for Parliament. Only one, Constance Markiewicz, standing for Sinn Fein, was elected. However, as an Irish Nationalist, she refused to take her seat in the House of Commons.

The politicians created a female electorate in 1918 dominated by married women and mothers upwards of thirty years of age. Once the new system had settled down it emerged that women comprised 42-43 per cent of all British voters. The reforms of 1918 scarcely amounted to a revolution but they did result in some significant adjustments in the British political system. Women were allowed to serve, as MPs and seventeen women stood, none successfully, for election in 1918. Soon each party had its own women’s branches, annual women’s conferences and a hierarchy of professional women organisers. By 1929, the Conservatives claimed to have over a million female members and the Labour party 250,000 to 300,000.

Beyond 1918

After the passing of the 1918 Act, the NUWSS and WSPU disbanded. A new organisation called the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship was established. As well as advocating the same voting rights as men, the organisation also campaigned for equal pay, fairer divorce laws and an end to the discrimination against women in the professions.

In 1919, Parliament passed the Sex Disqualification Removal Act, which made it illegal to exclude women from jobs because of their sex. Women could now become solicitors, barristers and magistrates. Later that year, Nancy Astor became the first woman in England to become a MP when she won Plymouth in a by-election. Other women were also elected over the next few years. In 1923, Margaret Bondfield was elected as Labour MP for Northampton. When Ramsay McDonald became Prime Minister in 1924, he appointed Bondfield as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Labour. Five years later, she became the first woman in history to gain a place in the British Cabinet.

A bill was introduced in March 1928 to give women the vote on the same terms as men. There was little opposition in Parliament to the bill and it became law on 2^nd July 1928. As a result, all women over the age of 21 could now vote in elections. Many of the women who had fought for this right were now dead including Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Barbara Bodichon, Emily Davies, Elizabeth Wolstenholme-Elmy, Constance Lytton and Emmeline Pankhurst. Millicent Fawcett, the leader of the NUWSS during the campaign for the vote, was still alive and had the pleasure of attending Parliament to see the vote take place. That night she wrote in her diary: “It is almost exactly 61 years ago since I heard John Stuart Mill introduce his suffrage amendment to the Reform Bill on May 20^th 1867. So I have had extraordinary good luck in having seen the struggle from the beginning.”

Women get the vote: the suffrage movement during the War

According to the traditional view, an important element in the granting of the vote to women in 1918 was the stance taken by the different suffrage groups during the war[1]. By acting responsibly and supporting the war effort, it is argued, the suffrage groups demonstrated than women were mature and responsible enough to gain the vote. However, to suggest that the decision taken by the leaders of the WSPU to support the government’s prosecution of the war was echoed by all factions of the women’s movement is to misrepresent the nature of the movement, its membership and its work. Not all suffrage groups did support the war effort and the main suffrage groups that did so suffered splits over their patriotic stance.

To Victorian and Edwardian women, especially those of the middle class raised on the concept of ‘duty’, an immediate response was required from the suffrage societies. Many suffrage societies knew where their ‘duty’ lay and directed their resources to the war effort. Such a response might have been thought predictable from the NUWSS. That everyone expected the war to be over by Christmas might be considered to have influenced the NUWSS membership (consulted by post in August) who agreed to a suspension of political activity. Within the WSPU, both Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst adopted a highly patriotic stance, calling on their members to suspend militant action and to support the British war effort. The Home Secretary quickly offered to release the suffragette prisoners and the Pankhursts took the opportunity of the war to escape without any loss of face from the impasse by suspending militancy. The WSPU then worked in collaboration with the government particularly, after 1915, with Lloyd George’s Ministry of Munitions publicising and coordinating female recruitment into the workforce. In July 1915, the government gave the WSPU a grant of £2,000 to finance the so-called ‘Great Procession of Women’, a march through London designed to heighten awareness of the need for women to actively support the war effort.

Not all WSPU members supported the leadership stance. As a result, two different groups split from the WSPU to form their own suffrage organisations: the Suffragettes of the Women’s Social and Political Unions (SWSPU) in October 1915 and the Independent Women’s Social and Political Unions (IWSPU) in March 1916. In addition, the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) led by Sylvia Pankhurst was highly critical of the WSPU leadership. During the war, the ELFS campaigned against the war and, as well as providing relief for many working class people in London, demanded the implementation of a socialist programme.

The NUWSS was also divided between those who supported the war (including Millicent Fawcett) and those who opposed it. Millicent Fawcett’s view eventually prevailed and in the spring of 1915, a major split occurred in the group over her refusal to allow NUWSS delegates to attend a peace conference for women at The Hague. The pacifist members of the group, including most of the national officers split away and formed the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Unlike the WSPU, the NUWSS continued to press for female suffrage during the war, as well as providing relief work. When the issue of electoral reform was raised in the summer of 1916, the NUWSS immediately began to lobby for the inclusion of female suffrage.

Other women, either as individuals or as groups, were prominent in campaigns on behalf of women, especially from the working class, during the war years.  Women were involved in the development of a peace campaign[2]. Links between feminism, suffrage, peace and internationalism had long informed women’s networks and in wartime, there was a heightened recognition of the divisiveness of an ideology that sought to embody the power of the state in force and militarism. The debate for suffrage women in 1914 centred on the combination of tactics that would best sustain the Cause during the war. For many, the peace issue was of significance in throwing the suffrage question into sharper relief. Peace groups regarded it as essential to triumph over the revival of the anti-suffragist argument arising from force. This argument suggested that the power of the state lay in its capacity for physical force. It also defined citizenship as including only those individuals strong enough to bear arms in defence of the state. Women’s supposed incapacity for such a role meant that they had no right to the franchise. The Peace campaigners argued that women should be enfranchised as soon as possible to prevent such conflicts. Socialist feminists, committed to international solidarity and the class struggle, had a double motivation to resist the tide of war. Divisions within the women’s movement followed as the support given to the war effort by some suffrage groups could not be tolerated by those members whose pacifism was an integral part of their socialist beliefs. In 1915, for example, Helen Swanwick resigned from her position on the NUWSS executive because of the Union’s wartime policy.

Some suffrage groups, despite the demands of war, believed it essential to sustain their suffrage propaganda work. The three largest active organisations were the Women’s Freedom League (WFL), the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) and the United Suffragists (US). All three originated in expulsions from the WSPU: the WFL in 1907, the United Suffragists in 1912 and Sylvia Pankhurst’s ELFS in 1914. At a special meeting on 10^th August 1914, the WFL “re-affirmed the urgency of keeping the suffrage flag flying” and the need “to organise a Women’s Suffrage National Aid Corps whose chief object would be to render help to the women and children of the nation”. Working closely with the WFL, the ELFS reflected the socialist attitudes of its founder, Sylvia Pankhurst. The ELFS refused to compromise or sacrifice the needs of working class women whose lives would inevitably become harder because of the war. Anticipating the nature of wartime problems, the ELFS argued for government control of food supplies, the provision of work for men and women at equal rates of pay and reserved places for working women on government committees dealing with food, prices, employment and relief. The Forward Cymric Suffrage Union, with its network of branches in Welsh and English counties as well as 28 branches in London also pointed out the need for women to be involved in the government of the nation. The FCSU worked closely with the ELFS and intended to combine relief work for women and children in Wales with its suffrage activities. Two Irish societies that continued their involvement were the Belfast Women’s Suffrage Society and the militant Irish Women’s Franchise League. In addition to these and many other established groups that continued the franchise struggle, four new organisations emerged. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom originated at the Women’s International Conference at The Hague in April 1915. The British branch was founded in September 1915 because of the discontent of a number of suffrage women at the failure of several peace initiatives. In addition to its peace work, the WILPF also supported the work of the hard core of suffrage organisations in their wartime activities.

The Suffragettes of the Women’s Social and Political Union (SWSPU) that held its initial meeting in October and the Independent Women’s Social and Political Union (IWSPU), formed in March 1916 were both established after divisions within the Pankhurst’s WSPU. In August 1914, Mrs Pankhurst circulated the membership to the effect that the union’s activities would be suspended. Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and a handful of ‘loyal’ WSPU members subsequently began working with Lloyd George on nationalist propaganda. The Pankhursts’ activities came in for increasing criticism from WSPU members and at a meeting at Westminster in October 1915, there was criticism of the activities of WSPU officials and their abandonment of suffrage work. The meeting also called for the production of WSPU audited accounts. A second meeting on 25^th November accused Mrs Pankhurst of participating in activities that were outside the union’s remit and of using WSPU assets and staff in the process. Both Emmeline and Christabel responded in characteristically autocratic form. Critics like Charlotte Despard of the WFL and Dora Montefiore, an ex-WSPU member were scathing in their attacks on the now exposed private ambitions of the Pankhursts for power and political status. What was left of the WSPU membership then formed two new groups, the IWSPU and the SWSPU.

The last new organisation of this period was the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women’s Organisations (SJCIWO) founded on 11^th February 1916 at a meeting called by the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL). The call for closer co-operation among women’s groups representing female industrial workers originally came from the Women’s Labour League. Initially, the SJCIWO comprised the WLL, the Women’s Co-operative Guild, the Railway Women’s Guild, the National Federation of Women Workers and the WTUL. Its three aims were to draw up a list of women willing to become representatives on government committees to protect women’s interests; to devise a policy for Labour women on these committees to assist them in their work; and, to initiate joint propaganda campaigns with the rest of the women’s movement on subjects of concern to industrial women. These aims allowed the SJCIWO to dovetail its work with the active suffrage societies’ campaigns. The WDL rightly said that the SJCWIO had adopted the role of ‘watchdog’ for women’s affairs during the war.

Minority groups learn to develop survival strategies and manipulate situations to advantage. It seems that this was exactly what the women’s movement did during the war. This meant that new links were forged that was intended to extend the feminist network. NUWSS branches created new alliances with groups working on women’s industrial issues. Old allegiances were strengthened as suffrage societies and women’s industrial groups worked together on committees such as the NUWSS’s Women’s Interest Committee. The movement’s handling of industrial circumstances to enhance its public standing and win concessions for women by refusing to concede to the status quo was yet another instance of political opportunism.

In August 1914, the suffrage societies had to make difficult decisions. The duty of supporting the nation while sustaining loyalty to relations and friends involved in the fighting was not an easy one to dispute and vied with suffrage women’s loyalty to personal political agendas. Whatever accommodations were made and whatever combinations of allegiance and action resulted, the continuity of the women’s movement was never threatened, nor the suffrage campaign abandoned. Women may have got the vote in 1918 because of political manoeuvring or as a ‘reward’ for their war effort but historians should not neglect the wartime experiences and activities of the suffrage societies.

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[1] For the suffrage movements during the war, see and Sandra Stanley Holton Feminism and democracy: women’s suffrage and reform politics in Britain 1900-1918, Cambridge University Press, 1986, pages 116-150 and Cheryl Law Suffrage and Power: The Women’s Movement 1918-1928, I. B. Tauris, 1997, pages 13-41.

[2] On this, see Anne Wiltsher Most Dangerous Women: Feminist Peace Campaigners of the Great War, Pandora Press, 1985 and Jill Liddington The Long Road to Greenham: Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain since 1920, Virago, 1989.

Women get the vote: What role did women play during the War?

Historians have described the First World War as the nation’s first experience of ‘total war’. By this, they mean a war in which society is organised in such a way that all available resources are channelled into the war effort. As a result, total war has an impact on the lives of everybody in society, not simply those directly involved in the fighting. Some of the experiences of the First World War that can be said to have made a social, cultural and psychological impact are as follows.

• The emotional trauma suffered by many men who were forced (because of conscription) to serve in the Armed Forces.
• There was widespread bereavement because of the death of family and friends.
• There were changes in diet and habits resulting from food rationing.
• People lived in a society in which government propaganda and government controls were more extensive than in pre-war society.
• The new experience that many upper and middle class women gained from taking up paid employment for the first time.

The social, cultural and emotional impact of the war was such that it has led some historians to argue that the period after 1918 witnessed a fundamental realignment of moral and social attitudes.  Stanislaw Andreski developed the idea of a ‘military participation ratio’ in the early 1950s[1]. He argued that, after a period of war, government rewards proportionately those sections of society on whose support it has depended. The greater the contribution made by the middle classes in a war, for example, the more likely a post-war government is to pass reforms to address middle class needs. The more ‘total’ the war and, therefore, the greater the involvement of the working class, the more likely that there is a post-war process of social levelling by removing class inequalities. According to Andreski, it was because the First World War was so large in scale and involved, for the first time, virtually all sections of society that Britain became a democracy in the 1918 and 1928 Representation of the Peoples Acts. The war itself was instrumental in providing the environment in which democracy could emerge.

Andreski’s theory has been challenged in a number of ways. First, he placed too great an emphasis on military participation suggesting that this was the key to post-war social levelling. Arguably, the most significant social change resulting from the war was the changed role and status of women. Yet, women’s direct military participation was, in Andreski’s terms, limited. Second, the idea of the ‘ratio’ implies that social change can be isolated and precisely measured. However, many of the changes that can be seen in British society in the post-war period can be traced back before 1914. Indeed, it could be argued that the war alone was responsible for few of the social changes that took place. Some historians suggest that, rather than initiating changes; the war accelerated and intensified changes that were already underway. Finally, Andreski’s theory has been seen as an oversimplification. Other societies, hardly affected by the First World War, showed similar patterns of development after 1918.

A different approach has been adopted by Arthur Marwick. He identifies four ‘dimensions’ that, he claims, help us to understand the complex inter-relationship between society and its experience of war. First, he identifies the destructive and disruptive dimension, the notion that destruction in the war created an impulse towards rebuilding after it. Second, there is a test dimension. This is the idea that wars place society under a great deal of pressure (that is, they provide a ‘test’) and society has to adapt to avoid defeat. Third, there is a participation dimension. This revolves round the idea that total war requires the involvement of under-privileged groups and their participation in the war changes attitudes towards them, bringing the possibility of social change after the war. Finally, the psychological dimension. War encourages intensity of emotions (for example, it encouraged hatred of the enemy) that stimulate a new cultural response.  The critical question is whether these ideas help to provide an explanation for why some women got the vote in 1918. Andreski’s theory of ‘direct military participation’ does not seem to relate directly to the experience of women who were non-combatants. If the notion is stretched to include those involved directly in the war effort, for example by taking over jobs so men could fight in the trenches, then Andreski may provide a possible explanation for women getting the vote in 1918. However, this only works if those women directly involved in war work got the vote in 1918. The 1918 Act gave the vote largely to middle class women not to the working class who made up the bulk of working women. Marwick’s dimension may provide a better explanation of why women got the vote in 1918, especially his emphasis on continuity between pre- and post-war experiences.

It has long been assumed that the most important indirect effect of the war was to bring about a fundamental change in attitudes towards women and their economic and social roles. This argument suggests that the vital contribution women made to the war effort opened the eyes of men to their capabilities and revealed them as citizens in every sense. There is certainly widespread newspaper and film evidence on women’s work that is very flattering. However, historians have increasingly come to regard much of the contemporary record as largely ephemeral. By 1918, the press had already begun to lose its enthusiasm for women workers who were now being urged to surrender their jobs to returning soldiers. By the 1920s, it was clear that there had not been a fundamental reappraisal of the role of the sexes and women were increasingly excluded from employment by the combined actions of employers, government and male-dominated trade unions. The extent to which the role and status of women changed during the after the First World War is at the heart of the debate about the nature and extent of change brought about by the war.

Some historians have argued that there is a direct link between the economic role of women during the war and the granting of the vote to most women over thirty in the 1918 Representation of the People Act. It was because women made a contribution to the war effort, they argue, that they won the right to vote after the war. Arthur Marwick argues “it is difficult to see how women could have achieved so much in anything like a similar time span without the unique circumstances arising from the war”[2]. Other historians argue that such an interpretation underplays the significance of the suffrage campaigns before 1914. Martin Pugh, for example, places greater emphasis on continuities and claims that the nature of the pre-war suffrage movement determined the shaped of legislation in 1918. He maintains, “It is significant that, where women who undertook male tasks during the war have left a record of their feelings, they seem to have taken in for granted that they were stepping in on a purely temporary basis and they vacated their jobs at the end of the war without protest. This is not surprising in view of the relatively conservative, middle-class nature of the pre-1914 women’s movement that had confined itself to the narrow question of the franchise and neglected the wider social objectives that the vote might have helped them to attain. In this light, either the grant of the franchise in 1918 to women over 30 who were local government electors themselves or wives of parliamentary electors is understandable. Members of Parliament were determined to keep women in a minority among voters, and to enfranchise only those who, as relatively mature family women, seemed likely to make up a stable, loyal section of the community.[3]“

By November 1918, 947,000 women were employed in the munitions industry. This was unpleasant and potentially dangerous work and more than 300 lost their lives because of TNT poisoning and explosions. Women also served with the military forces. There were 40,850 in Queen Mary’s Auxiliary Army Corps by the end of the war. Some 17,000 women were employed with the British Expeditionary Force in August 1918. Many of these were nurses. In all, the total number of women employed during the war rose form 5.96 million in 1914 to 7.31 million by 1918. Some changes were particularly striking. The number employed in metalworking rose from 170,000 to 594,000, in transport from 18,200 to 117,200, in commerce from 505,200 to 934,000. In national and local government, the number of female employees rose from 262,000 to 460,000. At the same time as the number of women in munitions and factories went up, the numbers working in ‘traditional’ areas of female employment such as domestic service and the clothing trade declined[4].

Although there was an overall rise in the number of women employed during the war, female employment was an established feature of many pre-war industries. What gave the impression of change was the temporary change in the background of the women employed. In particular, many middle class women took on jobs that had previously been done by working class women. It has been suggested that both the increase in and changing character of, female employment during the war has been exaggerated because of some historians’ readiness to rely too much on the evidence of contemporary propaganda. This was produced both by the government (that hoped to give the impression that it was solving a national crisis) and by feminists (who hoped to use the image of wartime involvement as a lever for further expansion of employment opportunities after the war)[5]. Despite the formation of the Women’s Land Army, there were only 23,000 more women working on the land in 1918 than there had been in 1914. It could be argued that the overall increase in the number of women employed during the war – around 1.5 million – was not particularly large. In addition, many women lost their jobs when the war was over. In fact, the overall percentage of women in work fell from 35 per cent in 1911 to 34 per cent in 1921. The net impact of the war was a temporary increase in female unskilled munitions workers and a permanent shift in the bulk of women’s employment from domestic service to white-collar and service-sector employment.

During the build-up to the 1918 Representation of the People Act, government propaganda suggested that the sacrifices made by women during the war had earned them the right to vote. When women were enfranchised, billboards announced “The Nation Thanks the Women”. In reality, most historians agree that there is little evidence that war service caused a change in attitude towards women’s political rights. The restrictions on women’s voting in 1918 suggest that there was little alteration in the treatment of women as second-class citizens. Men continued to oppose the idea that women should come out of the private sphere and into the workforce, because they believed that the employment of women would push their wages down. Attitudes towards women in work did not shift in any fundamental way.

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[1] Stanislaw Andreski Military Organisation and Society, Routledge, 1954.

[2] Arthur Marwick The Deluge: British Society and the First World War, 2^nd ed., Macmillan, 1991, page 333.

[3] Martin Pugh The Making of Modern British Politics 1867-1939, Blackwell, 1982, page 188.

[4] Arthur Marwick Women at war, Fontana, 1977 is both well written and well illustrated. Gail Braybon Women workers in the First World War, Routledge, 2^nd ed., 1989 looks in greater detail at industrial workers. Carol Twinch Women on the land: their story during two world wars, Lutterworth, 1990 considers the agrarian dimension. Diana Condell and Jean Liddiard Working for victory? Images of women in the First World War 1914-1918, Routledge, 1987 provide a visual dimension.

[5] On this issue, see Diana Condell and Jean Liddiard Working for victory? Images of women in the First World War 1914-1918, Routledge, 1987; it provides an interesting visual dimension.

Women get the vote: The political impact of war

Some historians have described Britain’s experience in the First World War as its first taste of ‘total war’ (war in which entire societies are mobilised against each other, with the home front becoming just as important as the fighting front). Around six million British people had direct experience of trench warfare while most of the remaining population became involved in the war effort in some way. This meant change and upheaval in some way. There is, however, a debate about the nature and extent of the change produced by the war. This centres on whether the war is seen as the cause of fundamental change or whether, alternatively, it can be seen as a catalyst that accelerated existing political, social and economic trends[1].

There is one particular problem historians face when trying to assess the significance of wartime experience for the women’s cause. This relates to one’s view of the stage reached by 1914 and is further complicated by the need to distinguish the direct from the indirect effects of the war. By 1913, there was a clear suffragist majority in parliament and this, combined with the emergence of a politically realistic proposal to enfranchise women in 1913, meant that the immediate effect of the war was negative. It ended the suffrage campaign and pushed the issue off the political agenda.

What was the political impact of the war?

The outbreak of war in August 1914 led to a wave of patriotism and anti-German feeling and all-party support for the Liberal government’s declaration of war. Until May 1915, Asquith attempted to conduct the war through existing structures of party government. Then, on 14^th May 1915, the so-called ‘Shell Scandal’ broke when an article was published in The Times claiming that British soldiers were unable to make headway because they were being left short of shells to fire at the enemy. This precipitated a political crisis that led to the creation of a coalition government under Asquith[2].

Conservatives took up senior positions in the government with Bonar Law as Colonial Secretary and Arthur Balfour as First Lord of the Admiralty (replacing Winston Churchill, whose handling of the Gallipoli campaign made him expendable). Lloyd George took over as head of the new Ministry of Munitions and his position was strengthened in July 1916 when he took over as Minister for War (following Lord Kitchener’s death on a mission on Russia).  Lloyd George was popular in the Liberal Party at large, but he had too many personal enemies in the Cabinet. This made it unlikely that he would every succeed Asquith as Liberal leader. The creation of the coalition government changed this and increasingly Lloyd George promoted himself as an alternative War leader. He focused on two issues – the need for conscription (compulsory military service) and the creation of a smaller War Cabinet that, he claimed, would be more efficient and effective. Both brought him into conflict with Asquith.

Conscription was a sensitive issue in the Liberal Party and Asquith tried to reconcile his party’s historical commitment to individual freedom with the demands of total war. His response to Lloyd George’s demand for full conscription was the ‘Derby Scheme’ of October 1915. This compromise allowed the adult male population to be classified by age, marital status and occupation as the first step on the road to conscription. This ended in failure. By December 1915, recruitment had fallen to 55,000 per month (compared in the 450,000 men who had joined in September 1914). Despite Asquith’s continued reluctance, conscription was introduced in January 1916 though John Simon, the Home Secretary resigned over the issue.  Lloyd George’s call for a small War Cabinet intensified when he succeeded Lord Kitchener at the War Office. This issue triggered the end of the Asquith coalition and Lloyd George’s promotion to the position of Prime Minister. On 1^st December 1916, Lloyd George suggested the formation of a small War Cabinet with himself in the chair and Bonar Law and Edward Carson as members. Asquith would remain prime minister but would not be a member. Asquith was, at first, hostile but agreed to the plan on 3^rd December once Conservative resignations had been threatened. Asquith then changed his mind and rejected the plan the following day following the publication of an article in The Times that discussed the plan in terms that put Asquith in a very bad light. This led to the resignation of first, Lloyd George, second, Conservative ministers and finally, on 5^th December, Asquith. The following day, a conference of party leaders at Buckingham Palace took place. The king offered the position of prime minister to Bonar Law who said that he would only accept if Asquith agreed to serve under him. Asquith refused to do this. It then emerged that Conservative ministers were prepared to serve under Lloyd George. On 7^th December 1916, the king reluctantly invited him to become prime minister. The other Liberal ministers resigned with Asquith. Lloyd George secured the support of the Conservative, Labour and about 100 Liberal MPs. The other Liberal MPs remained loyal to Asquith. The split within the Liberal Party was clearly drawn.

The war did not harm the long-term prospects of the Labour Party though initially it served to emphasise divisions within the party.  When the war broke out, Ramsay MacDonald resigned as chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party. He was joined in opposition to the war by Philip Snowden and a small group of largely Independent Labour Party MPs. The majority of party members, however, supported the war and MacDonald and his supporters became a target of abuse from many trade unions and the popular press. MacDonald was replaced as chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party by Arthur Henderson. Henderson did not attempt to expel those Labour members who were against the war. This avoided the harmful split that severely damaged the Liberal Party.

The Labour Party managed to avoid the lasting splits that occurred in parallel socialist groups in France and Germany. First, those who opposed the war, for the most part did not campaign against it. Instead, they campaigned for measures to prevent future wars and almost all parties could agree with the ideas they suggested. Secondly, all members of the Labour Party were united in demanding that the economic welfare of the working class should be protected even during a national emergency. Both those opposed to the war and those supporting it worked together amicably on bodies like the Emergency Workers’ National Committee, created to press for adequate government protection for soldiers’ families, the restraint of food prices and rent control. Third, even those who supported the war effort were sometimes critical of the ways in which the government conducted it.  Though the Parliamentary Labour Party was represented in government in May 1915 and in the Cabinet after Lloyd George came to power in December 1916, it was never wholly at ease with the coalition. In August 1917, Arthur Henderson resigned from the Cabinet when Labour leaders were refused permission to attend an international socialist conference to discuss peace conditions. This gave Henderson and other leaders in the party the opportunity to encourage party unity to take advantage of Labour’s rising electoral prospects. There was a big growth in party membership during the war and the Representation of the People’s Act of February 1918 trebled the electorate.

The coalition formed by Lloyd George in December 1916 has been described by some historians as a turning point in modern British politics because it led to a four-year post-war experiment in non-party government. Others are more cynical in their views holding that the motive behind continued co-operation between Lloyd George Liberals and the Conservatives was to neutralise the growing threat from Labour. What really happened in the ‘Coupon Election’ of December 1918 was a decisive victory for the Conservatives, the full extent of which was disguised by Lloyd George continuing as prime minister.  From December 1916, Lloyd George organised the war effort through a small War Cabinet. Most historians accept that this arrangement increased the efficiency and effectiveness of decision-making. However, in May 1918, Lloyd George was criticised in the press by the recently retired Director of Military Operations, General Sir Frederick D. Maurice, for misleading the House of Commons about the number of troops in France. The result was a select committee into Lloyd George’s conduct. Ninety-eight Liberals voted against the prime minister and with Asquith. Two separate Liberal organisations now emerged, first at Westminster with their own whips and then in the constituencies. The Maurice debate showed just how dependent Lloyd George was on his Conservative supporters.

It was in the immediate aftermath of the Maurice debate and the growing threat of Communist revolution in Europe that Lloyd George discussed the possibility of co-operating after the war in a ‘Progressive Centre Alliance’. By October 1918, these discussions had formed the basis of the ‘coupon’ arrangement for the forthcoming general election. Lloyd George and Bonar Law approved Liberal and Conservative candidates. Candidates who gained their approval became ‘coalition’ candidates and received a ‘coupon’ signed by both leaders confirming this. Those ‘couponed’ would not be opposed by a Conservative or Lloyd George Liberal. While 150 Liberals were couponed, the number of Conservatives was 300.

The result of the Coupon Election was a triumph for the coalition. It took 473 seats, with Labour 57, Asquith Liberals 36, Irish Nationalists 7, Sinn Fein 73 and others 61[3]. There was some support for making the alliance between Lloyd George Liberals and Conservatives in 1920 but the attempt failed. The coalition finally collapsed in October 1922 when the Conservatives withdrew their support for Lloyd George. The Coupon Election proved not to be a mandate for any fundamental realignment of party politics, but for peace, reconstruction and reform[4].

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[1] There are several valuable books on the ways in which the war affected Britain. John Bourne Britain and the Great War 1914-18, Edward Arnold, 1989 and Stephen Constantine, Maurice W. Kirby and Mary B. Rose (eds.) The First World War in British History, Edward Arnold, 1995 provide an excellent introduction. Arthur Marwick The Deluge: British Society and the First World War, 2^nd ed., Macmillan, 1991 was the first study to really examine the impact of ‘total war’.

[2] John Turner British Politics and the Great War: Coalition and Conflict, 1915-1918, Yale University Press, 1992 is a classic study.

[3] None of the 73 Sinn Fein elected took up their seats in Westminster. The high number of ‘others’ included 50 Conservatives who were elected even though they did not have the ‘coupon’.

[4] K. O. Morgan Consensus and Disunity: the Lloyd George Coalition 1918-22, Oxford University Press, 1979 is the most detailed study available.

How did different social groups respond to women's suffrage?

British society was as divided over women’s suffrage as the major political parties.  Broadly, society fell into three categories. There were those who supported the call for women’s suffrage. There were those who opposed it. Finally, there was what has been called, ‘the silent majority’, those for whom women’s suffrage was not an issue often because it was not relevant to their needs.  However, women’s suffrage was a fluid issue on which people’s attitudes changed over time. The supporters and opponents of the campaign changed between 1865 and 1918. It is important to recognise this.

 

Social classes	Attitudes to women’s suffrage cut across social classes. They did not depend on class or, more precisely, were not necessarily determined by class. In very broad terms, within the three social classes, attitudes to women’s suffrage fell into one of three categories. There were those who were in favour of women’s suffrage and may have been active in the women’s movement. There were those who were opposed to women’s suffrage in relation to parliamentary elections (though not necessarily elections to local government) and who may have been active in the anti-suffragist activities. There was the ‘silent majority’. This included those for whom women’s suffrage was a largely irrelevant issue or who were undecided one way or the other. This position was especially important for the working classes, especially working class women whose lives were more concerned with economic than political issues. In many respects, the Fabian women with their focus on the economics of marriage were more relevant to their interests and needs than the suffrage movement. Brian Harrison provides evidence suggesting that there was a great deal of anti-suffragist feeling among the working class. The failure of George Lansbury to defeat an anti-suffragist Conservative candidate at the by-election in late 1912 in a largely working class constituency provides some support for this position. However, Jane Liddington and Ann Norris have shown that, in some parts of the country especially in the north-west, there is substantial evidence of pro-suffragist working class feeling.
Gender	The same point can be made about gender. There were female members of the Anti-Suffrage League and, conversely, male organisations were set up to campaign for women’s suffrage. Some supporters of women’s suffrage were totally opposed to the idea that initially only certain categories of women should be given the vote. They formed the Adult Suffrage Society and its chairperson was Margaret Bondfield. Members of the organisation believed that a limited franchise would disadvantage the working class and feared that it might act as a barrier against the granting of adult suffrage. Some women, especially members of the middle class, saw limited suffrage as an important step in the struggle to win the vote. The main supporters of the organisation were women trade unionists and members of the Independent Labour Party. Members of the Adult Suffrage Society included Margaret Macmillan, Mary Macarthur, Ottoline Morrell, Emily Hobhouse, Lucy Hammond, Leonard Hobhouse, Arthur Ponsonby and Fred Jowett. Although the majority of men opposed the idea of women voting in parliamentary elections, some leading male politicians supported universal suffrage. This included several leaders of the Labour Party, including James Keir Hardie, George Lansbury and Philip Snowdon. Frederick Pethick-Lawrence helped to fund Votes for Women and provided bail for nearly a thousand members of the WSPU who were arrested for breaking the law. Robert Cecil, one of the main figures in the Conservative Party was also a supporter but most Conservative MPs were opposed to the idea of votes for women. Several members of the Liberal administration, such as David Lloyd George, also favoured women being given the vote. The first male-only organisation, the Men’s Suffrage League for Women’s Suffrage was established in 1907 by two left-wing journalists, Henry Nevinson and Henry Brailsford and numbered among its members men from all shades of political opinion. Three years later, the Men’s Federation for Women’s Enfranchisement was established, adopting WSPU tactics. At a by-election in Wimbledon in 1907 Bertrand Russell, stood as the Suffragist candidate. As with class, reactions to the suffrage campaigns were not necessarily determined by gender.
Trade unions	Trade unions were, in general, hostile to women’s suffrage. This occurred because of ‘pride and fear’. This was the pride of men for whom the franchise was one element of their improved status that they could not easily share. There fear was the fear of the skilled worker. Women as unskilled labour, they believed, held down wages and inhibited union agreements in an overstocked labour market. Nevertheless, in 1913, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) followed the Labour Party and made its support for any government-supported Adult Suffrage Bill dependent on the inclusion of women. There were women trade unionists[1].  Women’s trade unions tended to have their most marked successes in recruiting in periods when male union activity was riding high. In 1832, 1500 women card-setters at Peep Green Yorkshire came out on strike for equal pay. The Lancashire cotton mill women were active in trade unions. In 1859, the North East Lancashire Amalgamated Society was formed for both men and women and in 1884 the Northern Counties Amalgamated Association of Weavers was established for male and female workers. However, the most significant development was the emergence of separate women’s unions. Thus, the Women’s Protective and Provident League (WPPL) was established in 1874 at a time when men’s unions were enjoying some success, both in membership terms and in establishing their legality. Similarly, it was in the brief period of ‘new unionism’ in the late 1880s and early 1890s when unskilled labour became politicised that the Women’s Industrial Council (WIC) and a score of women’s unions were established. The late nineteenth century saw considerable industrial action by women: the famous Bryant and May’s match-girls’ strike of 1888 but also the Dewsbury textile workers in 1875, the Aberdeen jute workers in 1884, Dundee jute workers in 1885 and Bristol confectionery workers. Women’s unions, under the inspiration of the League, campaigned for better wages and working conditions. It is a reflection of this era of separate female unions that in 1906 there were 167,000 members of all unions and that by 1914 this had risen to nearly 358,000. The 1890s saw both a growth of women’s trade union membership and the creation of several new women’s organisations. The Women’s Trade Union Association (WTUA) was founded in 1889 by women dissatisfied with the stance of the WTUL, amongst them Clementina Black, Amie Hicks, Clara James and Florence Balgarnie. Its aims differed little from the parent body and it was to be a short-lived venture merging in 1897 with the Women’s Industrial Council then three years old.  In 1870, some 58,000 women were members of trade unions but by 1896 that has risen to 118,000, a figure representing some 7.8 per cent of all union members. Unionism was strong in the textile and especially cotton industry where women often outnumbered male operatives. Women had since the 1850s been incorporated in mixed unions. In 1886, Clementina Black and Eleanor Marx, both became active in the Women’s Trade Union League. For the next, few years they travelled the country making speeches trying to persuade women to join trade unions and to campaign for “equal pay for equal work”. In 1889, Clementina Black helped form the Women’s Trade Union Association. Five years later, she merged this organisation with the Women’s Industrial Council. Clementina became president of the council and for the next twenty years, she was involved in collecting and publicizing information on women’s work. Most members of Women’s Industrial Council were also active in the suffrage movement. Organizations such as the NUWSS and the Women’s Freedom League worked closely with the council and other groups campaigning for better pay and conditions for women workers. By 1910, women made up almost one third of the workforce. Work was often on a part-time or temporary basis. It was argued that if women had the vote Parliament would be forced to pass legislation that would protect women workers. The Women’s Industrial Council concentrated on acquiring information about the problem and by 1914, the organisation had investigated one hundred and seventeen trades. In 1915, Clementina Black and her fellow investigators published their book Married Women’s Work. This information was then used to persuade Parliament to take action against the exploitation of women in the workplace.
Newspapers	Most national and regional newspapers, especially The Times were hostile to the women’s suffrage campaign especially after militant action began. On the other hand, militancy did encourage newspapers to print stories about the suffragettes, providing them with the ‘oxygen’ of publicity.  The suffrage movement produced its own newspapers: Common Cause (NUWSS), Vote (Women’s Franchise League) and Votes for Women (WSPU).
Religious groups	The WSPU condemned the Church of England because it did not speak out in favour of women’s suffrage and because its bishops in the House of Lords did not oppose the Cat and Mouse Act[2]. However, some individual clergymen did speak out in favour of the vote and a large number spoke out against forcible feeding. As might be expected, the traditional links between nonconformity and radicalism, there was greater support for women suffrage campaigns from the nonconformist churches. Within the Anglican Church, support for the parliamentary suffrage was part of a broader campaign by Anglican women for a greater role in the governing of the Church.  There were many ardent Anglicans in suffragist ranks including Maude Royden and Louise Creighton (who helped align the National Council of Women behind women’s suffrage). Many of these women belonged to the Church League for Women’s Suffrage[3], founded in 1909 by the Revd Claude Hinscliff. Its primary aim was to secure the parliamentary vote for women on the same terms as men and to do so by non-militant means[4]. It also sought to draw out what its founder called “the deep religious significance of the women’s movement” and there were, on occasions, special services for suffragists; for example, Percy Dearmer’s at St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill in 1912. In August 1912, the CLWS had more than 3,000 members and by April 1914, this had increased to over 5,000 churchmen and women.  Archbishop Randall Davidson, who was privately a passive suffragist, had considerable difficulty in maintaining his non-committal public stance as the militant campaign intensified. Between 1908 and 1914, militants put considerable pressure on him, particularly between January and September 1914, in connection with the effects of forcible feeding. One group that took a particularly harsh line with Davidson was the Suffragist Churchwomen’s Protest Committee, whose secretary Mrs Alice Kidd, condemned the “servile attitude of the Heads of the Church towards an unjust and irresponsible government”.

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[1] Barbara Drake Women in Trade Unions, London, 1921 reprinted by Virago, 1984 is the classic starting-point on this subject. See also: Norbert C. Soldon Women in British Trade Unions 1874-1976, Gill & Macmillan, 1978, Eleanor Gordon Women and the Labour Movement in Scotland 1850-1914, Oxford University Press, 1991 which focuses on the jute industry in Dundee and Judy Lown With Free and Graceful Step? Women and industrialisation in nineteenth century England, Polity, 1987. Anne Taylor Annie Besant: A biography, Oxford University Press, 1992 is now the standard work on a critical figure in the development of women’s trade union rights, birth control and women’s rights generally.

[2] Brian Heeney The Women’s Movement in the Church of England 1850-1930, Oxford University Press, 1988, especially pages 105-108 examines the part played by Anglican women in the suffrage movement.

[3] The League existed from 1909 until 1919, when it became the League of the Church Militant (LCM). The end for the LCM came in 1928 with a public announcement, “the general idea is that one major aim of the LCM – equal franchise – is achieved and that advance is made towards the other, the ordination of women”.

[4] Interestingly, given its non-partisan commitment and its belief in non-militancy, on 25^th September 1913 the Standard remarked that “[since] no fewer than six members of the elected committee, including the chairman, are subscribers to the Women’s Social and Political Union, a grave doubt must arise as to the real character of this outwardly respectable society”.

How political parties reacted to women's suffrage: the Liberal Party

The Liberals were in government after 1906 and it was because of their unwillingness to respond positively to demands for women’s suffrage that the WSPU’s militant campaign escalated[1]. The government’s reaction to women’s suffrage campaigns was negative despite there being several sympathisers in the cabinet. Throughout the period 1903 to 1914, the suffragists never managed to convince the government that it should set aside sufficient parliamentary time to ensure the passage of a women’s suffrage bill.

 

General position	Most of the Liberal Party did support some form of women’s suffrage. They recognised it to be part of their historical commitment to democracy and the extension of liberty. They understood that the vote traditionally had embodied the symbol of full citizenship. Since women had the duties and responsibilities of citizens, they should also have a citizen’s rights. Fairness also dictated that women should have the vote, since the laws passed by Parliament affected women as much as men. Most importantly, the well being of the nation demanded women’s involvement in political affairs. Liberal supporters of the franchise argued that women had a distinct point of view. The national life could only be enriched by the contribution of that viewpoint to public affairs, especially on matters relating to children and home life, social problems and the civilizing of the nation. Women, these Liberal concluded, had proved their responsibility and worth in raising families and managing the home. It was there a matter of justice that they should be given the vote.
What were the attitudes of the Liberal government?	The aims of the Liberal government on the question of women’s suffrage are far from clear. Some senior politicians hoped that, by ignoring the issue, it would go away. This may explain Asquith’s refusal to meet suffragist delegations. However, there is evidence suggesting that the campaign did make some impact on the government. The government was forced to make concessions, or at least the promise of concessions that raised women’s hopes – as in June 1908. That Asquith, an anti-suffragist was prepared to promise a women’s suffrage amendment, if certain conditions were met, shows that the suffrage campaign was making an impact. In addition, since the WSPU’s militant campaign involved breaking the law, the government was obliged to respond or allow the rule of law to break down. Some historians, notably Martha Vicinus and Susan Kingsley Kent have suggested that the use of force against suffragette demonstrators, for example on Black Friday was excessive and included sexual harassment and that the adoption of forcible feeding had symbolic as well as practical intentions. Virtually all Liberals were offended by the actions of the militants warning the WSPU that it was alienating public opinion and thus delaying achievement of its goal. Those who were less supportive of the women’s campaign treated the behaviour of the militants as evidence that women might not be fit for the vote. Following an attack on Asquith on 23rd November 1910, the Yorkshire Evening News launched a hysterical attack on the suffragettes. It called them “maniac women”, “lunatic females” and the “shrieking sisterhood” and ended by saying, “They should be put into a home and kept there until they have learned to forget the ways of the brute and have approximated to some degree of civilisation”. It can be argued that the government’s reaction was more than a simple attempt to maintain law and order. It was an attempt to ‘put women in their place’, an automatic reaction of a male dominated society that felt itself under threat. The appointment of Henry Asquith as prime minister in April 1908 represented a setback for the suffrage movement. His predecessor, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was not unsympathetic to the cause and said that the campaigners should keep ‘pestering’ the government. In 1906, the Cabinet contained a large majority of supporters of women’s suffrage; by 1912, changes had left it evenly divided.
Positive reaction	The Liberal Party, like the other parties, was divided on the issue of women’s suffrage. However, there is good evidence showing that the women’s suffrage campaigns made an important impact in the period 1903-1914. Support for women’s suffrage was strongest among Liberal women. By 1903, the Women’s Liberal Federation had passed a resolution in support of women’s suffrage. In the twenty by-elections between May 1904 and November 1905, the Federation demanded pro-suffrage pledges from Liberal candidates and refused to work for those who refused. It worked closely with the NUWSS in rallies, demonstrations and educational activities. After the 1906 election, the majority of the Executive Committee of the Federation viewed the WSPU tactics with distaste and clung to the hope that the Liberal government would honour its obligation to loyal women party workers. Within two years, disappointment at the lack of progress led to several members of the Executive Committee to resign their position and share platforms with the WSPU. What began as a trickle of resignations became more significant after 1912 with sixty-eight branches of the Federation collapsing between 1912 and 1914. The objective of the new Liberal Women’s Suffrage Union was to persuade the Liberal Party to adopt women’s suffrage as part of its programme and to promote this goal the Union would only support pro-suffrage candidates. With the women increasingly adopting the familiar tactics of Liberal pressure groups, it would be increasingly difficult to keep women’s suffrage as an open question. Lloyd George was warned that this policy could “lead, as surely to disruption and disaster as did the similar policy of the Unionist (Conservative) Party on Tariff Reform”. Many of the women left to join the Labour Party, seeing it as a better prospect for progress on women’s suffrage. The reaction of many Liberal suffragists to the failure of the suffrage campaign to achieve its goals under a Liberal government was to leave the Liberal Party. The suffrage campaign raised their hopes and then provoked disillusion in their party. Among the men, the National Liberal Federation overwhelmingly endorsed women’s suffrage in 1905, while the Scottish Liberal Association called on the government to introduce a suffrage bill in 1910. Among Nonconformists, there was considerable support for women’s suffrage. In 1909, the Wesleyan Methodist Conference reflected the new spirit that recognised female equality when it voted by 224 to 136 that women should be able to be elected as representatives to the Conference. The following year, nineteen District Synods endorsed the recommendation, while twelve opposed it.
Negative reaction	However, there was considerable opposition to women’s suffrage among Liberals. The main arguments put forward by Liberals (though not exclusively) were: These Liberals claimed either that the majority of women did not want the vote or that such an experiment, whose results were difficult to predict, should not take place unless the nation (that is the male electorate) were properly consulted and approved. A second line of argument was that each sex had its own proper sphere and politics was the sphere of men. Nor, the opponents argued, was a limited extension of the franchise possible. Once the principle of women’s suffrage was admitted, there was no logical stopping point short of universal suffrage with a female majority of the electorate. By emphasising the experimental nature of such a change, by questioning whether the community would benefit and whether the majority of women wanted it and by insisting that the nation must be consulted, these Liberal opponents of women’s suffrage were using arguments that might even lead to some Liberal supporters of suffrage to hesitate. Liberal supporters were made more hesitant by the uncertainty about the electoral effects of extending the suffrage. Conciliation Bills in 1910 and 1911 proposed giving the franchise to women on the same terms as men. Liberal constituency organisers were convinced that this would give the vote to unmarried or widowed property owners who would vote Conservative. Liberals therefore had a plausible political reason for opposing specific measures of enfranchisement without having to come out openly against the principle.

 

None of the three political parties completely supported women’s suffrage and divisions over the cause went across the political divide. The decision of the Labour Party in 1912 to include women’s suffrage as part of its political programme represented a long-term strategy. Arguments over the principle of women’s suffrage, combined with concerns about its impact on the political and electoral system, the activities of the militants and prevailing political concerns made it difficult for parties to support women’s suffrage unconditionally.

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[1] On the Liberal party in this period see, Paul Adelman The Decline of the Liberal Party 1910-31, Longman, 1981, Chris Cook A Short History of the Liberal Party 1900-97, Macmillan, 5^th ed., 1997 and G. R. Searle The Liberal Party: Triumph and Disintegration 1886-1929, Macmillan, 1992, 2^nd ed., 2001.