With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, suffrage activists saw an end to militancy. The leadership of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) elected to take what it saw as a ‘patriotic’ stand on the conflict and welcomed an amnesty for imprisoned suffragettes from Home Secretary Reginald McKenna on 10 August.¹ This decision to suspend activities – mirrored by parallel decisions in the NUWSS – has often been interpreted as the point at which the campaign for women’s enfranchisement ground to an immediate halt.² However, major revisionist studies by Nicoletta F. Gullace, Angela K. Smith and June Purvis have sought to look beyond the supposed ‘virtual disappearance’ of suffrage activism and have offered a far more nuanced view, demonstrating the many and varied ways in which activists continued to make their case for citizenship during the war. Nevertheless, their focus has been on the strategies of WSPU, the Pankhursts’ ‘patriotic suffragism’ and those members who remained loyal.³

The foundation of various wartime suffrage organizations such as the Suffragettes of the WSPU (SWSPU) and the Independent WSPU (IWSPU) – organizations that were largely made up of disgruntled former WSPU members, resentful of the Pankhursts’ new direction – has received only limited scholarly attention. When mentioned in the historiography, their membership has been described as ‘a very small body of extremists’ and their suffrage campaigning as brief, sporadic and ‘hampered by lack of funds’.⁴ Suffrage societies like the United Suffragists (US) and the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) are seen to have achieved a better level of wartime organization. This has contributed to the notion that during the First World War, ‘the suffragettes were sleeping’ and that the majority of active suffrage campaigning was organized by the Women’s Freedom League (WFL), the ELFS and the US.⁵ This was not the case.⁶ The IWSPU and SWSPU were among a number of suffrage societies that were able to build on their prewar connections and networks and ‘keep the suffrage flag flying’ while maintaining a pacifist stance to the war.⁷ Their place within the wider web of wartime suffrage organizations was significant and without a comprehensive analysis of these lesser-known suffrage societies, we cannot fully comprehend the range and breadth of women’s responses to and perspectives on the First World War.

This chapter demonstrates that the choice of the IWSPU and SWSPU to continue suffrage campaigning, at a time when jingoistic patriotism defined suffrage activism as working against the country’s priorities, was a striking act of political resistance against a government which sought to co-opt them into defending a country, while refusing to grant them citizenship.⁸ The foundation of the SWSPU and IWSPU, by disgruntled WSPU members, signalled the rebirth of the active campaign for votes for women.⁹ This campaign was formed from within the existing structure of the old WSPU, and from 1916 developed a clear strategy influenced by the prewar campaign tactics of the WSPU, which was non-violent but still militant. While the activism was essentially constitutional, the militant mindset remained evident in the refusal to push women’s political demands to one side.

Although the IWSPU and the SWSPU continued to prioritize suffrage during the war years, their campaigns intersected with women’s broader social, economic and moral concerns. Despite the interests and energies of the country being absorbed by the war, this chapter shows that some suffrage activists continued to argue that women’s exclusion from the public world of politics directly impacted on women’s private lives. They challenged, for example, issues around the state’s attempt to control women’s sexuality and insisted that the vote was key to transforming women’s inequalities. While the particular campaigns of the IWSPU and SWSPU are explored in detail, this chapter argues that broader collective action and collaboration was at the heart of wartime campaign strategies. Wartime suffrage societies had a shared political commitment to securing enfranchisement for women and realized that their significance and impact upon the government lay in their work as a united band of women and men.

Suffrage responses to war

When the First World War broke out in summer 1914, the women’s suffrage campaign was forced to respond to a new set of political circumstances. It was far from united in its priorities and responses.¹⁰ Broadly, organizations took one of three responses to the war. There were those who suspended or redirected activity, supporting the war effort through welfare and relief work, those who worked for peace through organizations like the Peace Crusade Bureau and those who continued to campaign for women’s suffrage.¹¹ The NUWSS, for instance, remained committed to women’s suffrage, but redirected its energies into an extensive programme of relief work, ‘[offering] the organization to the local authorities in whose hands relief work was placed’.¹² Although the relief work of the NUWSS was a success, it lost a number of high-profile members of its executive (including Helena Swanwick, Isabella Ford and Maude Royden) because of the organization’s public stance on the war and pacifist movement.¹³

Not all suffrage organizations responded by suspending or redirecting their suffrage activism. The WFL, ELFS and US, for example, maintained that the vote remained their most important demand and therefore sought to sustain their propaganda work. The WFL – which suspended militancy in 1914 but not other forms of suffrage activity – launched new membership campaigns from 1915 to 1917 and engaged in a range of constitutional activism, including the organization of suffrage petitions, letters to MPs and deputations to Parliament.¹⁴ The US committed to ‘expressing the women’s point of view and to bring about her ultimate enfranchisement by every means in our power’.¹⁵ The ELFS declared that in order to ‘secure justice for the working women of the country’, it needed to ‘bring pressure to bear on the government’ and, unlike the other wartime suffrage societies, opted, from 1916, to support an adult suffrage agenda.¹⁶ Moreover, as the war progressed, women within these organizations also became involved in peace and relief work, particularly centred on alleviating the effects of war on women and children.¹⁷ This is exemplified by WFL leader and pacifist Charlotte Despard, who outlined the WFL’s agenda at the beginning of the war in its newspaper, The Vote: ‘we must by every means in our power while helping the innocent sufferers in all such times – the women and children – keep our own flag flying’.¹⁸ Nevertheless, while the latter three organizations have been historiographically positioned as the ‘hardcore’ of previously militant suffrage societies, who continued suffrage work during the war, the new wartime suffrage organizations of the IWSPU and SWSPU certainly made an impact too.¹⁹

‘Reunite without delay’: the establishment of the Suffragettes of the WSPU and Independent WSPU

On 12 August 1914, WSPU members were sent a circular letter from Emmeline Pankhurst informing them of the organization’s new strategy and decision to ‘economise the Union’s energies and financial resources by a temporary suspension of activities’.²⁰ Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst argued that they ‘could not be pacifists at any price’ and instead offered their services to the country, calling on their members to do the same.²¹ The resumption of suffrage activities and the reappearance of The Suffragette were to ‘be announced when the time [came]’.²² Unsurprisingly though, not all women involved in the prewar WSPU were impressed by this change in direction. The suspension of militancy and the pro-war stance taken by the Pankhursts alienated many WSPU members. Initially, WSPU women, who were ‘unable to agree with the tactics’ chosen by the leadership, met informally in several London locations to discuss ‘the possibility of continuing the struggle for the vote’ and to rally as many members as possible, so that a large-scale event could be arranged in protest against ‘the abandonment of suffrage work at this critical time in the history of women’.²³

The first meeting took place on 22 October 1915 at Caxton Hall. While the number of women in attendance was not recorded, the venue capacity of 700 implies that space was needed for an audience in the hundreds. The meeting was arranged by Wimbledon WSPU’s organizing secretary and Quaker Rose Lamartine Yates. She was joined by women from ‘all over the country’, including prominent activists such as WSPU organizer Dorothy Evans (recently returned from Ireland, where she had been in prison for an arson attack on Lisburn Cathedral) WSPU drum major and notorious militant Mary Leigh and WFL campaigner and pacifist Annie Cobden Sanderson.²⁴ The attendees met to protest against the Pankhursts’ decision to no longer use the Union’s name and its platform to campaign for women’s suffrage, and also to discuss WSPU expenditure and to request an audited statement of accounts from the former WSPU leadership.²⁵ The Vote reported that the ‘meeting of members and recent members of the WSPU reaffirms the unshaken faith in the women’s movement and its belief that only by the attainment of the aims for which the women of the WSPU have striven and suffered can the uplifting of the human race be achieved’.²⁶ The women in attendance claimed these aims could only be attained ‘by continuing to realise the unity of women’ and by faithfully safeguarding their interests ‘at the present critical time in their economic and social history’.²⁷ This statement suggests that despite monumental changes in the country’s circumstances, the vote remained the most important demand for many women. It also indicates that the supposedly patriotic feminism embraced by the former WSPU leadership was not endorsed by those in attendance.

Attendees also sought to find out what had happened to the funds held by the national WSPU, requesting a ‘properly audited Statement of Accounts and Balance Sheet’ to be released by the leadership.²⁸ The last financial statement issued by the WSPU had been in the spring of 1914. When asked about this in December 1915, Emmeline Pankhurst explained that ‘since the war had begun the WSPU’s work had been diverted to new channels, and the funds contributed for suffrage work had been set aside and not touched for the purposes of the war campaigns’.²⁹ As her biographer, June Purvis, suggests, Pankhurst’s statement to the Weekly Dispatch was not enough ‘to silence her critics’.³⁰ As a consequence, and also to discuss further actions and ‘the possibilities of future work’, the women present at the October meeting decided to organize a ‘General Conference’ that was to be held at St George’s Hall, Bloomsbury, in December 1915.³¹

The General Conference signalled the rebirth of the active campaign for ‘votes for women’ by rebellious WSPU women. It was here that attendees led by the chair of the conference, Rose Lamartine Yates, and a temporary executive of ten women, passed several resolutions that defined the organization’s future policy.³² This policy was as follows:

The SWSPU pledged to play no part in making any form of personal attack on the former leaders of the WSPU, in the press or otherwise. A final resolution outlined the pacifist stance of the new organization, stating that it could ‘take no part of the policy of the SWSPU to recruit men for war purposes or to adopt any other form of purely militant action’.³⁴ All its energies were to be devoted to working for the enfranchisement of women. These resolutions were seconded by the suffragettes in attendance, who reportedly ‘came from all ends of the country’.³⁵ The women then enrolled as new members and re-affirmed their original suffrage pledge, which was to ‘endorse the objects and methods of the WSPU and hereby undertake not to support the candidate of any political party at Parliamentary elections until women have obtained the Parliamentary vote’.³⁶

The conduct of the first meeting and the resolutions passed suggests that while the SWSPU did not intend to establish a suffrage organization that was completely detached from the original WSPU, the pro-war stance taken by the former WSPU leadership and the suspension of suffrage activism meant that the WSPU, as former activists had known it, no longer existed. It might have been possible for displaced and disgruntled WSPU members to move into existing organizations like the WFL, whose policies of pacifism and support for partial suffrage almost mirrored the SWSPU’s. But this did not appear to be an appealing option, just as it had not been for many dissatisfied WSPU members during the prewar years. This may have been because of how women viewed the WSPU and their place within it. To the founding members of the SWSPU, the WSPU represented a cause that united women ‘from within’, as Lilian Metge declared in 1915.³⁷ For these women, it was the grassroots activists (who came from a wide range of social backgrounds, developed much of their feminism in regions and localities and had long chosen their own degree of militancy) who defined the WSPU – not the leadership.³⁸ ‘Votes for women’ was a cause to which many of the individuals who were prominent in forming the SWSPU had devoted a huge part of their lives. As such, their friendship networks were vast, spanning political and geographical boundaries and conducive to developing this new organization from within its existing structure.

The use of friendship networks to build a new wartime campaign from a grassroots level can be seen in the friendship connections of the women elected to the executive committee of the SWSPU. Former WSPU activists Rose Lamartine Yates and Mary Leigh, for example, were connected for a lifetime by the loss of their close friend, Emily Wilding Davison. Leigh also spoke regularly for the Wimbledon WSPU and stayed with Lamartine Yates when recuperating from ill health. They were united in their socialist feminist outlook, support of pacifism and allegiance to the enfranchisement of women, building on that network to reach out to other like-minded women. While Lamartine Yates used the local connections that she built while organizing and speaking in Wimbledon and London to bring in London-based activists – including Florence Haughton of Winchmore Hill, Mrs F. E. Smith of Finchley, Chelsea-based Zoe Procter and prominent WFL activist Annie Cobden Sanderson, who was a regular speaker at Wimbledon WSPU meetings – these women also drew on their own networks to bring others into the SWPU. For instance, Annie Cobden Sanderson may have reached out to Mary McCleod, who, as noted in Beth Jenkins’ chapter in this volume, was a former Welsh organizer and had spent time working alongside Sanderson on the WFL executive committee. Likewise, Zoe Procter and Gladys Schutze (who used the pseudonym Henrietta Leslie in her work as a novelist) were known to each other, as Procter worked as Schutze’s secretary during the war.³⁹ Procter may have also introduced Dorothea Rock to this new organization, as the two had lived together since they had met during the March 1912 window-smashing campaign, for which they were both imprisoned. Similarly, it is plausible that Mary Leigh brought Ireland-based militants into the SWSPU, such as former Irish Women’s Franchise League members Lilian Metge, Dorothy Evans and Gladys Evans. Leigh and Evans had been incarcerated in Mountjoy prison after the pair set fire to a box at the Theatre Royal, Dublin in August 1912.⁴⁰

In highlighting the connections of some of the members of the executive committee, it is possible to see how the SWSPU used its suffrage networks to build its movement from within an existing structure. These women were united in their desire to prioritize votes for women and take a pacifist stance to the war. Furthermore, before the war they had been devoted but not uncritical followers of the WSPU and had maintained a degree of autonomy. They defined their own political agendas and their own degrees of militancy, seeing themselves and their activism as contributing to and shaping WSPU policy and campaign tactics, rather than accepting them without question. They felt the WSPU was an organization that they had helped build. Mary Leigh, for instance, described it as ‘her Union’ that she had ‘helped build up into power by her passion and her soul and the untellable hardships’ she had undergone.⁴¹ This state of mind was clearly shared by her fellow SWSPU members. In late December 1915, an SWSPU report declared that ‘a true democracy, does not fail for its lack of leaders’ as ‘true growth is from within not from without’.⁴² As Liz Stanley and Ann Morley have argued, WSPU women often maintained a degree of ‘independence of mind and action’ and as such, moved forward as they saw fit.⁴³ They also suggest that many women had little or no contact with the leadership. Instead, their activism was located in their own local and national feminist communities, with many only maintaining WSPU membership in order to retain involvement in an organization and network of like-minded women.⁴⁴ This evolved further in wartime, with women using existing WSPU structures to form their own feminist communities, thus uniting women who were committed to prioritizing suffrage.

The SWSPU however, was not the only new wartime suffrage organization established by building on existing networks. Four months after the establishment of the SWSPU, another wartime suffrage society was formed: the Independent WSPU. The IWSPU comprised an executive committee of the following women: former WSPU organizer Charlotte Marsh as organizing secretary, Dorothea Rock as assistant secretary, constitutional activist and novelist Gladys Schutze as honorary treasurer and former teacher and WSPU organizer Dorothy Evans as provincial organizer.⁴⁵ It is not apparent why another organization was formed as there was no clear difference in policy between the SWSPU and the IWSPU. All members of the IWSPU executive committee (apart from Charlotte Marsh) were SWSPU members and included in the SWSPU subscription list of March 1916. Unfortunately, this is the only subscription list that exists, so it is impossible to know if the members of the IWSPU committee left the SWSPU to form this new organization. It could be that the IWSPU was formed because of the lack of a wartime movement at both regional and local levels within the SWSPU. The structure of the IWSPU initially appeared more sophisticated than the SWSPU and less London-centric because, in addition to its committee, the IWSPU had a series of local secretaries, including Edith Rigby in Preston and Janet Barrowman in Glasgow.⁴⁶ However, local activism still remained limited within the IWSPU. Unlike the prewar period, when women’s local areas were key sites for their suffrage activism, much of the IWSPU’s wartime campaign work took place in London, since its membership was small and collective action in the capital was seen as the best way to advance its feminist claims.

Wartime suffrage campaigning

The formation of the SWSPU and IWSPU, at a time when a jingoistic sense of ‘duty’ to one’s country was central to the public consciousness, was a striking form of political resistance. While these organizations did not engage in militancy, the women within them were militant in their outlook. The principle of resistance that animated their prewar militancy remained a key feature of their wartime activism and, as Laura Mayhall has argued, campaigning for women’s suffrage became ‘a form of resistance once the nation deemed it selfish for women to struggle for political rights during the war’.⁴⁷ Articles such as ‘Patriotism before politics’ appeared in August 1915 in the national newspapers, indicating, Mayhall suggests, ‘the nation’s new priorities’.⁴⁸ The jingoistic patriotism however, that defined suffrage campaigning as working against the national interest, did not deter the women of the SWSPU and IWSPU. Both organizations pressed forward their claims for political equality by publishing their first newsletters soon after their foundation.

The SWSPU published its first newsletter, The Suffragette News Sheet (SNS), in December 1915 and the IWSPU published its first newsletter, The Independent Suffragette (IS), in August 1916. The timing of the release of the SNS is particularly striking because by December 1915, rumours were already circulating regarding the potential of a franchise reform and pressure was building from within Parliament to revise voter registration requirements, so that servicemen could be enfranchised.⁴⁹ This, taken in conjunction with Lord Lansdowne’s announcement in the House of Lords on 4 November, of a government commitment to revise the electoral register by the end of the war, pushed the wartime women’s movement forward and prompted it to show the government that it had the ability and resources to respond to the altered political circumstances.

The SWSPU and IWSPU newsletters were published monthly, ranged between three and eight pages in length and included articles, cuttings, letters, correspondence regarding suffrage work and notices that informed members of upcoming meetings and events. The SNS and the IS cost one penny and required an annual subscription and post fee of 1s/6d.⁵⁰ Although over thirteen editions of the SNS still exist today, only two editions of the IS have survived. This could be due to the fact that from the outset the IWSPU struggled to secure funds that enabled it to circulate its newspaper as widely as the SWSPU. The SWSPU, unlike the IWSPU, was able to secure support for its newspaper from other suffrage societies like the ELFS and WFL, which featured articles in their papers that encouraged their members to buy ‘a LIVE paper devoted entirely to the Woman’s Cause – no suffragist can go without it’.⁵¹ Even the socialist newspaper, the Labour Leader, featured similar articles.⁵² Given the connections of women like Mary Leigh and Annie Cobden Sanderson to the ILP, this is not surprising.

Both wartime suffrage organizations pressed members to subscribe annually to the newspapers. By March 1916, the SWSPU had over sixty annual subscriptions and was reported to have a ‘splendid little band of sellers’ that were ‘keeping votes for women in the public mind’ by selling the SNS across London. The IWSPU set up a ‘Paper Fund’ in September 1916 to enable the production of its newspaper and in February 1917, asked its members to pay monthly subscriptions earlier in the year. Both societies also faced obstacles when it came to the circulation of suffrage propaganda. During the war, the London County Council prohibited the sale of literature in parks and public spaces in London. Wartime suffrage organizations resisted this ruling by continuing to sell their literature. One WFL seller was arrested in August 1917, in Brockwell Park, for defying council regulations, but the case was dismissed and never went to court.⁵³ However, it was not just these suffrage newspapers that were struggling with distribution during the war. Britannia (edited by Christabel Pankhurst) was suppressed by the government after the paper attacked the government’s war policy and had to be printed in secret by 1916.⁵⁴ Regardless of the difficulties in sale and distribution, the IWSPU declared ‘faith in their little paper’ and was confident that its existence would make a difference to promoting votes for women and ensuring that both ‘friends and enemies’ would know that the women’s suffrage movement ‘was not dead but very much alive and will never be silent till the goal is won’.⁵⁵

The SWSPU also challenged the notion that the fight for enfranchisement had fallen to the wayside during the war with the publication of a propaganda play script in the SNS. A scene in the House of Commons was presented with representatives of the SWSPU detailed as visiting the lobby of the House to remind MPs that ‘you cannot as honourable men tamper with the Franchise Laws unless you include votes for women in the changes’.⁵⁶ An MP challenged the women asking, ‘What? You are awake? I thought all the suffragettes had gone to sleep since the War!’, to which a representative of the SWSPU told the MP – ‘keep your eyes on us’, because there is ‘no more napping!’⁵⁷ Sustaining this form of suffrage propaganda and the use of humour as a political tactic was particularly important for smaller suffrage organizations at this time, as they were still in the process of recruiting members and establishing themselves among wartime suffrage societies.⁵⁸ Krista Cowman has argued that between 1903 and 1914, the WSPU deployed humour as ‘a deliberate tactic’ and ‘a way of gaining suffragettes a hearing’.⁵⁹ Former members clearly believed that this tactic was effective enough to continue its use in wartime.

The SWSPU and IWSPU needed to recruit members to ensure that their presence was felt during the entirety of the war. Articles within the first editions of the newsletters addressed questions like ‘why should you join us?’⁶⁰ Answers were framed around the social, economic and political difficulties that women faced in their daily lives. Inequalities, such as women’s exclusion from ‘well-paid occupations’, ‘unequal divorce laws’, equal pay and women’s rights over their children were emphasized, marking a continuity with prewar WSPU tactics. In one September 1916 article, the SWSPU detailed ‘why the law is unjust to women’. In focusing on the fundamental unfairness of the law for women, the article explained ‘women’s grievances’, such as ‘the wife has no right to share money earned in common’, and in doing so, illustrated how women’s exclusion from the public world of politics directly impacted on their private lives. Again, the vote was presented as the single determining factor which would transform these inequalities.⁶¹

Both organizations also attempted to establish a clear set of tactics by giving women examples of ‘what everyone can do’ to advance the suffrage campaign.⁶² The SWSPU encouraged ‘all those in sympathy with what has been done to reunite without delay’ and to ‘strengthen the body of suffragists pressing forward their just claim to the vote’ by lobbying MPs and attending open-air meetings and indoor public meetings arranged by the societies. Members were also encouraged to spread the word of the wartime suffrage movement among their existing networks. The IWSPU, for example, asked every reader to buy more copies of its newsletter and post them to friends that were likely to be interested.⁶³ Although these organizations encouraged members to use their personal friendship networks to grow membership, this only covered a limited proportion of potential support.⁶⁴ Therefore, from May 1916, when the SWSPU moved to new offices at the Emily Wilding Davison Lodge Rooms at 144 High Holborn, it began to extend its reach by scheduling weekly meetings. After the SWSPU move, its public campaign work appeared much more prominently in the wider suffrage press (the Vote, Votes for Women and the Woman’s Dreadnought) than that of the IWSPU. SWSPU meetings were advertised as taking place at least once a week, either at 3pm on a Sunday in Hyde Park or at 8pm on a Thursday in Holborn.⁶⁵

By May 1916, rumours of a potential ‘Registration Bill’ being introduced by Parliament (that would expand the electorate to include servicemen) were rife.⁶⁶ Under residency requirements of the current 1884 Reform Act, many soldiers couldn’t vote and this was a problem for the government.⁶⁷ While Asquith had stated in a letter to NUWSS president Millicent Fawcett in May 1916 that ‘new legislation was not being contemplated’, Cabinet discussions regarding franchise reform were underway, with Asquith considering the establishment of a Select Committee to consider voter registration and franchise reform.⁶⁸ Understandably, suffrage activists were cautious and refused to be caught out by a franchise reform that did not consider women. Consequently, the SWSPU’s weekly meetings were coupled with public meetings in much larger indoor venues such as Essex Hall, so that the public could be ‘further instructed’. Notices such as ‘STOP THE PRESS! SWSPU public meeting, Votes for Women – the burning question again!’ appeared in the SNS, and suffrage activists were urged to ‘be ready to raise a loud and immediate objection to a Registration Bill which [may] not meet the claims of Women’.⁶⁹

Though Martin Pugh has asserted that the wartime women’s suffrage movement ‘had no obvious strategy for success’, this evidence suggests the reverse was true.⁷⁰ While the SWSPU approach was essentially non-militant, it was comparable to and clearly influenced by prewar WSPU and wartime WFL tactics. By June 1916, when the WFL was organizing petitions to Parliament and collective deputations and sustaining suffrage propaganda, the SWSPU was also now combining its meetings and sale of suffrage literature with letters and deputations to Parliament. The first deputation in which representatives of the SWSPU were present took place after the following letter was sent to all MPs:

It appears that rumours about the government introducing a Registration Bill (that would not only reform the parliamentary register but would likely consider the enfranchisement of men serving in the war) were particularly alarming for suffragettes. They feared that without the possession of women’s points of view, any reforms that the government sought to pass would sideline women’s demands for enfranchisement once more. The deputation that followed to Parliament Square on 29 May 1916 was attended by SWSPU members alongside representatives from eighteen suffrage societies. These included the WFL, the US and the Actresses Franchise League (AFL). A newspaper report described how ‘a picket of women with their colours reminded Members [of Parliament] of their determination to be included in any coming Bill’.⁷² What is particularly striking about this deputation, and others during 1916, is that they were regularly attended by multiple suffrage societies and not just representatives of one organization. This indicates that we should not fall foul of the myth that all suffrage campaigning stopped during the war. This is self-evidently not true. Suffrage organizations were clearly finding new ways to collaborate, while also continuing to be influenced by older suffrage campaign tactics and events that brought women from different groups together and united them under a single issue.

The collective and collaborative nature of suffrage campaigning is particularly apparent in the suffrage work of the IWSPU. The IWSPU hosted its own monthly meetings and occasional Sunday afternoon meetings in various London parks. In October 1916 it had encouraged members to ‘write at once to MPs for their localities, urging them to press for a Government Bill introducing votes for women in the coming session’.⁷³ However, the limited size and capacity of the IWSPU meant it did not organize on a large scale, like the SWSPU. Deputations, public meetings, bazaars and other public events were usually organized in partnership with larger wartime suffrage societies. Throughout 1916 and 1917, for instance, the IWSPU collectively signed circular letters to Parliament and the Prime Minister alongside the SWSPU, WFL and US. Moreover, it attended collective demonstrations and deputations from at least September 1916 – at which time it commissioned Dr Schutze (Gladys Schutze’s husband) to design and make a ‘large banner in the [suffragette] colours’, bearing the name of the society and ‘decorated in the corners with a prison badge in white and arrows in purple’.⁷⁴ This was a clear example of how wartime organizations formed their own identities while also drawing on the inheritance of WSPU militancy and legacy.

In November and December 1916, the IWSPU was present at the same suffragette bazaars, jumble sales and fairs as several suffrage organizations including the WFL, SWSPU, AFL and US.⁷⁵ Just as in the prewar period, these events brought multiple suffrage organizations together, seeking to enlarge membership and raise money for the cause through the sale of literature, toys, crockery and homemade provisions. While these events were organized and attended by multiple societies, it is important to remember that many of the leaders of wartime suffrage societies had simultaneously been ‘supporters and generous benefactors’ of the WSPU.⁷⁶ It is therefore unsurprising that they collaborated, as friendship networks spanned across organizations.⁷⁷ However, these collective activities and demonstrations moved beyond friendship. They were also grounded in political strategy. Wartime suffrage societies understood that they could have a greater impact on the government and an increased chance of bringing about change if they operated collectively. Mayhall has argued that throughout the war suffrage organizations shared resources and worked together in continuing the fight for women’s suffrage.⁷⁸ The SWSPU was especially closely aligned to the WFL, as these bodies worked from the same building (144 High Holborn) throughout 1916 and 1917. The fact they were working towards the same goal, in the same set of offices, suggests that they not only shared resources, but also consulted each other and perhaps even aligned their campaign strategies to have the maximum impact. A letter from Charlotte Despard in the SNS exemplifies the interconnections between the SWSPU and the WFL, as she referred to ‘her dear friends in the SWSPU’ as ‘fellow workers’ and ‘special comrades’.⁷⁹ Despard’s use of the term ‘our’ when reflecting on the efforts of suffrage activists illustrates not only the collective and collaborative nature of wartime suffrage campaigning, but also women’s shared political commitment to securing the vote.

Adult suffrage versus partial suffrage

Although there were a series of interconnections between suffrage organizations during the war, these societies were also often divided on the precise terms on which suffrage should be granted. While prewar debates about the merits of adult suffrage versus suffrage ‘on the same terms or as it shall be granted to men’ (often referred to as partial suffrage) do not appear to have been the main reason for the formation of new wartime organizations, prewar disputes on this issue were not easily resolved. The SWSPU argued that the removal of the sex barrier had to be its primary focus, being something that it considered as ‘the Alpha and Omega’ of its existence.⁸⁰ It insisted that societies that had yielded to the fascination of votes for all men and women were ‘riding for a fall’, because its demand relied on two distinct reforms: the acknowledgement of women as persons and the near doubling of the male electorate.⁸¹ For the SWSPU, these demands were so far-reaching that they would not likely materialize in one single Act of Parliament. Like the SWSPU, the IWSPU, by ‘working in the spirit of the old WSPU’, sought the vote under the same partial terms.

Sylvia Pankhurst, in her history of the suffragette movement, suggested that the Workers’ Suffrage Federation (WSF/formerly ELFS) tried to unite all the active suffrage societies around the demand for adult suffrage.⁸² She organized numerous London meetings in 1916, first at the International Suffrage Shop and later in the year at Essex Hall, but they were unsuccessful in converting other wartime suffrage societies to adult suffrage. Pankhurst argued that although the idea gripped some suffragettes, with members of the US most keen to move in their direction, the ‘old guard’ of the WFL, IWSPU and SWSPU would not permit its old policy of partial suffrage to be dislodged.’⁸³

Mayhall suggests that as militant organizations could not unite on the precise terms of any suffrage settlement – with the WFL, US, IWSPU and SWSPU maintaining support for partial suffrage – tensions arose between those organizations and the WSF.⁸⁴

Nevertheless, this did not stop the SWSPU from working alongside the WSF. In September 1916, for instance, the SWSPU and the WSF held a joint meeting in Hyde Park to discuss the hardships suffered by women during the war, focusing on the difficulty women faced ‘making ends meet’ due to the rise in food prices.⁸⁵ Furthermore, Stanley and Morley have noted that the Woman’s Dreadnought reveals that the SWSPU’s Rose Lamartine Yates contributed £1 a month to a variety of ELFS/WSF funds and gave pears to the ELFS food fund in 1914.⁸⁶ These examples illustrate that policy differences between organizations should not be overstated. Women were still able to work cooperatively and support each other’s objectives and initiatives even if they didn’t agree on specific policies or tactics. The vote could unite women and allowed them to transcend their policy, social and party political differences.

Wider concerns: National Registration Day and the Royal Commission for Venereal Disease

Although the fight for the vote dominated the strategic campaigns of wartime suffrage societies, suffragettes remained active in the broader crusade for improving the social, moral and economic inequalities that directly affected women’s lives. One of the first campaigns that the SWSPU joined was the opposition to National Registration Day on 15 August 1915. National Registration Day required ‘all individuals between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five’ to sign a national register which would be used by the government to compile a list of those suitable for war work and national service.⁸⁷ Some suffragettes opposed the compulsory nature of the register, believing that it would pressure women into a wartime employment market. For some feminists, this was yet another opportunity to increase the exploitation of women in the workplace.⁸⁸ While the Pankhursts encouraged everyone to register, other organizations (like the ELFS) actively protested against this and staged a demonstration, arguing that ‘no register be passed without safeguards, that parliament implement legislation forbidding sweated labour, that women receive equal pay for equal work and that women be enfranchised immediately’.⁸⁹ Although the SWSPU was not officially formed until December 1915, its future members were actively involved in resisting registration. Musician, singer and SWSPU member Alice Heale, for instance, was arrested and appeared at the South London police court in August 1915 after refusing to fill in a registration form supplied by the municipality. In the March 1916 edition of the SNS, the former WSPU activist and contributor to Votes for Women recalled her protest against National Registration. On her form, Heale declared the following:

Although wartime suffrage organizations chose not to engage in violent forms of militancy, this protest was reminiscent of the 1911 census boycott, with ‘No Vote No Census’ replaced by ‘No Vote No Register’ – illustrating how women continued to assert their political and economic rights even in this changing context.⁹¹ It appears however, that the lack of a vote was not Heale’s only reason for refusing to provide information to her municipality. She also objected to forced male conscription and she was far from alone in this objection.⁹² As Jo Vellacott has shown, by December 1915, male conscription was ‘imminent’ and by the time Heale’s article was published in March 1916, the Military Service Act had been introduced. As a result, some women who had initially retained their original wartime commitment to women’s suffrage redirected their efforts to resisting these policies. Former NUWSS member Catherine Marshall, for example, sought to combine her feminism and pacifism by focusing her energies into the No Conscription Fellowship.⁹³ While the SWSPU did not lobby against male conscription, it opposed it in its newspaper.⁹⁴ Moreover, Rose Lamartine Yates also opened the top floor of the old Wimbledon WSPU shop and offered it as a place conscientious objectors could visit for help and legal advice from her husband Tom, who was a solicitor.⁹⁵

Resistance to the National Registration Act and male conscription were not the only campaigns opposed by wartime suffrage societies. The SWSPU also strenuously resisted the attempt to regulate women’s sexuality and curtail their rights through the Royal Commission on Venereal Disease (Royal Commission) and the Criminal Law Amendment Bill (CLAB). The SWSPU opposed the findings of the final report of the Royal Commission released on 2 March 1916. The Royal Commission had been established in 1913, following mounting pressure by the medical profession and some feminist and social purity campaigners for an inquiry which would consider the reasons for the prevalence of venereal disease (VD) and specific measures for prevention. The Royal Commission had already caused controversy within feminist circles before the war, with Millicent Fawcett commenting on the absence of women as commissioners and witnesses.⁹⁶ In 1916, the Royal Commission’s final report concluded that VD was essentially an urban phenomenon, with the number of persons infected with syphilis being more than 10% of the population in large cities. Consequently, VD was declared ‘a major threat to public health’.⁹⁷

Some women, including leading suffragist and National Council for Combating Venereal Disease (NCCVD) member Maude Royden, saw the report as ‘a great step forward’ in terms of its endorsement of treatment over punishment. The SWSPU suggested that ‘every woman should make a point of studying’ the report and welcomed its educational recommendations on the consequences of sexual promiscuity for ‘the big schoolboys’. They also described it as ‘sorry reading’ and highlighted its limitations.⁹⁸ One of the main issues was that although the report advocated medical treatment and moral instruction, it failed to consider alternative preventative strategies involving physical hygiene, self-disinfection and condoms. This, in their view, essentially shifted the moral and physical burden of the disease onto the ‘wretched victim – driven to prostitution by the starvation of a wage that man took care should alone be within her reach’ (sic).⁹⁹ The SWSPU’s central concern however, was the impact of the report on the family. It stated that the report condoned vice, ‘penalis[ed] motherhood’ and protected men, leaving families (and particularly wives) open to the dangers of infection. In a series of articles, it repeatedly used the example of the infection of a wife by her seemingly ‘respectable’ husband.¹⁰⁰

The findings of the Royal Commission on Venereal Disease and the publication of the report took on new significance in the wartime context. In October 1914, local authorities in Plymouth, fearful of the risk of infection for soldiers and sailors, had already attempted to introduce restrictions that the WFL, ELFS, Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society and British Dominions Woman Suffrage Union had compared to those introduced under the CD Acts. This was followed by a Cardiff decree which set a curfew for ‘a certain class of women who should not be allowed outdoors between 7pm and 8pm’.¹⁰¹ While women’s suffrage societies had already organized in opposition to these perceived infringements on women’s rights, the announcement of a pending Criminal Law Amendment Bill (introduced in 1917 in response to the Royal Commission’s report) and its recommendation for compulsory notification of VD, pushed suffragettes to further action.¹⁰²

The speed at which the CLAB was proposed, following the Royal Commission, highlights the urgency felt by the government to deal with VD and ‘protect’ soldiers and sailors who were seen as highly valuable assets in the present crisis. While the bill’s proposal to raise the age of consent for women was welcomed by many feminists, Susan R. Grayzel has noted that feminist organizations rose in opposition to compulsory notification and also to ‘the infamous Clause 3’, that targeted girls under the age of nineteen found guilty of ‘loitering’ or behaving in ‘a riotous or indecent manner’.¹⁰³ The SWSPU’s position on compulsory registration was complex. The ‘official position’ of the SWSPU was to oppose the proposed CLAB and object against compulsory notification and detention of women.¹⁰⁴ Nevertheless, the SWSPU prided itself on being a ‘democratic organization’ and, because of that, it stated that it was perfectly acceptable for ‘women [to] voice individual opinions’ on the issue, but that those opinions had ‘no authority to speak for their sisters’.¹⁰⁵ The organization offered its members the opportunity to read articles published in the SNS by SWSPU member Juliette Heale and NCCVD representative Maude Royden, on the ‘case against’ and the ‘case for’ compulsory notification. This was a markedly different approach to the renowned autocratic style of the WSPU leaders during the prewar period.

In November 1916, representatives from the leadership of both the SWSPU and IWSPU attended an emergency conference of women’s organizations that was coordinated by the WFL, to discuss the pending CLAB. Rose Lamartine Yates represented the SWSPU and Dorothea Rock the IWSPU. They also signed a manifesto, along with fifteen other suffrage organizations, that laid out their objection to the bill. The Manifesto of Organised Women, the main purpose of which was to ‘strenuously oppose’ the immediate introduction of compulsory notification and compulsory treatment, was published in the suffrage journals and sold to the national press.¹⁰⁶ Publication was followed by a deputation of sixteen women’s societies to the Home Secretary on 4 December 1916.¹⁰⁷ Essentially, feminist organizations felt that while legislators claimed men and women would be subject to the same laws and treatment, it was women’s sexuality that was being regulated and women who would be blamed. This is exemplified in an SNS report in December 1916, where the SWSPU argued that this legislation would ‘invariably let the male partner escape by penalising the female’.¹⁰⁸ The deputation to the Home Secretary sought to connect this sexual double standard to women’s suffrage by suggesting that ‘the only true remedy for this situation’ was the enfranchisement of women. The vote was the only thing that could combat ‘this social evil’ and achieve ‘a high moral standard for men and women.’¹⁰⁹

This direct association of sexual morality and the vote however, is not surprising considering members’ former association with the WSPU. WSPU leader Christabel Pankhurst ardently believed that because legislation was ‘made and administered by men’, without the consultation of women, men were protected and therefore male immorality and the sexual exploitation of women was encouraged.¹¹⁰ The only solution to (in her words) ‘the real cure of the great plague’ was ‘votes for women’, as the vote would ‘give women more self-reliance and a stronger economic position’.¹¹¹ Paula Bartley has suggested that this relationship between sexual morality and the vote has ‘enjoyed a long history in the annals of women’s suffrage’ and that throughout the campaign for women’s enfranchisement, campaigners placed women’s franchise within the wider context of sexual politics.¹¹² Although it is apparent that suffrage societies engaged in wider campaigns for women’s equality during the First World War, the vote remained their most pressing priority as it was seen as the key to their full emancipation.

The Speaker’s Conference and the Representation of the People Act

October 1916 marked a turning point for wartime suffrage societies because the Prime Minister established a Parliamentary Conference on Electoral Reform.¹¹³ Speaker James William Lowther presided over the conference, overseeing discussions about types of electoral reform that should be recommended to Parliament. The SWSPU and IWSPU increased their campaigning efforts accordingly. From October 1916 to January 1917 the suffrage press was littered with reports of suffrage propaganda sales, meetings and discussions regarding the Speaker’s Conference. In November 1916, the SWSPU’s Rose Lamartine Yates sent a telegram to the Speaker of the House asking for a ‘prompt solution to their question’ on women’s enfranchisement.¹¹⁴ Likewise, in February 1917, the IWSPU’s Charlotte Marsh wrote a letter to the Electoral Reform Committee urging it to include a recommendation for women’s suffrage. She also suggested that the Committee remind the House of Commons of the militant ‘truce’ made by suffragettes before the war and the consequences of violent militancy should MPs ignore women again.¹¹⁵ By December 1916, the SWSPU and IWSPU were among several societies present at a picket at the House of Commons, ‘every Wednesday and Thursday during the sittings of the Conference on Electoral Reform’.¹¹⁶ The same prominent women from leading suffrage societies also attended ‘a private conference of working towards women’s suffrage’ in December 1916.¹¹⁷

By the end of 1916, a strategic and well organized campaign was clearly in place to lobby on the issue of women’s suffrage and all efforts were being made to secure a recommendation for women’s enfranchisement in the Report of the Speaker’s Conference. In December 1916, Rose Lamartine Yates encouraged readers of the SNS to maintain their campaigning efforts and pushed for members of the House to ‘have no fear’ in including women in politics. In her front-page article, she appealed to men and women alike, stating ‘women have never failed him in his need, why fear her in politics … let him have the courage to resist no longer women’s full enfranchisement’.¹¹⁸ This notion of having no fear was replaced with ‘hope’ in the January edition of the SNS. In the ‘New Year’s Greetings’, members from other suffrage societies wrote to the SWSPU.¹¹⁹ Former WSPU activist Edith Mansell Moullin wrote to encourage members to ‘hope on, work on with hearts full of love’.¹²⁰ Mrs Despard wrote with ‘hope [that 1917] would see the recall of women to their true place in the State’.¹²¹ This wish was to some extent granted by the end of January 1917, when the Report of the Speaker’s Conference was published recommending a form of women’s suffrage.¹²²

The recommendation in the Report was as follows:

The proposal was a huge compromise for suffrage societies, many of whom had campaigned for the enfranchisement of women on the same terms as men. However, it was a compromise that suffrage societies like the SWSPU and the IWSPU were willing to accept, as it was believed that it would enfranchise about 6 million women.¹²⁴ The SWSPU labelled the recommendation as ‘The women’s victory’.¹²⁵ Nevertheless, it admitted its dissatisfaction with the fact that the resolution had ‘no legislative value’.¹²⁶ The SWSPU argued that it would not be a victory until the proposal was approved by Parliament and received Royal Assent. Likewise, the February edition of the IS reminded its readers not to be ‘bought off by promises and the appearance of their fulfilment’.¹²⁷ Both organizations felt so strongly that the recommendations shouldn’t be taken for granted and should be passed into law as soon as possible, that Charlotte Marsh wrote to all members of the Electoral Reform Conference, urging them to press the House of Commons to give the recommendation its ‘fullest consideration’.¹²⁸ Rose Lamartine Yates, along with leaders of other suffrage societies, wrote to the Prime Minister to ask whether he would ‘receive a deputation on the immediate need of the enfranchisement of women’.¹²⁹ When no reply was received by either organization, the IWSPU sent a deputation to Downing Street and was promised an interview with the Prime Minister. The SWSPU recognized the important pressure applied by the IWSPU during this deputation and congratulated the society, writing in its newspaper, ‘Bravo IWSPU – direct methods always prove effective!’¹³⁰ Both organizations were also represented in the March 1917 deputation of women workers to the Prime Minister, presided over by Millicent Fawcett.¹³¹

Further analysis of the IWSPU and SWSPU’s reaction to the recommendation of the Speaker’s Conference and their continued work to ensure its passage into law is unfortunately impeded by the lack of sources. After February 1917, no more editions of the SNS or the IS were published. As noted earlier, the front page of the February SNS declared a ‘women’s victory’ in relation to the Speaker’s Conference on Electoral Reform. This could imply that the suggestion for women’s suffrage to be included in the Electoral Reform Bill meant that the SWSPU, like the US, felt that its work was complete. Cowman’s research into the US has argued that the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference and the passage of the bill into law in 1918, ‘removed the US’s raison d’etre’.¹³² While this could also be the case for the IWSPU and SWSPU, no statements appeared in the February editions of the SNS or the IS, insinuating that their activism would stop or that their newspapers would cease printing. The Vote suggests that the SWSPU remained active until at least October 1917, and the IWSPU until as late as November 1919. It could simply be the case that the later editions of the newspaper have been lost to history or that the costs of running the paper became prohibitive during the later stages of the war.¹³³

Conclusion

On 6 February 1918, the hopes and dreams of the SWSPU and the IWSPU were to some extent realized when the Representation of the People Act received Royal Assent and enfranchised over 8 million women. While the wartime suffrage campaigns of these two organizations only lasted between two and four years, this chapter has illustrated that their contributions to the wartime campaign for women’s suffrage were significant. By highlighting the efforts of these wartime suffrage organizations, this chapter rejects the notion that suffrage politics disappeared during the First World War and that the vote was a reward for women’s war work. Instead, it illustrates that the SWSPU and the IWSPU were among a large number of suffrage societies that refused to suspend the campaign for the vote during wartime, ensuring that women’s suffrage continued to feature in the political discussions that preceded the Representation of the People Bill.

These newly formed organizations were able to build on their prewar suffrage activities and connections by constructing a wartime movement from within their existing WSPU structure and feminist community. They united disillusioned WSPU activists and sought to revive their movement by forming societies that continued to campaign for women’s social, economic and moral rights, while remaining focused on the franchise. Their campaigning, whether as lone organizations or in association with other suffrage societies, was strategic, organized and influenced by the prewar tactics of the WSPU and WFL, which emphasized that women’s exclusion from politics directly impacted on women’s everyday lives. For the SWSPU and IWSPU, the vote remained the most important way to challenge women’s inequality and it was through the collaborative work and the persistent political agitation of several wartime suffrage societies that the women’s suffrage movement maintained momentum. The wartime suffrage movement, including the SWSPU and IWSPU, did not just have a shared political commitment to women’s enfranchisement. They also understood that they could have a greater impact on the government as a collective band of women who worked together to ‘keep the suffrage flag flying’.¹³⁴

Nina Boyle, WFL member and chief of the Women’s Police Volunteers, recognized the contribution of organizations like the SWSPU and the IWSPU to maintaining the suffrage movement in wartime. She wrote that ‘the fact that so many of the smaller groups of suffragists have kept the suffrage flag flying and have held together and kept their little journals published gives hope and heart and help to us all’.¹³⁵ This poignant statement reminds us that while more prominent suffrage societies like the WFL carried the campaign for enfranchisement into the war years (maintaining strategy, organization and momentum), we must not overlook the crucial role, contribution and impact of small, newly formed wartime suffrage societies like the IWSPU and SWSPU.