Women's rights - Suffragette research

In the nineteenth century women had no place in national politics. They couldn't stand as candidates for Parliament and were not even allowed to vote. It was assumed that women did not need the vote because their husbands would take responsibility in political matters. A woman's role was seen to be child-rearing and taking care of the home.
As a result of the industrial revolution many women were in full-time employment, which meant they had opportunities to meet in large organised groups to discuss political and social issues.
Organised campaigns for women's suffrage began to appear in 1866, and from 1888 women could vote in many local council elections. When parliamentary reform was being debated in 1867, John Stuart Mill proposed a change that would enable women to vote on the same terms as men but it was rejected by 194 votes to 73, and after this, the campaign gained momentum.
Nineteenth century feminists talked about "The Cause", which described a movement for women's rights on a general basis therefore it had no particular political focus. But by the close of the century the issue of the vote became the focus of women's struggle for equality.
The movement to gain votes for women had two wings, the suffragists and the suffragettes.
The suffragists had their origins in the mid nineteenth century, while the suffragettes came into play in 1903.
The suffragettes, a name given to them by newspaper The Daily Mail, were born out of the suffragist movement. Emmeline Pankhurst, who had been a member of the Manchester suffragist group, had grown impatient with the middle class, respectable and gradualist tactics of the NUWSS (National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies). In 1903 she decided to break with the NUWSS and set up a separate society, becoming known as the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).

Mrs. Pankhurst believed it would take an active organisation, with young working class women, to draw attention to the cause - creating the motto of the suffragettes; deeds not words. From 1912 onwards they became more militant and violent in their methods of campaign, and law-breaking, violence and hunger strikes all became part of this society's campaign tactics.
In 1907 the WSPU split itself into two groups after Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel came into conflict with other members of the union's executive body. Those who left formed the Women's Freedom League, while the Pankhursts and their supporters established an even tighter grip on the workings of the WSPU. By 1909, the WSPU had branches all over the country and published a newspaper called Votes for Women which sold 20,000 copies each week. The NUWSS was also flourishing, with a rising membership and an efficient nation-wide organisation.