by Simon Webb
As the twentieth century began, there was every hope that the advances made by women in the later years of Victoria’s reign would continue and that enfranchisement would be the next development. Anybody looking at what was happening in the rest of the world could see in any case that the time was drawing near when women would enjoy equal democratic rights. It was not necessary even to go beyond the British Isles to identify this trend. The oldest continuously operating parliament in the world – that of the Isle of Man, a self-governing British dependency in the Irish Sea – had already introduced votes for women in 1881. America had been even quicker off the mark; the state of Wyoming enfranchised women in 1869 and by 1896, Idaho, Utah and Colorado had followed suit. New Zealand had allowed women, including Maoris, to vote from 1893 onwards, soon followed by Australia. In Europe, Finland granted the vote to women in 1906 and Norway did the same the following year.
The world was changing and when the incoming Liberal Prime Minister, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, agreed to meet a delegation of women in 1906, soon after coming to office, he told them, ‘You have made before the country a conclusive and irresistible case’. Here was the prime minister of a new government who was fully in favour of female enfranchisement. Despite all this, there was still no sign of British women being able to vote in parliamentary elections in the immediate future.
There are several reasons why successive British governments from 1905 to 1914 did not legislate in favour of female suffrage but, whatever the suffragettes claimed, this had little to do with inflexible and sexist intransigence on the part of either prime ministers or the legislature. It is true that Asquith, who was prime minister from 1908 to 1916, was less than enthusiastic about the idea of women voting, but his motives for not promoting the extension of the franchise in this direction were more pragmatic, and to some extent personal, than they were ideological.
To see what was actually going on, and where the suffragettes fit into the picture with their cans of petrol and sticks of dynamite, it will be necessary to examine Edwardian Britain in some detail. The picture that emerges is a surprising one and in many ways counter-intuitive. We often tend to imagine Edwardian Britain as a time of peace and prosperity, the high point of the British Empire. Nothing could be further from the truth and the state of the nation at that time largely explains the lack of progress towards the emancipation of women. For the five years or so that immediately preceded the First World War, the suffragettes themselves shared a great deal of the responsibility for preventing the enfranchisement of women. Had it not been for their activities, it is quite possible that women would have gained the vote before, rather than after the First World War.
Before we look at the state of the nation more widely, it will be helpful to consider briefly the strong element of self-interest with which the major political parties viewed female enfranchisement. The WSPU, which Emmeline Pankhurst started, was fighting for what they called, ‘equal suffrage’, that is to say, suffrage on the same terms as that granted to men. As we have seen, this would mean that the only women who would be given the vote would be those who passed the property qualification test. Many Liberals and socialists did not care at all for this notion, that only well-off women with property and land should be given the vote. The suffragettes were not calling for all men and women to be given the vote and seemed content for the working classes to continue being disenfranchised.
The other option would be ‘universal suffrage’. This would mean giving everybody, men and women alike, the vote, regardless of their class or social standing. The consequence of this would be that all working men and women would be able to vote. The WSPU were explicitly opposed to this idea and it led in due course to their falling out with members of the Independent Labour Party, who were enthusiastic proponents of universal suffrage. Full democracy of this sort was never the policy of the Pankhursts and the WSPU.
Introducing ‘equal suffrage’, for which the suffragettes were fighting, would have benefited the Conservative Party from an electoral perspective, since most of the new voters would be middle- and upper-class. ‘Universal suffrage’, on the other hand, would probably increase the number of Liberal and Labour voters. The precise proportions by which the various parties might benefit from an extension of the franchise was therefore of crucial importance.
The majority of MPs may well have been in favour of votes for women, but that did not mean that they were about to commit political suicide by creating a huge new tranche of voters likely to vote against them at the next election. We shall look more closely at this question in a later chapter.
As well as the anxiety over who would be supported by the new voters, there were other reasons for the lack of enthusiasm for pushing such electoral changes through parliament, chiefly that from 1905 until the outbreak of war in 1914, Liberal administrations, first under Campbell-Bannerman and then Asquith, were just too busy with more serious problems to spend time tinkering with the franchise.
The Edwardian era, the years between the end of the century and the outbreak of war in 1914, was a period of turmoil and upheaval, with problems that dwarf anything faced by this country today. It is time to look at a few of the difficulties with which the governments of the day were grappling and this might then give us some understanding as to why altering the electoral system was not considered a major priority.
Chapter Two
The Edwardian World
‘ The Great Unrest ’
(Popular term used to refer to the period of disturbance in 1911)
The suffragettes were a product of Edwardian Britain. This period began with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and ended with the death of her son, Edward VII, ten years later; although the term ‘Edwardian’ is often extended to include the years up to the outbreak of war in 1914. It is the wider definition that will be used here. For many of us today, this age has become a byword for stability and order, the golden heyday of imperial power brought to an abrupt end by the First World War.
In fact, this view is misleading. It was, in fact, a time of chaos and violent change, when the governments of the day faced problems that eclipse anything we see in modern Britain. These included the greatest constitutional crisis for centuries, some of the worst rioting and disorder ever seen on the British mainland, the threat of revolution and the very real possibility of the United Kingdom being engulfed by civil war. Add to this an arms race and severe unemployment, and you begin to see why reformation of the franchise to include women was not top of the agenda for the Liberal administrations which held power at that time.
It is impossible to understand the suffragettes and see where they fitted in during the early part of the twentieth century without knowing what Britain was really like at that time. Unfortunately, the mental image that we have of that era has been so shaped and modified by its representation in popular culture, that this is no easy task. Novels, films and television all too often conspire to present us with a strange and rosy picture, not only of the suffragettes, but also the world in which they operated.
A typical example of the way that Edwardian Britain is treated in films, with powerful and enduring images that seep imperceptibly into our subconscious, is that childhood classic, Mary Poppins. This well-known family film sums up both the traditional view of the suffragettes and also of the wider world of Edwardian Britain. Anyone familiar with the film will recall the prosperous and stable world in which it is set. The working-class people in it seem happy enough with their lot; just witness the humorous antics of Bert the chimney sweep and the domestic staff of the Banks household. It is set in London in 1910, but this is not a capital city in the grip of a constitutional crisis which threatens the established order and even calls into question the continued existence of the monarchy.
In the real world of 1910, the country was thought by some to be on the brink of a revolution. In the real world, 12 months after the events shown in Mary Poppins, over 12,000 troops were rushed to London and quartered in Hyde Park to p
rotect the capital from unrest by mutinous workers, and men like Bert the chimney sweep were shot down in the streets of British cities by the army.
Mary Poppins also of course features a suffragette, who has her own song, ‘Sister Suffragette’. We understand that it is all a bit of a lark, this middle-class wife and mother involving herself in such a business. One really could not imagine Glynis Johns, as Mrs Banks, setting off a bomb or burning down the local church.
Mary Poppins is not alone in the slanted version of history from which we subliminally acquire our image of Edwardian Britain and suffragettes. Think for a moment about television programmes like Upstairs, Downstairs or Downton Abbey. There is no mention there of warships sailing up the Mersey to suppress a workers’ revolt, or anti-Jewish pograms in Wales being dealt with by bayonet charges. We are given to understand that suffragettes were flighty and naively enthusiastic women who might perhaps unfurl a banner or break a window, but nothing worse than that.
It is attitudes such as these that compel writers today, even in the face of all the evidence, to claim that the suffragettes were not ‘really’ terrorists. They couldn’t have been – just think of Lady Sybil in Downton Abbey, Elizabeth in Upstairs, Downstairs or Mrs Banks in Mary Poppins. The idea simply conflicts too radically with what people already believe they know about the suffragettes.
An example of this inability to associate the suffragettes with the concept of terrorism was given in the introduction where we encountered Andrew Marr’s assertion that the suffragettes ‘were not terrorists in any serious modern sense’. This statement appears on the very same page as the description of the partial destruction of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s house by a bomb blast. It would be interesting to know what writers like this would have to say if agents of Al Qaeda blew up the house of a member of the cabinet today. Would they really claim that the bombers ‘were not terrorists in any serious modern sense’?
When the Liberal leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman was invited by the King to form a government at the end of 1905, there was considerable optimism among suffragists. Following the landslide victory of the Liberals in the election held the following year, this optimism seemed justifiable. After ten years of inaction by a Conservative government on the question of the franchise, the wind was set fair for change. The only difficulty was that the Liberals themselves had a raft of measures that they hoped to push through, some of them very controversial. Extension of the franchise was not high on this list, Campbell-Bannerman and his cabinet feeling that Old Age Pensions, National Insurance and the first steps towards a welfare state were far more important to those who had voted them in. They were probably right.
As a matter of fact, Campbell-Bannerman himself was in favour of women’s suffrage, but that did not mean that he was about to espouse the cause politically. Some of the more impatient suffragists, including those women in the WSPU who would, within a short while, become known as suffragettes, seemed to have a somewhat naïve view of the way that government works in this country. They felt that all the prime minister had to do was announce that something was to be done and it was as good as accomplished. The reality was that Henry Campbell-Bannerman did not have much chance of getting a measure of this sort on to the statute book, even had he been willing to make the attempt.
British prime ministers must, if they are to be effective leaders, win over their cabinets to whatever line they wish to take. Campbell-Bannerman’s cabinet was hopelessly divided on the matter of women’s suffrage and he did not feel inclined to embark on a fruitless confrontation with the ‘antis’ in his cabinet. There were more pressing concerns. Even if he and the cabinet were united and able to push such a change through the Commons, it would be almost impossible to persuade the Lords to swallow it. Before the passing of the 1911 Parliament Act, it was impossible to pass any legislation to which the Lords would not consent. The Liberals had seen this with great clarity during the last Liberal government before Campbell-Bannerman’s, that of Lord Rosebery in 1894 and 1895. For the whole of Lord Rosebery’s premiership, the House of Lords blocked all his domestic legislation, thereby paralysing the government.
In 1908, Campbell-Bannerman was replaced as premier by Herbert Asquith who, unlike Campbell-Bannerman, was staunchly opposed to giving women the parliamentary vote. This excited great animosity towards Asquith and his administration on the part of the WSPU, but made no practical difference to the actual situation. It remained the case that, until 1911, it was quite impossible for any British prime minister to pass a law or establish a budget without the active cooperation of the House of Lords. Had Asquith and his entire cabinet been fanatical and devoted supporters of the women’s suffrage movement, they still would not have been able to pass a law giving women the parliamentary vote.
Such subtleties were ignored by the suffragettes and their leaders. For them, the case could hardly be clearer. Those in government who did not agree with their aims or failed to do their utmost to advance the programme of the Women’s Social and Political Union were to be treated as enemies. This produced the bizarre state of affairs whereby a dedicated supporter of women’s suffrage like David Lloyd George came to be seen by the suffragettes as their bête noire. This was perfectly logical if you adopted the world view of women like Christabel Pankhurst. As early as 1903, she wrote, ‘There is nothing to choose between an enemy and a friend who does nothing’.
We must now look in some detail at the problems facing British governments in the early part of the twentieth century. This is necessary for two reasons. First, to show how precarious the state of the nation was at that time and why dealing with a series of increasingly dangerous crises was of far greater importance for the country as a whole than worrying about the extension of the franchise. Secondly, we need to appreciate how violence was being used politically, in order to understand why, as soon as the suffragettes turned to terrorism, it became absolutely impossible for the authorities to negotiate further with them or to be seen to be making the least concession to their demands. Various factions within the United Kingdom were trying to sway the government by threatening the use of force and it was vital that such behaviour was shown to achieve nothing and to wring no concessions from the government. Then, as now, surrendering to the demands of terrorists was to set a course for disaster.
In the years leading up to 1914 there was a fear that both revolution and civil war in the British Isles might be just around the corner. It was partly to head off the possibility of widespread civil unrest that the Liberal governments of 1906 and 1910 undertook programmes to tackle poverty and improve the lot of working people. How severe was the threat? During the riots which swept England in 2011, the idea was mooted that the army might need to be called in to control the streets. This was widely regarded as the nuclear option, almost a sign that Armageddon was upon us. It is interesting to note that a century earlier, rioting in England was so ferocious that the government authorised the use not only of troops and armoured cars to contain the disorder, but even brought warships into action to combat the rioting and looting.
In 1911, a year when suffragette militancy was increasing and manifested by window-smashing and hunger strikes, a series of events took place which became known as the Great Unrest, due to the number of strikes, disturbances and riots. Prices and rents were going up, but in real terms wages fell between 1910 and 1912. Many working people were furious about the conspicuous consumption of the wealthy and the ostentation of their wealth – the yachts and extravagant dinner parties, the luxurious motor cars and race horses. The mood among many workers was one of surly discontent and resentment.
The crisis came in August 1911, when hundreds of thousands of men and women were on strike. These were people who worked in vital industries, such as the railways and docks. It was proving impossible to import goods; the ships lay idly at anchor because the dockers would not unload them and the railways were at a standstill in many places. Crowds of strikers gathered in cities and towns, disregarding
police orders to move on. The government’s solution was the use of troops to support the police.
Throughout July and early August, the number of strikes increased across the whole country. Almost a million workers came out on strike during 1911. Transport workers, seamen, factory hands, railway men – all were striking at different times. The city of Liverpool was one focal point for the unrest. In August, a national strike of seamen began. Other workers in Liverpool came out in sympathy and vast numbers converged on the city centre for a public meeting. A total of 250,000 men and women in the city were now on strike and when an 80,000-strong crowd began marching towards the centre of Liverpool, it looked to the authorities like an attempt to take over the city. Already, the strike committee was virtually running parts of Liverpool, deciding what goods could be moved and which vehicles were allowed on the streets. The strike committee was practically a parallel government, something along the lines of the soviets which emerged during the Russian Revolution. A magistrate read the Riot Act to the crowd, and following that the police, backed by a contingent of cavalry, tried to clear the streets.
There had been no real riot before the police and army attempted to disperse the crowds, but by the time 186 strikers had been hospitalised with various injuries and a hundred or so arrested, the mood had become exceedingly ugly. Windows were smashed, fires were started and makeshift barricades were erected across streets. Armoured cars and troops with fixed bayonets patrolled the streets. It was all a far cry from the world of Mary Poppins. Still, the crowds of strikers refused to return to their homes. Incredibly, the government response was to order two warships to sail up the Mersey and train their guns on the city. Armed sailors were landed to secure the docks. Within a few days, there were no fewer than 3,500 soldiers in Liverpool, both infantry and cavalry. The stage was set for the worst confrontation of all.
