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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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suffragettes
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Term in use from the early 20C for women campaigning for the suffrage (the right to vote). The cause went back as far as Mary *Wollstonecraft in the 18C, but it became of increasing urgency in the late 19C after the *franchise had been gradually extended to include virtually all men. Meanwhile in 1881 the *Tynwald on the Isle of Man had discreetly become the first parliament in the world to give women the vote (unmarried women and widows only, and with property qualifications), to be followed in 1893 by New Zealand.
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In the early 20C Mrs *Pankhurst emerged as the leader of the movement in Britain, at a time when a succession of bills promising women the vote were being defeated in parliament. Under her guidance the suffragettes became more aggressive, chaining themselves to railings or damaging property. The most drastic protest of all was that of Emily Davison, who died after throwing herself among the galloping horses during the Derby of 1913 (it happened to be the king's horse that trampled her). By then the suffragettes in prison had evolved a new method of protest, the hunger strike, which the government countered with the *Cat and Mouse Act.
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The tension continued to mount until the greater urgency of World War I intervened. In the changed climate after the war, the cause was finally and easily won in 1918 – at first only for women over 30, but in 1928 this was reduced to 21 bringing full parity with men.
The last of the suffragettes, Victoria Lidiard, died in 1992 at the age of 102. She was one of 200 women jailed in 1912 after a window-smashing raid on Whitehall and the War Office.
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