13 things you didn't know about the suffragettes

New film 'Suffragette' highlights the incredible sacrifice women made fighting for their right to vote but how much do we know about the movement?

It’s over 100 years since the suffragettes fought and campaigned for the women’s vote in Britain: their ‘Deeds not Words’ motto resulted in violent protests and demonstrations, culminating in prison stays, hunger strikes and humiliating force feeding.

But while many of has have heard of Emmeline Pankhurst, our knowledge of the suffragette movement can be hazy at best: women marching in sashes and big hats, the Epsom Derby tragedy - and nonexistent at worst: the subject isn’t taught in schools and film Suffragette is the first to be made on the subject.

Starring Carey Mulligan, Romala Garai and Anne-Marie Duff, rather than focus on the leaders of the movement such as Pankhurst (played by a rousing Meryl Streep), Suffragette concentrates its attention on the working-class women who sacrificed so much, including lives with their children, for the cause.

A movement of this scale and importance can’t be reduced into a quick 'Did You Know?' list but at least it’s a starting point.

1. Emmeline Goulden (Panhurst’s maiden name) was born in Moss Side, Manchester on 15 July 1858, according to public records, but she claimed she was born 14 July – Bastille day in France, which marks the start of the French revolution.

2. The women-only Women’s Social and Political Union was founded by Pankhurst (pictured below being released from prison with daughter and fellow activist Christabel) in 1903. Adopting the motto 'Deeds Not Words', the WSPU used protests and more violent tactics, including arson attacks to demand that women were given the vote.

3. Prior to the WSPU, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, which was founded in 1897, campaigned for the women’s vote relying on peaceful protests, petitions and campaigns for legislative change.


Suffragette Edith Garrud led the teaching and a cartoon image of Edith in a 1910 Punch issue shows the Jiu Jitsu expert singlehandedly fighting six policemen.

5. Marion Wallace-Dunlop was the first suffragette to go on hunger strike in 1909, she was protesting for not being given political prisoner status in prison.

6. The WSPU suspended its activities during the First World War. Imprisoned suffragettes were released and the group concentrated on involving women in the war effort, doing jobs previously perceived as ‘male’ only roles.


7. Not all women supported women getting the vote. Some, including author Mary Ward even actively campaigned against it as part of the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage.

8. Male MPs Keir Hardie and George Lansbury supported women gaining the vote with Hardie attending WSPU events and Lansbury being imprisoned in 1913 after making a speech at a WSPU rally in support of the group’s use of arson attacks.

9. Pankhurst’s husband Frederick Pethick-Lawrence was joint editor of ‘Votes for Women’ with his wife. He was also imprisoned and went on hunger strike.

10. Activist Emily Wilding Davison became a martyr for the cause when she died from injuries suffered after stepping out in front of the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby in June 1913. But before this act she spent the night in a cupboard in the House of Commons on census night in 1911 so she could put ‘House of Commons’ as her address on her census return.

11. Read in parliament in 1910, the Conciliation Bill was written to extend voting rights to women but it never become law.

12. The Representation of the People Act 1918 gave women over age 30 the vote – but they had to be either occupiers of property or married to an occupier of property. These property restrictions on voting were lifted for men however, who were also free to vote from age 21.

13. It wasn’t until 1928, with the Equal Franchise Act that women were given the same rights as men, with all over 21-year-olds able to vote.


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