Maud Arncliffe Sennett


Maud documented the suffrage campaign in a series of scrapbooks. Thirty seven volumes of her scrapbook were donated to the British Museum (and now belong to the British Library) by her husband after she died in 1936.

Herbert Asquith




Emily Davison



Millicent Fawcett

Millicent Fawcett was born in 1847 and married the Liberal MP Henry Fawcett in 1867. She began a writing and speaking career - discussing women's education and women's suffrage among other issues. After the death of Lydia Becker, Fawcett emerged as the suffrage movement's leader and presided over a committee that eventually became the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) in 1897. Fawcett found support amongst university women as well as many working class women who preferred the NUWSS's peaceful, legal campaigning methods.


Mary Humphrey Ward


In 1908, she was approached by anti-suffragists Lord Cromer and Lord Cromer and became the President of the Anti-Suffrage League. During the following years she played an important role in the campaign to prevent women being given the vote. Her autobiography A Writer's Recollections was published in 1918 and she died in 1920.

Kitty Marion

Katherine Schafer was born in Germany in 1871. Moving to London, she found work as a dancer in 1889 and adopted the name Kitty Marion. The vulnerability of women in the theatre profession was one of the factors that prompted Kitty to join the WSPU. She took part in a deputation to the Prime Minister Asquith in 1908 and was first arrested the following year. She was sentenced to a year's hard labour and went on hunger strike and was forcibly fed whilst in prison. She served seven prison terms in total, including three years for setting fire to the Grandstand at Hurst Park racecourse in 1913. She left Britain during WWI for a new life in America and died in New York in 1944.

Christabel Pankhurst

Christabel Pankhurst was born in 1880. Both her parents were passionate campaigners for women's suffrage. Christabel herself became actively involved in the suffrage movement in 1902 and helped to found the WSPU in 1903. 

Christabel was an energetic speaker in the early years of peaceful campaigning but began to feel that a confrontational approach was necessary if women's suffrage was to be won, particularly as it would raise public awareness of the cause. WSPU actions became increasingly more militant and, after 1912, arson and window-breaking replaced the more symbolic actions of earlier campaigns. At the outbreak of WWI, all suffragette activities were suspended and WSPU energies were directed towards helping the war effort.

Christabel was also editor of The Suffragette and stood for election in 1918 as a condidate for the Women's Party.


Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst was born in 1858 in Lancashire. Both her parents were advocates of equal suffrage for men and women. In 1878, Emmeline began to work for the women's suffrage movement and later met Dr. Richard Pankhurst, a radical lawyer and advocate for the suffrage cause. They married in December 1879.

On Richard's death in 1898, Emmeline took as job as a registrar of births and deaths. Her work exposed her to the tragic life stories of many working class women and her conviction grew that if society was to progress, women needed to be lifted out of their subordinate position. In 1903, Emmeline founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).

While the WSPU is known for its militant campaigning, the important part Emmeline took in the non-militant aspect of the campaign - travelling up and down the country speaking at rallies for women's suffrage - should not be forgotten.



Dora Thewlis
