The Beginning of a Movement

In the mid 19th Century attitudes towards women domestically, socially and politically were far removed from those we in the UK take for granted today, with many of these differences enshrined in both tradition and institutional and parliamentary law. At least since the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Woman in 1792 people had been arguing in support of women's rights and on the issue of women's suffrage (Van Wingerden, 1999).
What was it at this time that brought the issue to the attention of so many and sparked in earnest the campaign for electoral reform that would take nearly another seventy years to come to fruition? To try and answer this question it is necessary to look at the position of women in society as a whole.

Women in 1850 had virtually no civil rights. Legally a husband and wife were seen as one person with women denied rights to their earnings and their property becoming their husbands on marriage. It was only with the introduction of the Married Women's Property Acts in 1870 and 1882 that women were allowed to have their own property and income after they were married (Willis, 2006). Single women fared little better, ignored as they were by society which generally assumed that women would be supported by either their husbands or fathers, though they did at least have limited rights to person, property and income (Van Wingerden, 1999).

If women were not expected to be working or running the home there was yet one role in which they could not be marginalised - bearing children. Unfortunately this was used by many men as further reason for enforced indolence. Upper and middle class women were often expected to conserve their energies for childbirth and embrace the duties and obligations that motherhood conferred in the eyes of the male dominated society (Purvis, 1995). Working class women were still expected to maintain these roles even if in paid employment and their sphere was still firmly centred on the domestic.

Another fundamental point of argument was education. This had been the cornerstone of Mary Wollstonecraft's arguments 60 years earlier, but it was not to be until 1878 that London University became the first to offer degrees to women on equal terms with men. So, one of the major contributory factors in the rise of women's groups may well have been the seemingly abrupt beginning to the women's educational reform movement which began in the late 1840's, gathering momentum in the following two decades. Many of the resulting new generation of educated women were then keen to pursue a new feminist agenda (Purvis, 1995).

Employment was another place in society where gender inequality was ingrained. In 1851 there were very few roles for even the few educated middle and upper class women apart from occasional teaching positions (Willis, 2006). They were often restricted to a figurehead role managing servants and doing charity work, particularly in light of the ongoing industrial revolution which was increasing leisure time for many. Some argue "that the withdrawal of middle-class women... into lives of domesticity created the free time, the sociability and the resentments that gave rise to early feminism and the suffrage movement" (Purvis,1995). It is also postulated that as working class women started to gain paid employment in manual jobs, for example in the Lancashire mills, that their role in society was strengthened (Willis, 2006).

Key Events up to formation of WSPU

1851 -The Earl of Carlisle presented a petition for Women's Franchise to the House of Lords.

1856 -Barbara Bodichon formed the Women's Suffrage Committee with the aim of petitioning Parliament to establish a Married Women's Property Bill. Though unsuccessful this gave birth to the Langham Place Movement.


1857 -  The Matrimonial Causes Act allowed a husband to divorce his wife if adultery can be proved.

1866- On June 7th John Stuart Mill presented the Women's Suffrage Petition with almost 1500 signatures to the house of commons.
The issue of women's suffrage was raised in the house of commons but to no avail. From 1870 onwards bills in favour of women's suffrage were presented to parliament on an almost annual basis.

1882  - The Married Property Act meant a husband was no longer entitled to all his wives possessions and earnings on marriage.

1894 - Married women were given the right to vote in local elections and to become Local and Parish Councillors.

1897 - Under the leadership of Millicent Fawcett many regional societies merged to campaign peacefully for suffrage under the banner of the NUWSS (National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies - see blog post NUWSS).

1903 - Frustrated by the apparent lack of progress using peaceful tactics Emmeline Pankhurst and her family establish WSPU. (Women's Social and Political Union - see blog post WSPU).