- The women’s suffrage movement grew in the early 1900s, led by two groups:
- The peaceful suffragists (NUWSS under Millicent Fawcett)
- Militant suffragettes (WSPU under Emmeline Pankhurst).
- Suffragists used petitions, lobbying, and public speaking to argue for women’s right to vote, while suffragettes gained headlines with more aggressive tactics such as hunger strikes, chaining themselves to railings, and disrupting public events.
- Despite publicity, the government refused to grant the vote to women before 1914, arguing it would destabilize politics; this left the issue unresolved at the outbreak of war.
Exam technique
- Group your essay thematically (women, Ireland, trade unions) rather than narrating events year by year.
- Always link unrest to wider instability: explain why the government struggled to handle multiple crises at once before 1914.
Self review
- Assess the reasons for, and the impact of, the campaign for women’s suffrage in Britain before 1914.
- Examine the causes and consequences of the Irish Home Rule crisis between 1910 and 1914.
- To what extent did trade union activity between 1901 and 1914 pose a challenge to the British government?
