‘A real live organisation’: The Liverpool Women's Social and Political Union, 1905–14

Abstract

This chapter examines the history of the Liverpool Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) during the period from 1905 to 1914. It explains that the WSPU was formed by Manchester Independent Labour Party (ILP) women in October 1903 and it offered a very different approach to public work and provided local women their first opportunity to enter the public political arena as part of a large organisation that was open and amenable to all women regardless of their class, religious or party-political allegiances. This chapter also explores the implications of the dissolution of the WSPU in September 1914 for the women's suffrage movement.