Gender, Suffrage and Party: Liberal Women’s Organisations, 1880–1914

Abstract

Liberalism and suffrage shared a long, if somewhat troubled, history over the course of the nineteenth century. The forces that shaped the political discourse of growing democracy and the enfranchisement of citizens brought about the development of a movement that sought to couple the Enlightenment doctrine of individual rights to the position of women. From Mary Wollstonecraft to John Stuart Mill came a lineage of ideas that underpinned the Victorian campaigns for suffrage and women’s rights. It was a movement that inspired many women to political and social activism and which was largely successful in its broader aims. By 1914, many goals had been achieved, but the parliamentary franchise, arguably the most coveted of these, was not. For women in the Liberal Party this was not only a tremendous disappointment; the failure of a Liberal government to embrace women’s suffrage was a source of great chagrin to those who had pinned their hopes on it. The emergence of a women’s wing within the Liberal Party from 1887 had opened up the tantalising prospect of a cadre of committed suffragists exerting influence on the government of the day. From a privileged and powerful position as party workers whose electioneering efforts became essential to the fortunes of aspiring MPs, the Women’s Liberal Federation and Associations sought to gain the ultimate goal: the full commitment of the Liberal Party and a Liberal government to the franchise for women.