Introduction

Abstract

This introduction discusses the historiography of the British women’s suffrage campaign from the 1980s, noting a more nuanced and complicated picture is now presented than in the past when it was assumed that members of the ‘militant’ Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and the ‘constitutional’ National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) were mainly middle class and London based. Many studies since the 1980s have revealed that women from all social backgrounds were campaigners for the parliamentary vote, and that women’s own motivations and loyalties could change over time. Regional and local studies plus studies of imperialism, the empire and transnational networks have shown too the interrelationship between the local, the national and the global. A number of chapters in this book address these themes. Several chapters take a biographical approach, including chapters on the two main suffrage leaders – Millicent Garrett Fawcett of the NUWSS and Emmeline Pankhurst of the WSPU – as well as essays on lesser known women, such as Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, the Indian Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, Lady Isabel Margesson and Isabella Ford. Other chapters take a new look at areas that have received little attention, including adult suffrage and the participation of domestic servants. The theme of the inter-relationship between the British movement and suffrage campaigns across the globe is evident in other chapters, particularly in relation to Austria and Japan while the life of the long forgotten Lady Anna Stout, a New Zealand activist, who put herself at the disposal of the British women’s suffrage campaign, is explored. It is still the militant wing of the suffrage movement that is alive in popular memory today, and that is the focus of another chapter that explores how militant activists have been remembered not just in Britain but also in Ireland, Australia and the USA.