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What methods did the suffragettes use, and how effective were these in gaining the vote for women?
and became known as
the Mud March because of the weather conditions at the time. The demonstration replaced the public speech, and even as late as 1907, it was considered unladylike to participate in outdoor protest. The demonstration from Hyde Park corner in February was a great success and as a result of its success, similar processions were organised yearly. A pilgrimage in August 1913 organised by the NUWSS enjoyed great success, and demonstrators were often greeted by bands, and provided with food and drink throughout their journeys. The ‘demonstration’ and ‘pilgrimage’ perhaps saw the first signs of treating women supporting the suffrage movement as heroines. Public speaking, demonstrations, and pilgrimages, all created large amounts of publicity for the NUWSS, but all suffrage groups would wage an intensive propaganda campaign to promote votes for women.
The suffragists printed large quantities of pamphlets and organised petitions to raise awareness. Suffrage groups would publish their own newspapers and wrote their own plays, short stories, and poems to further promote female suffrage. The regular production of suffrage newspapers such as, The Women’s Suffrage Journal from 1870, and Votes for Women from 1907 proved to be an excellent way in both publicising the cause, and keeping communications alive between the various groups and associations. The Actresses’ Franchise League would perform plays were the females were portrayed as the heroines pitted against unyielding and intransigent males. These would be performed in drawing rooms and public theatres to strengthen supporters. The NUWSS had tried to raise awareness through the last three methods, but there was one other legal tactic that they used to try and gain the vote, this was persuading Parliament.
Parliament was the only body with the constitutional right to grant the vote to women, therefore, the suffragists desperately tried to convince MPs that female suffrage was the logical thing to do. The legality of women’s exclusion from the vote was tested, parliament was petitioned, and MPs were lobbied; all conventional methods of pressure. They used the politics of persuasion, rather than those of confrontation. Parliaments refusal to budge meant that peaceful protests were to be superseded by violence as a method of gaining the vote for some groups, such as the suffragettes. The suffragists however, continued to exert moderate pressure compared to the intimidating methods of the WSPU. In the 1860s the suffragists alleged that women had once had the right to vote but were expelled in 1832 when the Great Reform Act specified ‘male persons’. They challenged the legality of the Great Reform Act in both Charlton v Lings in England, and Brown v Ingram in Scotland, but the suffragists lost their case when the courts refused to accept validity for their claim. Due to the Anti-Corn Law Leagues success in petitioning the House of Commons the suffragists felt that they had a good chance using the same [next page]