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What methods did the suffragettes use, and how effective were these in gaining the vote for women?
by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. This organisation therefore also falls between the phases of the doldrums and that of militancy. Being so late into the phase of the doldrums, it is fair to say that this organisation largely existed when militancy was at large in female suffrage. In fact, it was the WSPU, also known as the suffragettes who brought militancy to the campaigning of votes for women. This however was not always the case, as shown by the fact that the WSPU did exist in the phase known as the doldrums for a couple of years. However as time went on the suffragettes did use less democratic measures, largely as a result of little success of other approaches. The methods of the suffragettes ranged from the peaceful practice of meetings, demonstrations and pilgrimages to the extreme militant measures of window smashing, arson attacks, and heckling. As said before, the suffragettes did start out, and did continue to use some peaceful methods within their campaign regime.
The first of these would have been the use of meetings. Meetings were by no means exclusive to the NUWSS, all suffrage groups held both semi-private and public meetings to both generate publicity and recruit members. Public meetings were organised throughout the country by the WSPU to consolidate support, gain recruits, collect money, and sell papers. In 1909 large meetings were led in the Royal Albert Hall, the Queen’s Hall, the Colston Hall, St. Andrews Hall and the Rotunda. The meetings were carefully orchestrated and planned. In Birmingham the organisation broke into districts, each district had an organiser, and each organiser had to co-ordinate four small weekly meetings to publicise women’s suffrage. Although public speaking was now widely used and accepted, the WSPU broke new ground by speaking to audiences in open air places ranging from Trafalgar Square to village greens. Just the same as the NUWSS the WSPU held meetings at fairs and wakes by the end of the twentieth century. One of the most important meetings held by the WSPU was what they called the first Women’s Parliament at Caxton Hall, across the square form the House of Commons. This was held on February 13th 1907 as a protest against their exclusion from the franchise. These suffrage meetings often attracted large audiences and were highly successful and effective in recruiting members and raising awareness. Not only did the suffragettes hold meetings, but they also had demonstrations and pilgrimages.
As they did with meetings, the WSPU gave demonstrations a new direction. They introduced melodrama to an old form of protest and livened up demonstrations by making them into dramatic performances. They used colour to symbolise certain qualities related to the party. Purple was used for dignity, white for purity and green for hope, to represent the suffragettes. The women dressed up for demonstrations, be [next page]