ABSTRACT

This is a history of the suffrage movement in Britain from the beginnings of the first sustained campaign in the 1860s to the winning of the vote for women in 1918. The book focuses on a number of figures whose role in this agitation has been ignored or neglected. These include the free-thinker Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy; the founder of the women's movement in the United States, Elizabeth Cady Stanton; the working class orator, Jessie Craigen; and the socialist suffragists, Hannah Mitchell and Mary Gawthorpe. Through the lives of these figures Holton uncovers the complex origins of the movement and associated issues of gender.

chapter |6 pages

INTRODUCTION

chapter 1|20 pages

FROM ‘SURPLUS WOMAN’ TO

Elizabeth Wolstenholme and the early women’s movement

chapter 2|22 pages

‘THE REVOLT OF THE WOMEN’

Sexual subjection and sexual solidarity

chapter 3|22 pages

A ‘STRANGE, ERRATIC GENIUS’

Jessie Craigen, working suffragist

chapter 4|22 pages

‘THE GRANDEST VICTORY’

Married women and the franchise

chapter 5|22 pages

AMONG THE ‘INSURGENT WOMEN’

Hannah Mitchell, socialist and suffragist

chapter 6|24 pages

‘A MERRY, MILITANT SAINT’

Mary Gawthorpe and the argument of the stone

chapter 7|22 pages

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE AMONG THE BOHEMIANS

Laurence Housman joins the movement

chapter 8|22 pages

‘ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA’

Alice Clark, liberal Quaker and democratic suffragist

chapter 10|24 pages

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR

chapter 11|22 pages

LAST WORDS

Women’s suffragists and women’s history after the vote