ABSTRACT
British feminism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a social and political movement which campaigned on a variety of different issues. The debate over ‘adult’ versus ‘limited’ suffrage has formed the organising framework of several studies of the suffrage question. Indeed, it has provided the backbone of most accounts of the issue in the Labour and socialist movements. The ‘adult suffrage’ demand meant a universal franchise: the vote for all men and women over the age of 21. The Liberal and Conservative parties were internally divided on the issue, while the Irish Nationalists tended to shift their allegiance according to how their support might affect the prospects of home rule. The intransigence of the government meant that it offered little in the way of leadership to the Liberal rank and file. The suffragists’ main hope was through a limited, cross-party measure which could attract enough Conservative support in Parliament.
