Introduction

The agitation for women's suffrage is usually dated from John Stuart Mill's 1865 campaign to be elected for Westminster. Mill made votes for women part of his platform and three pioneers of the early women's movement, Barbara Bodichon, Emily Davies and Bessie Parkes, took the unheard of step of campaigning on his behalf. The suffragists were aware that their call for votes for women on the same terms as men effectively excluded all married women, but they hoped that once the suffrage had been granted women would be able to secure the abolition of couveture. In 1851, the Census had revealed there to be considerably more women than men in the population. It followed that there would inevitably be women who would be unable to find a male 'provider' in the shape of a husband and who might, in the absence of material support from male relatives, be forced to rely on their own earnings.