Women's Social and Political Union

It is also well known that she is a leading member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, the chief of the non-militant suffrage organisations.

But though she criticises severely the women's social and political union, she is not among those who can see nothing but harm in their activities.

Militant suffragism is essentially revolutionary, and, like other revolutionary agitations, has arisen from a want of harmony between economic and educational status and political status.

Educationally, socially, and industrially, women have made enormous advances during the last sixty years.

Footnote.

The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in twelve months raised, at headquarters and among its affiliate societies, forty-two thousand pounds.

I have assumed that the Women's Social and Political Union raised as much.

It seems likely that if we add together all the other societies, thirty-odd, and also reckon the immense amount of money spent in travelling and so forth by voluntary workers, the total of one hundred thousand pounds is well within the mark.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

So do you wanna be on the right side of history or do you wanna be on the right side of the law? Women's Social and Political Union was the unit within the suffragette movement which would be described in terms of being a paramilitary wing of the suffragette movement.

They had a bombing and an arson campaign.

The minute you start using violence, it's our job to put you in prison, and that's the bottom line.

Declared a terrorist outfit, Nelson Mandela declared a terrorist, and technically speaking, he was, 'cause they were using violence to further their aims.

That is exactly what the suffragette movement was doing, and of course it wasn't the entire suffragette movement.

Emmeline Pankhurst, I had to look this up, um, Women's Social and Political Union was the, uh, unit within the suffragette movement which would be described, uh, in terms of being a paramilitary wing of the suffragette movement.

So it wasn't the entire suffragette movement that was this, but then most movements there is a core that are dedicated to the kind of hard-line action.

Sylvia Pankhurst, middle daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, who I play.

Emmeline, leader of the suffragettes, started a group called the Women's Social and Political Union, 1903.

Wanted women to get the vote.

Women had been asking for decades, Millicent Fawcett, you know, suffragists.

Watch us.

We're going to have that vote.

So she forms the Women's Social and Political Union.

And as the Liberal government, which included Winston Churchill, just kept saying no, no, no, she was like, we're going to ramp the pressure up.

Becker also traveled to the Isle of Man in 1880 to speak on the subject, which influenced the local government to grant voting rights to women who owned property in 1881.

Formation of the WSPU.

The Women's Social and Political Union was established in Manchester on 10th October 1903.

This formation occurred after the Manchester Women's Suffrage Committee, which had worked with the Independent Labour Party since 1877, found that the party was prioritizing the voting rights of working-class men over those of women.

In contrast, those who favored non-militant methods continued to be known as suffragists.

While the press often looked more favorably on the non-militant campaigners, the militant activists used the new name to highlight their revolutionary quality and their refusal to wait any longer for political change.

WSPU campaigns.

Direct action began in earnest in 1905 during a political meeting in Manchester.

The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies had been campaigning peacefully since 1872.

The more militant Women's Social and Political Union started to attract attention with hunger strikes and public demonstrations.

Though still excluded from Parliament, women's enfranchisement was increasingly debated in the House of Commons as a response to wartime contributions.

Despite economic expansion, social inequality was stark.

And this started Bessie's journey into her playing.

Her mother, at the same time, decided to sign herself and Bessie up to be a part of the Women's Social and Political Union.

So back to that blog.

Women's Social and Political Union, WSPU, in Edinburgh, it was to celebrate, quote, "...what women have done and can and will do at a time when women had very few legal rights and no voting rights whatsoever." It was still nearly a decade before the first women gained the right to vote in Britain and almost 20 years before full suffrage.

And the idea of the pageant was to portray the achievements of women throughout history.

So during the time that her mom signed her up for this, it was also when the pageant was happening.

the Pankhurst family, Emmeline's husband, Richard, has died.

But they form, or Emmeline forms, the Women's Social and Political Union as a vehicle, as a pressure group, to get the government to give the vote to women because they didn't have it.

And they needed it because women were in terrible positions, not only financially, if they found themselves without a husband who could provide for them.

Single women could find themselves in the workhouse, them and their child.

She was complicated.

She became an autocrat, my way or the highway.

She believed fervently in the democracy and everybody having a voice in the women's social and political union until she didn't.

And it was politically expedient for her to dissolve that constitution of the wispu, as we all call it, and just say, I'm making the decisions myself.