{"id":3275,"date":"2015-10-24T13:30:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T13:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=3275"},"modified":"2015-10-24T13:30:52","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T13:30:52","slug":"women-versus-women-the-anti-suffragists-in-south-west-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=3275","title":{"rendered":"Women versus Women: The anti-Suffragists in South-West London"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"RV1864\/Sylvia<\/a>

RV1864\/Sylvia Pankhurst, Old Ford Road, Bow, 1912\/Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

The new movie Suffragette<\/em>, which has just gone on general release in UK cinemas, seeks to tell the story of what the film-makers have called the \u2018footsoldiers\u2019 of the women\u2019s suffrage movement in the years before the First World War.<\/p>\n

Directed by Sarah Gavron and written by Abi Morgan, the film tries to break and explore new ground in relation to the struggle by British\u00a0women to gain the vote in the early twentieth century. Instead of telling the more familiar story of the Pankhurst family and the other (mainly) middle-class women who were active with the Women\u2019s Social and Political Union, Suffragette\u00a0<\/em>shifts the focus on to the working-class female militants and the (arguably much tougher) problems they faced when trying to become active campaigners.<\/p>\n

It is a good and moving film, well worth\u00a0a viewing\u00a0by anybody with an interest in British social and political history. While some historians of the period might have reservations\u00a0about certain\u00a0aspects of the movie, it\u00a0still captures the atmosphere of the times very accurately, especially the awful industrial conditions in which women worked in parts of East London.<\/p>\n

By sheer coincidence, I have recently been carrying out some research on middle-class \u2018defence\u2019 and protest movements in south-west London and \u2013 when I was exploring some pre-1914 local sources \u2013 I\u00a0increasingly encountered\u00a0newspaper reports on suffragette activities. In 1913, for example, two suffragettes set fire to the Tea Pavilion situated at the famous Pagoda in Kew Gardens, completely burning it out. Just a short while later, another suffragette was arrested for setting fire to the letters in the main letters-box of the Post Office in George Street in Richmond.<\/p>\n

But what I was less prepared for was the extent to which there was also activity by women who opposed <\/em>the whole idea of votes for women. Indeed, although it might appear a very odd\u00a0trend when considered now, we tend to forget that \u2013 before 1918 \u2013 not all women wanted the vote, and some were even prepared to voice their antipathy and mobilise other like-minded women through organised public campaigns. As far as I can tell, there has been\u00a0surprisingly little research conducted on this type of politics.<\/p>\n

The main group involved in this\u00a0backlash against the suffragettes in the\u00a0London area\u00a0was the \u2018National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage\u2019, which appears to have been organised and sustained by some very middle-class women.\u00a0In south-west London, a branch of this organisation was quite active in the\u00a0leafy middle-class suburbs of Chiswick and the surrounding areas, with other groups at Kew and Richmond.<\/p>\n

The Chiswick branch of the National League started life in mid-1909 under the title of the \u2018Women\u2019s National Anti-Suffrage League\u2019.\u00a0In October, 1909, the League held its first general meeting \"Suffragette<\/a>and reported a membership of 56. The following month, a public meeting was organised by the League at Chiswick Town Hall, where one of the women speakers, Miss Kathleen Howieson,\u00a0warned gravely that the granting of suffrage to women would mean \u2018class war\u2019 and \u2018Socialism\u2019, and that \u2013 in turn \u2013 would\u00a0mean \u2018revolution and anarchy\u2019.<\/p>\n

Using a combination of further occasional public meetings, letters written to the press, and drawing-room meetings held at private houses, together with\u00a0some campaigning outside polling stations during elections, the League continued its anti-suffrage activities. At the 3rd AGM of the Chiswick branch, held in late 1911, their Annual\u00a0Report claimed there was \u2018steady growth\u2019 in the membership. In 1912, a \u2018well-attended\u2019 social gathering of the League held in the Hogarth Room of Chiswick Town Hall saw a number of speeches being made, all expressing notably conservative and sceptical attitudes to the whole idea of giving women greater rights. Miss Norma Maunder, for example, in her speech, asserted that man \u2018was the backbone of the country and women the backbone of the homes of the country\u2019. She said that women were \u2018absolutely unfitted\u2019 for governing a nation.<\/p>\n

In November, 1913, the League scored quite a publicity coup when they organised a public event at Chiswick Town Hall to debate the following\u00a0resolution:\u00a0\u2018That it is contrary to the best<\/p>\n

interests of the State and the Empire that women should have the Parliamentary vote\u2019. Mrs. Norris, the President of the local branch, speaking for the resolution, argued in her address that the \u2018whole mentality\u2019 of man was better able to cope with the question of Empire than women, and women\u2019s \u2018first duty\u2019 was to the future generation.\u00a0Miss Coombs, speaking against the resolution, said she did so because she believed that women had \u2018the right to be free\u2019. When the audience was invited to vote, 253 supported the League, and 189 were against the resolution, giving the League a majority of 64. Needless to say, the League were evidently very satisfied with this result.<\/p>\n

After the outbreak of war in 1914, the Chiswick branch of the National League sent a letter to the local press saying that, given the outbreak of hostilities, they would now \u2018drop all outside propaganda work\u2019 for the duration. However, at their 6th AGM held in November that year, Mrs. Norris warned that, while they had ceased political propaganda for the time being, \u2018the political aspect was only one side\u2019, and it was still necessary that \u2018the cause\u2019 should not be allowed to suffer.<\/p>\n

Compared to the suffragette movement,\u00a0I suspect the National League remained very much a small-scale and minority organisation. However, it would be fascinating to find out more about the anti-suffrage activists, and the extent to which they may have been\u00a0organising similar campaigns\u00a0in other parts of the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Steve Woodbridge is a Lecturer in History at Kingston University. This article was orginally published on his blog<\/a> and is republished here with his kind permission<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not all women were behind the Suffragette movement, particularly in Chiswick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,50,53,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3275"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3289,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3275\/revisions\/3289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}