The British Women's Suffrage Campaign

The Women's Suffrage Movement was the largest women's movement the Britain had ever seen, and it succeeded both in gaining equal voting rights for women, and in securing their right to be elected to the House of Commons. This work explores how supporters of women's suffrage fought this battle through militant and democratic suffragist tactics.

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This Seminar Study was the first book to trace the British women's suffrage campaign from its origins in the 1860s through to the achievement of equal suffrage in 1928. In this second edition, Smith provides new evidence drawn from the author's research on how the main post-1918 women's organisation (the NUSEC) worked with Conservative Party women to persuade the Conservative Party to endorse equal franchise rights. Smith focuses on the actions of reformers and their opponents, with due attention paid to the campaigns in Scotland and Wales as well as the movements in England. He explores why women's suffrage was such a contentious issue, and how women gained the vote despite opponents' fears that it would undermine gender boundaries. Suitable for students studying the Suffrage Movement, modern British history and the history of gender.