Women's Suffrage in The United Kingdom - Timeline

Timeline

• 1818: Jeremy Bentham advocates female suffrage in his book A Plan for Parliamentary Reform
• 1832: Great Reform Act – confirmed the exclusion of women from the electorate.
• 1851: The Sheffield Female Political Association is founded and submits a petition calling for women's suffrage to the House of Lords.
• 1864: The first Contagious Disease Act is passed in England, which is intended to control venereal disease by having prostitutes and women believed to be prostitutes be locked away in hospitals for examination and treatment. When information broke to the general public about the shocking stories of male brutality and vice in these hospitals, Josephine Butler launched a campaign to get them repealed. Many have since argued that Butler's campaign destroyed the conspiracy of silence around sexuality and forced women to act in protection of others of their gender. In doing so, clear linkages emerge between the Suffrage movement and Butler's campaign.
• 1865: John Stuart Mill elected as an MP showing direct support for women's suffrage.
• 1867: Second Reform Act – Male franchise extended to 2.5 million
• 1883: Conservative Primrose League formed.
• 1884: Third Reform Act – Male electorate doubled to 5 million
• 1889: Women's Franchise League established.
• 1894: Local Government Act (women who owned property could vote in local elections, become Poor Law Guardians, act on School Boards)
• 1897: National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies NUWSS formed (led by Millicent Fawcett).
• 1903: Women's Social and Political Union WSPU is formed (led by Emmeline Pankhurst)
• 1904: Militancy begins. Emmeline Pankhurst interrupts a Liberal Party meeting.
• February 1907: NUWSS "Mud March" – largest open air demonstration ever held (at that point) – over 3000 women took part. In this year, women were admitted to the register to vote in and stand for election to principal local authorities.
• 1907: The Artists' Suffrage League founded
• 1907: The Women's Freedom League founded
• 1908: in November of this year, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, a member of the small municipal borough of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, was selected as mayor of that town, the first woman so to serve.
• 1907, 1912, 1914: major splits in WSPU
• 1905, 1908, 1913: Three phases of WSPU militancy (Civil Disobedience; Destruction of Public Property; Arson/Bombings)
• 5 July 1909: Marion Wallace Dunlop went on the first hunger strike – was released after 91 hours of fasting
• 1909 The Women's Tax Resistance League founded
• September 1909: Force feeding introduced to hunger strikers in English prisons
• 1910: Lady Constance Lytton disguised herself as a working class seamstress, Jane Wharton, and was arrested and endured force feeding to prove prejudice in prisons against working class women. Lady Constance was instrumental in reforming conditions in prisons. The brutal force feeding she was subjected to is believed to have shortened her life span considerably
• February 1910: Cross-Party Conciliation Committee (54 MPs). Conciliation Bill (that would enfranchise women) passed its 2nd reading by a majority of 109 but Asquith refused to give it more parliamentary time
• November 1910: Herbert Henry Asquith changed Bill to enfranchise more men instead of women
• 18 November 1910: Black Friday
• October 1912: George Lansbury, Labour MP, resigned his seat in support of women's suffrage
• February 1913: David Lloyd George's house burned down by WSPU (despite his support for women's suffrage).
• April 1913: Cat and Mouse Act passed, allowing hunger-striking prisoners to be released when their health was threatened and then re-arrested when they had recovered
• 4 June 1913: Emily Davison walked in front of, and was subsequently trampled and killed by, the King’s Horse at the Epsom Derby.
• 13 March 1914: Mary Richardson slashed the Rokeby Venus painted by Diego Velázquez in the National Gallery with an axe, protesting that she was maiming a beautiful woman just as the government was maiming Emmeline Pankhurst with force feeding
• 4 August 1914: First World War declared in Britain. WSPU activity immediately ceased. NUWSS activity continued peacefully – the Birmingham branch of the organisation continued to lobby Parliament and write letters to MPs.
• 1918: The Representation of the People Act of 1918 enfranchised women over the age of 30 who were either a member or married to a member of the Local Government Register. About 8.4 million women gained the vote.
• November 1918: the Eligibility of Women Act was passed, allowing women to be elected into Parliament.
• 1928: Women received the vote on the same terms as men (over the age of 21) as a result of the Representation of the People Act 1928.