The Independent Women's Social and Political Union (IWSPU, often known as the Independent WSPU) was a women's suffrage organisation active in the United Kingdom during World War I.
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was the most prominent militant suffrage organisation in the United Kingdom until the start of World War I. However, on the outbreak of war, the WSPU leader Christabel Pankhurst decided to suspend suffrage campaigning, and instead focus on support for the war. Many members of the organisation disagreed with the decision, with some forming the breakaway Suffragettes of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1915. [1] [2]
A further breakaway took place in March 1916, led by Charlotte Marsh, a former organiser for the WSPU. She founded the "Independent Women's Social and Political Union", and launched a journal, the Independent Suffragette. [1] Other leading members included Edith Rigby, who founded a branch in Preston, Lancashire, and Dorothy Evans, who served as its provincial organiser. [3] [4] [5]
The group was very hostile to Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst, but while it did not share the WSPU's patriotism, it did not oppose the war. The group proclaimed that it would devote itself to the suffrage campaign and would "work in the spirit of the old WSPU". [1] [2] It stopped publishing its journal in 1917, [4] and appears to have dissolved before the end of 1918. [6]
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, Time named her as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating that "she shaped an idea of objects for our time" and "shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back". She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, was a British suffragette born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she directed its militant actions from exile in France from 1912 to 1913. In 1914, she supported the war against Germany. After the war, she moved to the United States, where she worked as an evangelist for the Second Adventist movement.
The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and policies were tightly controlled by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia; Sylvia was eventually expelled.
Rachel Barrett was a Welsh suffragette and newspaper editor born in Carmarthen. Educated at the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth she became a science teacher, but quit her job in 1906 on hearing Nellie Martel speak of women's suffrage, joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and moved to London. In 1907, she became a WSPU organiser, and after Christabel Pankhurst fled to Paris, Barrett became joint organiser of the national WSPU campaign. In 1912, despite no journalistic background, she took charge of the new newspaper The Suffragette. Barrett was arrested on occasions for activities linked to the suffrage movement and, in 1913–1914, spent some time incognito to avoid re-arrest.
Black Friday was a suffragette demonstration in London on 18 November 1910, in which 300 women marched to the Houses of Parliament as part of their campaign to secure voting rights for women. The day earned its name from the violence meted out to protesters, some of it sexual, by the Metropolitan Police and male bystanders.
A movement to fight for women's right to vote in the United Kingdom finally succeeded through acts of Parliament in 1918 and 1928. It became a national movement in the Victorian era. Women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Britain until the Reform Act 1832 and the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. In 1872 the fight for women's suffrage became a national movement with the formation of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and later the more influential National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). As well as in England, women's suffrage movements in Wales, Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom gained momentum. The movements shifted sentiments in favour of woman suffrage by 1906. It was at this point that the militant campaign began with the formation of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, which engaged in direct action and civil disobedience. In 1906, a reporter writing in the Daily Mail coined the term suffragette for the WSPU, derived from suffragist, in order to belittle the women advocating women's suffrage. The militants embraced the new name, even adopting it for use as the title of the newspaper published by the WSPU.
Mary Leigh was an English political activist and suffragette.
Aeta Adelaide Lamb was one of the longest serving organizers in the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the leading militant organization campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Theresa Garnett was a British suffragette. She was a serial protester who sometimes went by the name 'Annie O'Sullivan', was jailed and then still refused to cooperate. She assaulted Winston Churchill while carrying a whip. She retired from her militancy after the suffragette movement decided to commit arson as part of its protests. She was honorary editor of a women's right's magazine in 1960.
Dorothy Elizabeth Evans was a British feminist activist and suffragette. On the eve of World War I she was a militant organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union twice arrested in Belfast on explosives charges. She broke with Christabel Pankhurst and the WSPU in 1914 over their support for the war, and remained until the end of her life an active peace and women's equality campaigner.
Charlotte Augusta Leopoldine Marsh, known as Charlie Marsh, was a militant British suffragette.
Alice Schofield or Alice Schofield Coates was a British suffragette and politician. She campaigned for women to have the vote and later campaigned for the legislation to give women rights to equal pay.
Mabel Kate Tuke born Mabel Kate Lear was a British suffragette known for her role of honorary secretary of the militant Women's Social and Political Union.
Lettice Annie Floyd was a British suffragette. She is especially known for her openly lesbian relationship with fellow suffragette Annie Williams. During the suffragette campaign, Floyd and Williams were arrested and force-fed. After World War I, Floyd continued to campaign for women's rights and peace.
Florence Eliza Haig (1856–1952) was a Scottish artist and suffragette who was decorated for imprisonments and hunger strikes.
Gladice Georgina Keevil was a British suffragette who served as head of the Midlands office of the Women's Social and Political Union between 1908 and 1910.
Helena Gertrude Jones was a British doctor and suffragette who campaigned for women's vote during the early twentieth century. Although sharing the platform with many notable suffragists, including Emmeline Pankhurst, she broke away from the Women's Social and Political Union, of whom she was a regional organiser, to challenge Pankhurst's decision to curtail the suffrage aims during the First World War.
Eleanor Grace Watney Roe (1885–1979) was Head of Suffragette operations for the Women's Social and Political Union. She was released from prison after the outbreak of World War I due to an amnesty for suffragettes negotiated with the government by the WSPU.
Annie Williams was a British suffragette, organiser for the Women's Social and Political Union, imprisoned twice and awarded a Hunger Strike Medal. She was involved in a same-sex partnership with fellow activist, Lettice Floyd, but not allowed to write to her in prison.