The National Society for Women's Suffrage was the first national group in the United Kingdom to campaign for women's right to vote. Formed on 6 November 1867, by Lydia Becker, the organisation helped lay the foundations of the women's suffrage movement. [1]
Eliza Wigham, Jane Wigham, Priscilla Bright McLaren and some of their friends set up an Edinburgh chapter of this National Society. Eliza and her friend Agnes McLaren became the secretaries. [2] By 1870, branches in Scotland were in Aberdeen, Glasgow, St. Andrews and Galloway. [3]
Jacob Bright, a Liberal politician, supported by a petition from Jane Taylour of the Galloway branch and others, [4] had suggested in 1871 that it would be useful to create a London-based organisation to lobby members of parliament concerning women's suffrage. The Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage first met on 17 January 1872. [5]
The national society was furthered later by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and the Women's Social and Political Union.[ citation needed ]
The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the suffragists was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was renamed the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship.
The Women's Franchise League was a British organisation created by the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst together with her husband Richard and others in 1889, fourteen years before the creation of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903. The President of the organisation in 1889 was Harriet McIlquham. In 1895 the committee who met in Aberystwyth were Ursula Mellor Bright, Mrs Behrens, Esther? Bright, Herbert Burrows, Dr Clark MP, Mrs Hunter of Matlock Bank, Jane Brownlow, Mrs E. James, H.N.Mozley, Alice Cliff Scatcherd, Countess Gertrude Guillaume-Schack, Jane Cobden Unwin and Dr and Mrs Pankhurst.
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).
The White Ribbon Association (WRA), previously known as the British Women's Temperance Association (BWTA), is an organization that seeks to educate the public about alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, as well as gambling.
Elizabeth Nichol was a 19th-century British abolitionist, anti-segregationist, woman suffragist, chartist and anti-vivisectionist. She was active in the Peace Society, the Temperance movement and founded the Darlington Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. In 1853 she married Dr. John Pringle Nichol (1804–1859), Regius Professor of Astronomy at the University of Glasgow. She was one of about six women who were in the painting of the World Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840.
Eliza Wigham, born Elizabeth Wigham, was a Scottish campaigner for women's suffrage, anti-slavery, peace and temperance in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was involved in several major campaigns to improve women's rights in 19th-century Britain, and has been noted as one of the leading citizens of Edinburgh. Her stepmother, Jane Smeal, was a leading activist in Glasgow and together they made the Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society. Her brother John Richardson Wigham was a prominent lighthouse engineer.
Jane Wigham was a leading Scottish abolitionist, and was the secretary of the Glasgow Ladies' Emancipation Society.
Priscilla Bright McLaren was an English activist who served and linked the anti-slavery movement with the women's suffrage movement in the nineteenth century. She was a member of the Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society and, after serving on the committee, became the president of the Edinburgh Women's Suffrage Society.
The Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage was a leading group for women's rights in Scotland. It was one of the first three suffrage societies to be formed in Britain.
The Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society was a leading abolitionist group based in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the nineteenth century. The women associated with the organisation are considered "heroines" and the impact of these abolitionist organisations for women are thought to have had a notional impact.
The Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for Women’s Suffrage was an organisation involved in campaigning for women’s suffrage, based in Glasgow, with members from all over the west of Scotland.
Jane E. Taylour was a Scottish suffragist and women's movement campaigner, and one of the first women to give lectures in public. She travelled around Scotland and northern England as a suffrage lecturer, and was a key figure in spreading the message of the women's suffrage throughout Scotland and inspiring others to join the National Society for Women's Suffrage.
Jessie Cunningham Methven was a Scottish campaigner for women's suffrage. She was honorary secretary of the Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage from the mid 1890s until 1906. She subsequently joined the more militant Women's Social and Political Union and described herself as an "independent socialist".
Women's suffrage was the seeking of the right of women to vote in elections. It was carried out by both men and women, it was a very elongated and gruelling campaign that went on for 86 years before the Representation of the People Act 1918 was introduced on 6 February 1918, which provided a few women with the right to vote.
The Stornoway Women's Suffrage Association was an organisation that campaigned for women's suffrage across the UK, based in Stornoway, Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland, the Hebrides.
The Shetland Women's Suffrage Association was an organisation involved in campaigning for women’s suffrage, based in Shetland.
The Orcadian Women's Suffrage Association was an organisation involved in campaigning for women’s suffrage, based in Orkney, Scotland.
Mary Anne Baikie a Scottish suffragist who established the Orcadian Women's Suffrage Society (OWSS) and grew the membership and public interest in the debate, in the Orkney Isles, during the campaigns for Votes for Women.