The right to have an equal vote had been an important issue for many women for a long time. It was just a dream during the late 18th Century. This essay will look into the people and events that contributed and brought about the changes that made this dream come true for the British women. The suffragette movement was different from all the other times in history where women had joined forces with each other. The suffragette movement divided the whole country and at the same time united people from all classes and all parts of the nation which created history of what the women were capable of doing.
A new suffrage society called the WSPU (Woman's Social and Political Union) was formed in 1903 by a group of women determined to gain the franchise. This group of women from Manchester attracted thousands of woman's right campaigners from all over the country within only a few years. Unlike the suffragists, followers of the WSPU did not believe in using conventional respectable methods to gain the franchise. The WSPU was led by Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel. .
Emmeline Pankhurst was married to a lawyer and a committed socialist, Richard Pankhurst. The union was very well organized, and was run like a volunteer army and its members were ready to use any means necessary to get the votes for woman. They were ready to even break the law. Using militant measures; they soon became famous. Soon, because they were advocates to the women's suffrage, in 1906 they were nicknamed "suffragettes- by the Daily Mail Newspaper. .
Unfortunate for the women of Britain at that time, Herbert Asquith, a Liberal was the Prime Minister and was always against the idea of women having the vote. So the aim of Woman's Social and Political Union was to make the liberal government listen to their call for justice and equality; to give them the vote. They realised that no matter how hard they tried, there wasn't much they could do as long as they didn't have the support needed from the Prime Minister.
