Jane Robinson BOOKtalk

you would be considered as bold as

brass.

Think of the movement which first

won women the vote a hundred years

ago and the images which come to

mind are Emily Weldon Davidson under

the Kings horse at the Derby or

green and purple ribbons to persuade

politicians and smashed windows and

went on hunger strike. What of the

great pilgrimage, the mass march by

peaceful protesters in 1913 which

impressed the then Prime Minister?

Those were the sub adjusts rather

than the suffragettes, the peaceful

constitutional wing of the movement

and my guess today suggests their

contribution to the ultimate victory

has been rather eclipsed by their

more militant protesters. Let's

start with context, by the time of

the great pilgrimage the movement

had been building for the part of 50

years.

The great prog which was in

19 13. The first serious petition

asking for votes was 1866 presented

by John Stewart mill so half a

century of campaigning behind the

scenes and in the background. What

is the arguments which are being

made? That women could influence the

society bringing up the children and

keeping the house going. But they

could bring that economy, the moral

influence to Parliament and quite

simply make the world a better

place.

Of course, every action

produces a counter action and there

was a counter campaign very quickly,

there is the fabulous figure of

doctor Amroth right who writes, I

have to quote the phrase, it is

marvellous, he discourses about the

reverberations of women's

physiological emergencies, that is

his counterblast against the

suffragist.

Yes the medical

fraternity were very loud in their

arguments against women having the

vote or going to university. As

everyone knows, for one week out of

four they are an emotional mess,

hysterical, don't know what is up in

what is down, so how can they

possibly be trusted with the

responsibility of having a voice in

Parliament? He produced lots of

pamphlets, he was quite a well-known

figure actually. His main argument

was that women have not got the

intellectual power because they need

all the energy to go to their

physiological emergencies and they

cannot spare any of it to go to

their brains and think about casting

a vote.

And there are people who

made slightly more serious arguments

from positions of eminence, Queen

Victoria was against the idea of fun

and having the vote. The Prime

Minister a few years on from those

moments was seen as a liberal line

in many context but not in terms of

women and the vote.

Queen Victoria

was not the only woman who was

against women having the vote.

Gertrude Belle the great politician

thought it was a terrible idea, she

thought women could not be trusted

and one of the main reason is

because they cannot defend the

country so if they are making

decisions in Parliament which would

need to be defended they have no

right to do so because they cannot

defend them, they cannot be

soldiers, so what right do they have

to make these decisions?

And if

women start having a vote then they

will want to be MPs and judges and

who knows?

Whatever next? That is an

argument which was put forward right

at the beginning and the apogee of

ridiculousness was that there would

be a female Prime Minister.

Suffragist societies were springing

up all over the country in various

sizes, they were coming up

everywhere almost spontaneously.

From 1866 win this petition was

presented to Parliament, from then

on the constitutional wing of the

campaign set up as you say little

societies all around the UK and in

Scotland and these groups until

there were about 900 branches at the

height of the constitutional wing,

the suffragist, rather than the

suffragettes. There was a lot of

campaigning going on but at this

stage it was about and frustration

and persuasion and trying to keep

your head below the parapet so you

would not be told by people like

doctor right that you were a

complete no hopers.

The thought

being that of the campaigning group

to intense Dr Wright would find

himself vindicated so you had to

behave in a certain way.

Yes

otherwise people would turn around

and say we told you so, they are

freaks. That is why it took so long

and by 1903 Emily Pankhurst got fed

up and said we need to put our head

above the parapet, people are too

happy to accept the status quo at

the minute. That is when the

suffragettes come onto the scene.

They regarded the constitutional

wing, the old guard when as a cosy,

let's have tea parties and signed

petitions and write articles and

send letters to the newspaper 's

effort, they wanted more?

There was

a respect for the leader of the

constitutional wing and she was very

astute woman, great politician,

great strategist but I think Emily

Pankhurst got everything needed

ginger ring up.

Deeds not words?

Exactly. Whereas the suffragists

believed in deeds and words but they

needed the impetus to realise that

actually meetings were not enough,

they needed to do something

physical, some grand gesture and

that is what the pilgrimage was.

The

pilgrimage was in some senses an

answer to the more radical anthers

of the suffragettes?

It was fighting

on two runs if fighting is the right

word. The suffragists had to prove

they were responsible enough to have

the vote which is not what the

suffragettes were doing, but they

had to counter the bad publicity

that the suffragettes were bringing

him. The pilgrimage was at the

height of the militant suffragette

campaign so for example when the

Pilgrims set out and perhaps he will

talk about the journey later, but

they were often greeted as

suffragettes, everyone thought they

were the ones throwing bombs and who

set fire to letter boxes. So they

were stoned and assaulted.

There is

a lot of memoir and journalism which

covers this occasion, what was it

like to be on that march?

I managed

to unearth about eight diaries of

women on the march. Men were on the

march as well because men could

belong to the suffragists but not

suffragettes. These diaries are

glorious because not only are they

travel diaries of being on the road

for perhaps six weeks on a rickety

caravan on a bicycle, perhaps just

walking, but also at the risk of

sounding a little corny they were

about self-discovery and the

discovery of sisterhood. This was

the first time ordinary women have

come together in a mass

demonstration rather than a protest,

and felt they were making a

difference.

What was quite

interesting about this was that it

worked. The political establishment

was genuinely impressed that

thousands and thousands of women

could march peacefully around the

country and converge on Westminster

in an orderly way. Without throwing

stones and breaking windows or

pelting politicians with fruit. Have

a peaceful protest and make a case.

It had a useful result, they got

invited to see Asquith.

Yes, yes he

had challenged poster wings of the

campaign to improve the "Ordinary

women" of England wanted the vote

and the pilgrimage was taken to

answer that. Meetings were held

along the way, resolutions passed,

petitions collected. These were

presented as you say to Asquith who

invited a deputation and it's at the

end of the meeting that he admitted

her the very first time, albeit

slightly doubtfully, that perhaps

women could be counted as people in

a political sense. Perhaps they have

Propper on the pilgrimage and if

they were people they would come

under the coverage of the

representation of the people act.

And then other events intervene,

1914 rolls along, the start of the

Great War and a whole load of

things, vote for women, sorting out

Ireland, our whole lot of issues are

put on hold by the government

Asquith was heading. But it was not

irrelevant to the struggle here,

quite the reverse. It furnished more

proof. Eugh it dead. It is received

wisdom to a

the pilgrimage and other things the

suffragettes and the suffragists did

prove that it was all part of a

narrative which started in 1866 and

started with women's campaigns. It

is tempting to say we when we talk

about when and at this time, I feel

as though I identify with them, but

we only got the vote after the war

because of the work we have done

during the war and we only did the

work we had done during the war

because we were so seasoned in

campaigning and in committee work

and practical work and making a

difference.

I get the impression you

have been touched by reading about

this and you identify no very

strongly with the women who did this

march, what was it like you

emotionally if you like reading

those accounts?

It was a revelation for me because I

admire the suffragettes but I always

felt as though they were a race

apart and when I started reading

about the women who ran the

pilgrimage, I realised that

aristocrats were marching with mill

workers and intellectuals were

marching with housewives. It was

people with whom I could identify

and imagine as my great grandmother,

my eccentric great aunt, my

grandfather perhaps. People who

belonged to us, who felt that every

step on the pilgrimage would count

towards something. They were very

hopeful. I don't know how, after 50

years of being rebuffed but it was a

hopeful event and I find that really

inspiring.

When you describe the

moment women finally get the vote

and Millicent Fawcett, the matriarch

of the entire movement pretty much,

goes to vote for the first time and

various leaders of the suffragist

movement are sitting in the Commons

gallery when votes for women finally

goes through, that must have been a

huge moment, a culmination of a

life's work.

A huge moment and it

fills me with admiration that

Millicent Fawcett and the

suffragists were not resentful even

though it had taken 50 years, they

were just... Not grateful as much,

but just content that at last their

voices would be heard.

And why do

you think it is the word suffragette

endures but the suffragists has --

have been buried underneath. Do

people just remember the violent

stuff?

Is because the suffragettes

were good at their job, to shock and

grab public attention and be

sensational, and that Rangers, --

and that endures, but meanwhile the

vast majority behind the scenes were

doing the stuff that really

mattered, not that the suffragette

activism didn't matter, but we would

not have got the vote without either

wing of the campaign and it really

is time that the majority, that the

suffragists, got their voice heard

again.

While it was, in one sense, a

victory when votes for women finally

came along after the First World

War, it was, as you point out in the

book, half. They were still property

qualifications that came into it and

men were getting the vote younger.

Was it a wrench to accept half a

loaf?

I think it was. One of the

individuals I focus on called

Marjorie Lees, she worked for years

and years before the pilgrimage for

women's suffrage but she lived with

her mother, she hadn't been to

university, she didn't own property,

she was over 30, but she didn't get

the vote in 1918 after all that and

it just seems such a shame.

So it is

still implicitly second-class

citizenship for a while to come.

DS,

until 1928.

Was the struggle to

continue or was it accepted?

It

continued, on widening fronts. Why

it took ten years, I have no idea.

But it did.

What happens next to

some of the organisers in this?

You've got all sorts of incredibly

skilled people and probably have the

political bug. To be going to other

movements?

They did. Several of them

went into Parliament and carried on

the political bug. Several went into

academia and were teaching at

university level. Quite a lot of

them leading to local Government and

develop their citizenship in that

way, in social welfare, writing,

then in 1919 the act was passed that

allowed women into traditional

professions, so women started going

into law and medicine, and into

other professions as well. But with

that heritage of seasoned campaign

work behind them.

a fascinating

account of a forgotten campaign.

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