Suffragists and Suffragettes in Britain

British women campaigned for the vote for decades, and the movement split over methods. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, formed in 1897 and led by Millicent Fawcett, used petitions, meetings and lobbying. In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters founded the Women's Social and Political Union, whose motto was 'Deeds not words'. Its members, nicknamed suffragettes by a newspaper in 1906, disrupted meetings, broke windows and later committed arson.

Imprisoned suffragettes went on hunger strike and were force-fed, and the government's 1913 'Cat and Mouse Act' released and re-arrested them. In June 1913 Emily Wilding Davison was fatally injured at the Epsom Derby after running onto the course. During the First World War the WSPU suspended militancy, and in 1918 the Representation of the People Act gave the vote to women over 30 who met a property qualification, while equal voting with men at 21 came only in 1928.