The Suffragettes: The women who risked all to get the vote
On 6 February Britain celebrates 100 years since women were given the right to vote.
Tuesday 6 February 2018 11:49, UK
Alix Culbertson, News Reporter
Who were the Suffragettes?
Women had been campaigning to get the vote for decades but it was not until the Suffragettes were formed that they managed to achieve their goal on 6 February 1918.
The Daily Mail gave the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) the name Suffragettes as a derogatory term in 1906.
But Emmeline Pankhurst embraced the name for the organisation which she had set up in Manchester three years before.
Who were the key women?
Emmeline Pankhurst - leader, jailed 11 times
Aged 45 she founded the WSPU, which became the Suffragettes, and was defiantly independent from political parties.
The Suffragettes motto "deeds not words" gave a clear signal times were changing and they were not going to be like the groups who had peacefully been campaigning for women's suffrage for decades.
She was jailed and released 11 times for her campaigning.
Mrs Pankhurst angrily sent her youngest daughter Adela to Australia when she spoke out against the party becoming more militant.
Christabel Pankhurst - Queen of the Mob
Emmeline's eldest daughter and a lawyer, Christabel was an executive member of the WSPU.
She was arrested and imprisoned for interrupting a Liberal Party meeting which prompted the decision for more militant action.
Called "The Queen of the Mob", she was arrested and jailed multiple times.
She eventually escaped to Paris to avoid the Cat and Mouse Act where police could release imprisoned hunger strikers so they would not die in custody then re-arrest them when they were better.
Christabel thought other causes such as equality should not be linked to women's suffrage as inequality would be solved when women were given the vote.
Sylvia Pankhurst - imprisoned and force-fed
The middle Pankhurst sister, Sylvia was also part of the WSPU, however she was more of a Labour supporter and disagreed with her mother and elder sister's politics and with the violence.
Sylvia was imprisoned multiple times for her involvement and endured being force-fed.
She created most of the iconic tricolour WSPU gear such as banners, jewellery and exhibition design.
Emily Wilding Davison - killed by King George V's horse
Highly educated, Emily Davison studied at Royal Holloway College in London and St Hugh's College, Oxford before becoming a teacher and governess.
She joined the WSPU in 1906 and became an officer and chief steward during marches.
Emily quickly became known for her militant action which included breaking windows, setting fire to postboxes and hiding in the Houses of Parliament overnight three times.
She was arrested nine times, went on hunger strike seven times and was force fed 45 times.
Most well-known for being killed by King George V's horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby after running in front of it, her funeral attracted a procession of 5,000 suffragettes and supporters while 50,000 people lined the route through London.
Leonora Cohen - personal bodyguard
Emmeline's personal bodyguard, she was arrested and force-fed multiple times which only increased her passion to fight.
During a protest she smashed a glass case housing the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London, giving her the name the Tower Suffragette.
She was appointed OBE for services to public life in the 1920s and was a hero of the second wave of feminism in the 1970s before dying at the age of 105 in 1978.
Lydia Becker - inspired Emmeline to start campaigning
Less well-known than the Pankhursts and Emily Davison, Lydia Becker led the early women's suffrage movement, inspiring 15-year-old Emmeline Pankhurst during a speech in 1874.
She helped secure the vote for women on the Isle of Man in 1881 - the first country to do so.
Millicent Fawcett - peaceful campaigner
A moderate suffragist and an intellectual, she was president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies before the Suffragette movement.
She later distanced herself from the WSPU believing their actions were harming women's chances of gaining the vote.
Suffragette tactics: Blowing up post boxes and smashing windows
Members of the Pankhurst-led group were well-known for smashing windows, cutting electricity wires chaining themselves to railings and blowing up post boxes.
They frequently assaulted police officers and staged hunger strikes when they were imprisoned to protest against the conditions, for which they were force-fed.
One of their most daring acts was bombing a Surrey house being built for finance minister and future prime minister David Lloyd George in 1913.
How did they secure the right to vote?
Following years of campaigning, on 6 February 1918, 8.4 million women over the age of 30 were finally given the vote under the Representation of the People Act 1918.
They had to either be a member or married to a member of the Local Government Register, a property owner or a graduate voting in a university constituency.
The act was a massive step in the struggle which started 86 years before when Mary Smith presented the first Woman's Suffrage bill to the House of Commons in 1832.
It took another 10 years for women to gain the same voting rights as men but the 1918 act put Britain ahead of countries such as France and gave other nations a push to do the same.
One woman's terrorist is another woman's freedom fighter
Some argue the Suffragettes were terrorists because they used bombs to target mostly male-only buildings such as David Lloyd George's house which was being decorated.
However, others said Emmeline Pankhurst herself always said nobody should be killed in pursuit of the vote.
Former suffragette Mary Leigh, in 1975 said: "Mrs Pankhurst gave us strict orders… there was not a cat or a canary to be killed: no life."
Did men help women in their fight?
Many MPs initially opposed votes for women but there were some male supporters who were ultimately key to getting the act passed.
Most intellectual men, apart from Rudyard Kipling and GK Chesterton, were ardent supporters of votes for women.
The Men's League for Women's Suffrage was formed in 1907 in London.
John Stuart Mill, the Liberal MP and philosopher, and Henry Fawcett, Millicent Fawcett's husband, presented the second women's suffrage bill to parliament in 1866.
They failed but the move prompted the founding of suffrage societies in Edinburgh, Manchester and London.
Keir Hardie MP spoke regularly in the Commons on the subject, questioning ministers on the treatment of suffragette prisoners and attended WSPU events.
George Lansbury MP resigned so he could fight a by-election on the suffrage question.
He lost but continued to support the campaign and was imprisoned in 1913 after making a speech at a rally in support of the Suffragette's campaign of arson attacks.
Some men took part in Suffragete activities, with Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, Emmeline Pankhurst's husband, editor of the publication Votes for Women alongside her.
An MP for eight years, he was imprisoned several times, went on hunger strike and was forcibly fed on many occasions.