AT the beginning of the 20th century, attitudes towards women in Britain were distinctly prejudiced. The British Medical Association had accepted female doctors only in 1892, and women continued to face considerable career obstacles in the profession right up until after the Second World War.
British social culture dictated that ‘respectable’ women remained at home as wives and mothers. I well remember my great-aunt Lou reducing my mother to tears around 1962 by insisting that she should stay at home to look after my father and me instead of taking up hospital work again.
Campaigns to give women voting rights in UK elections started up almost a hundred years before they were officially granted the right to vote in 1918, and even then, only to those over 30 who owned homes or were married to homeowners. It took a further ten years for women over 21 to be allowed to vote without property requirements.
The campaign for women’s suffrage or right to vote began in York in the middle of the 19th century when Emma Frith, Agnes Smith and Ann Swaine were three of the 1,499 signatories of a petition presented to the House of Commons in June 1866. Ann Swaine addressed public meetings on women’s suffrage such as the one held at Victoria Hall, Goodramgate (now demolished) in April 1880. The first York-based women’s suffrage organisation – The York Women’s Suffrage Society – was formed in 1889 and was affiliated to the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) in 1901. Members campaigned peacefully for women to be given the vote.
York Civic Trust plaque at 35 (now 36) Coney Street commemorating the first meeting of the York WSPU
But from 1903 onwards, a new organisation, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), revolutionised campaign methods. The colours of this organisation were purple, white and green representing dignity, purity and hope. Their motto was Deeds Not Words and their slogan was Votes for Women. Their campaign tactics were more militant than those of the NUWSS. In 1910, a branch of the WSPU was founded in York and its members became known as suffragettes.
It was the Daily Mail that coined the term suffragette in January 1906 as a term of disrespect, but it was adopted by WSPU members as a badge of honour.
Annie Coultate was one of the best-known suffragettes in York. She was assistant head mistress at Fishergate Primary School and became the branch’s first secretary and ultimately its official organiser. Annie was famous for her evasion of the 1911 census. The census enumerator recorded that she’d been away from home at 33 Melbourne Street, Fishergate, and it’s thought she spent the night with other suffragettes in the NUWSS office at 35 (nowadays 36) Coney Street.
On February 28, 1911, York suffragettes performed three plays in the Assembly Rooms including one entitled How the Vote Was Won by Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St John.
On November 28, 1911, local woman Violet Key Jones remarked in a letter to the Yorkshire Evening Press that for 40 years women had tried peaceful means to obtain the vote, but without success. She believed that smashing windows showed women’s determination and that this was the only way they could hope to get the right to vote.
In April 1913, a parcel containing a bomb with a timing device was left on the doorstep of the Yorkshire Evening Press and the Yorkshire Herald newspapers at what was then 9 Coney Street. The parcel contained cards and paper on which were written Votes for Women and We Will Have Votes.
Politicians were routinely heckled and in February and March 1914, suffragettes interrupted services at Bishopthorpe Church and York Minster when the Archbishop was present. They prayed aloud using the words “Oh God, help and save the women who are being tortured in prison for conscience sake. Amen” and they were then escorted outside.
In January 1913, Annie Seymour Pearson, another leading York suffragette, achieved notoriety by being arrested in London during a demonstration. She was found guilty of obstructing the police and sentenced to a £2 fine or two weeks imprisonment. Like most of her fellow suffragettes, she refused to pay the fine and was sent to Holloway prison. She was released after a couple of days when her fine was paid. In fact, she became the only York suffragette to have a criminal record.
The day after Annie Seymour Pearson’s arrest, someone posted letter bombs to Prime Minister Asquith at Castle Mills Bridge, Wigginton Road, Parliament Street and Balmoral Terrace. One letter bomb exploded at the sorting office, setting fire to other letters and burning the hand of two postal workers. Attacks were made on pillar boxes at The Mount and in Heworth and Bishopthorpe. Phosphorous was poured into the pillar boxes and it ignited when they were opened.
The suffragettes’ public campaigns ended with the outbreak of the First World War when the Government released suffragette prisoners.
In 1916, David Lloyd George replaced Herbert Asquith as prime minister and he was more sympathetic to the cause of women’s suffrage. It was Lloyd George’s government that introduced The Representation of the People’s Act on January 30, 1918 which came into force the following year. And on the centenary of this landmark law the then Sheriff of York, Verna Campbell, unveiled a plaque on the building in Coney Street where the WSPU had their offices.
David Wilson is a Community Writer with The Press
