Tuesday 6 February 2018

Suffragettes made no contribution to women getting the vote

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A lot of nonsense in the press today about Suffragettes. I am sorry to see allegedly Conservative politicians like Mrs. May and the unspeakable Davidson woman praising the Suffragettes, whose illegal and violent tactics delayed women getting the vote. 

Women were given the vote by a predominantly Conservative government as a reward for their contribution to the war effort.

From a letter in today's Guardian:

It is simply untrue to state that the suffragettes only targeted property, not people. That may have been true of the leadership, but certainly not of the rank and file membership. In one year alone, 1914, shortly before Mrs Pankhurst disbanded the WSPU’s campaign to concentrate on the war effort, there were several incidents of suffragette violence against individuals: Lord Weardale was attacked with a horsewhip by Mary Lindsay, who mistook him for Asquith, the prime minister; a bomb on a Blackpool train badly burned a train guard. Meanwhile there were widespread reports of suffragettes practising with revolvers on shooting ranges around London. Had war not broken out in 1914, there can be little doubt that suffragette violence against individuals would have intensified still further.

Time once more for Lord Curzon's 15 Good Reasons Against the Grant of Female Suffrage.

3 comments:

  1. And don't forget the suffragette who attacked a horse at Epsom Derby!

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  2. The Queen enquired about the Suffragette, the King about the horse.

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  3. I recommend Kenneth Rose's wonderful biography of King George V, the funniest book I ever read and I have read many funny books. David Cannadine who lectured me quoted with disapproval the King's remark about homosexuals 'I thought people like that killed themselves'. I thought it showed how innocent the King was, but people in those days were. He told his Prime Minister Baldwin 'I worry that my subjects don't say their prayers at night'.

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