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The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. [1] Known from 1906 as the suffragettes , its membership and policies were tightly controlled by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia .
Suffragettes in Great Britain and Ireland orchestrated a bombing and arson campaign between the years 1912 and 1914. The campaign was instigated by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and was a part of their wider campaign for women's suffrage.
However, on the outbreak of war, the WSPU leader Christabel Pankhurst decided to suspend suffrage campaigning, and instead focus on support for the war. Many members of the organisation disagreed with the decision, with some forming the breakaway Suffragettes of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1915. [1] [2]
The war also caused a split in the British suffragette movement; the mainstream, represented by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst's WSPU calling a ceasefire in their campaign for the duration of the war, while more radical suffragettes, represented by Sylvia Pankhurst's Women's Suffrage Federation continued the struggle.
From 1906 WSPU members adopted the name suffragettes, to differentiate from the suffragists of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, who employed constitutional methods in their campaign for the vote. [1] [5] [b] From 1907 WSPU demonstrations faced increasing police violence. [7]
Women's Sunday was a suffragette march and rally held in London on 21 June 1908. Organised by Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) to persuade the Liberal government to support votes for women, it is thought to have been the largest demonstration to be held until then in the country.
Subsequently, the Pethick-Lawrences were expelled from the WSPU, and thereafter they published the newspaper independently, its supporters being organised in the Votes for Women Fellowship. [6] This group was intended to encompass members of a variety of women's suffrage organisations, whether militant or non-militant.
Laura Frances Ainsworth (1885 – 1958) was a British teacher and suffragette. She was employed by the Women's Social and Political Union and was one of the first suffragettes to be force-fed. She left the WSPU in 1912 in protest at the ejection of the Pethick-Lawrences, but continued to work for women's suffrage.