Sunday WW1 Remembered..

The Women's Suffrage Movement was a hard fought battle which began in the latter half of the nineteenth century with campaigns to lobby members of parliament in order to get votes for women.  Organised campaigns in support of women's suffrage began to appear in the mid-1860s. 

In 1867, during a debate on parliamentary reform, John Stuart Mill, a liberal member of parliament, for City and Westminster, proposed an amendment which would have given the vote to women on the same terms as men however, it was rejected by 194 votes to 73. The suffragette movement gained momentum after this and in 1897 the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies was formed under the leadership of suffragist, Millicent Fawcett.

In 1914 at the start of WW1 the suffrage movement was scaled down and even though they suspended some of their activities, the suffragette movement continued to gain momentum.

A female women's rights activist handing out the Suffragette newspaper to British servicemen, 16th April 1915. She is holding a poster for the newspaper, edited by Christabel Pankhurst, showing the headline "We Will Not Be Prussianised", seemingly showing solidarity for British troops on the front.
© IWM (Q 107103)

In 1918 the Representation of the People Act was an act passed by Parliament which reformed the electoral process of Great Britain and Ireland. For the first time the right to vote was extended to men aged over 21, whether or not they owned property, and to women, over the age of 30, if they were home owners, or if their husbands were homeowners, with a property with a rateable value of £5. The Act added 8.4 million women to the electorate as well as 5.6 million men and is considered to be the greatest of all the Reform Acts in terms of electorate addition.

Centenary of Votes for Women

On Sunday 10th of June 2018, women and girls in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London will walk together as part of a celebratory mass participation artwork. Wearing either green, white or violet, the colours of the suffragette movement, the PROCESSIONS will appear as a flowing river of colour through the city streets.

One hundred women artists have been commissioned to work with organisations and communities across the UK to create one hundred centenary banners for PROCESSIONS as part of an extensive public programme of creative workshops.

Follow Twitter @processions2018

Follow Twitter @1418NOW

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