Lesson 1: Enquiry 2: Resources Information sheet on Langham Place Group What was the Langham Place Group fighting for? What was the Langham The group tried to find work for women When, in 1865, the philosopher John Place Group? through an employment bureau for Stuart Mill stood for election and won governesses and domestic staff, and it a seat in Parliament, he included The Langham Place Group was publicised issues that affected women a plea for women’s suffrage in his founded in 1857 by Barbara Bodichon through the English Woman’s Journal. election address, so Barbara Bodichon to campaign on issues that affected Barbara Bodichon had previously been took him on as an ally. In April 1866, women, and to campaign for granting concerned with gaining some rights she organised a petition for him to the vote to women. Most of the to divorce for women. While members present to Parliament, collecting members were successful, middle- like Elizabeth Wolstenholme had also 1,521 signatures in a fortnight. Emily class women such as Emily Davis, campaigned against laws that harmed Davies and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson who founded Girton College, women, such as the Contagious delivered the petition to Mill. Though Cambridge and Elizabeth Garrett Diseases Act, increasingly the group this was unsuccessful in changing Anderson, who was the first woman began to view women getting the vote things, the group kept up this tactic to qualify as a doctor in England and as necessary for changing the laws to when many of its members joined the the older sister of Millicent Fawcett. improve their lives. NUWSS after it was founded in 1896. What did members of the Langham Place Group say about what they were fighting for? The longer I live the more I see I have long wished to see the suffrage granted to women. The possession of an the necessity of women taking an individual vote may indeed appear to be of little value, and I should not myself intelligent part in all that concerns expect any immediate effect on legislation. But the moral effect would, I believe, the welfare of their country, and be deep and far-reaching. As matters stand, the law asserts in a solemn and I am sure that if they had the emphatic form that women are not called upon to take an active interest in affairs power of voting they would feel of State; and it appears to make the assertion on the ground that they are by more decidedly than they do, that nature unfit for any such action. This I hold to be a mischievous untruth, and they are an important part of the believing as I do, that political interests are among the noblest that can occupy Commonwealth. our thoughts and energies I should welcome the removal of a restriction which Barbara Bodichon (founder of the so strongly discourages women from taking their fair share of public affairs. Langham Place Group) Emily Davies (founder of Girton College, Cambridge and campaigner for women’s education) I think that women should possess the franchise, as the best existing means for their protection and the representation of their interests. The interests of all classes of men are represented directly, those of women only indirectly. Frances M. Buss (headmistress and campaigner for women’s education) Task: Construct a concept map of all the things that the Langham Place Group were fighting for. 1 Lesson 1: Enquiry 2: Resources Information sheet on Lydia Becker and the Manchester National Society for Women’s Suffrage What were Lydia Becker and the Manchester Suffrage Society fighting for? Who was Lydia Becker and Lydia Becker decided to use it as a test a legal right to cast a vote. what was the Manchester case. Lily was a widow who ran her In April 1868, the Manchester Society Suffrage Society? own small business; she therefore paid held the very first public suffrage her rates (council tax), which technically meeting and increasingly began to The Manchester National Society for made her eligible to cast a vote. try to recruit working women. Women’s Suffrage held its first meeting Lydia accompanied Lily to the polling In October 1879, they held another in January 1867. Its secretary was a station and persuaded the officials public meeting in a working-class woman called Lydia Becker. She was there to accept her vote. Encouraged area and were surprised by how many elected to the first Manchester School by this, she organised other women working women attended. Responding Board and was particularly interested in householders across the north-east to this, Lydia Becker campaigned the education of women and girls. to add their names to electoral rolls in her journal for the improvement She also created the Women’s Suffrage for 1868. This led to a case in the of conditions for women working as Journal, a record of campaigning and High Court, where Richard Pankhurst chain-makers and around the mines, a guide for new activists. (Emmeline Pankhurst’s husband) although she didn’t manage to turn this In 1867, the name of Lily Maxwell represented the women. Unfortunately, organisation into a coherent movement accidentally appeared as a householder the judge dismissed the case and the and build up working-class support for on the electoral roll in Manchester. argument that women ratepayers had women’s suffrage. What did Lydia Becker and members of the Manchester Suffrage Society say about what they were fighting for? My Dear Sarah, I wonder, Mr Editor, When the ‘woman question’ presents itself to my mind. Why I can’t have the vote; I do not think of elegant ornaments of drawing rooms, And I will not be contented but of the toiling thousands, nay millions of my country Till I’ve found the reason out women, to whom life is no pleasant holiday but a stern I am a working woman, reality, whose (lot) we are trying to soften. Fantastic My voting half is dead, notions about ‘woman’s sphere’ are unknown in a world I hold a house, and want to know where women gain their own bread by their own labour Why I can’t vote instead – and frequently have to bear the burdens of the men in I pay my rates in person, addition to their own. Under protest tho’, tis true; But I pay them, and am qualified Letter to the Leeds Express: 4 March 1868, Lydia Becker To vote as well as you. Sarah Ann Jackson (campaigner for women’s suffrage) Task: Construct a concept map of all the things that Lydia Becker and the Manchester Suffrage Society were fighting for. 2 Lesson 1: Enquiry 2: Resources Information sheet on Harriett Taylor Mill and John Stuart Mill What were Harriett Taylor Mill and John Stuart Mill fighting for? In 1851, in the Westminster Review, Women’, echoing her ideas. When Mill presented his petition during the Harriett Taylor Mill wrote (anonymously) he stood as Liberal candidate in the debate, it was met with laughter from an essay called ‘The Enfranchisement 1865 election, he wrote a letter to the the male MPs. of Women’. Here she argued that Times, arguing for all adults to have the In 1868, Mill tried again, this time women who paid taxes should be vote. The following year, a new Reform with a larger petition containing represented and that it was hypocritical Bill extending the vote to more men more signatures, including Florence for Britain to celebrate the fact that it by lowering the property qualification Nightingale’s, and, though it wasn’t had outlawed slavery when one half was up for debate, and Mill worked laughed at this time, it still had little of the population was still under the with the Langham Place Group to effect. However, outside Parliament, control of the other. put together a petition that he could the experience of campaigning for Her husband, John Stuart Mill, was present during the debate in order to the petitions created a new network impressed by this and wrote his own get women’s suffrage added to the of groups aimed at pressuring the pamphlet in 1869, ‘The Subjection of Bill. They managed to collect 1,521 government to give women the vote. names in two weeks; however, when What did Harriett Taylor Mill and John Stuart Mill say about what they were fighting for? Many persons think they have sufficiently justified the That the principle which regulates the existing social restrictions on women’s field of action, when they have relations between the two sexes – the legal subordination said that the pursuits from which women are excluded of one sex to the other – is wrong in itself, and now one are unfeminine, and that the proper sphere of women is of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that not politics or publicity, but private and domestic life. We it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, deny the right of any (…) individual to decide for another admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor individual, what is and what is not their ‘proper sphere’. disability on the other. The proper sphere for all human beings is the largest John Stuart Mill: ‘The Subjection of Women’ (1869) and highest which they are able to attain to. What this is, cannot be ascertained without complete liberty of choice. Harriett Taylor Mill: Westminster Review, 1851 ‘The Enfranchisement of Women’ Task: Construct a concept map of all the things that Harriett Taylor Mill and John Stuart Mill were fighting for. 3 Lesson 1: Plenary Sheet Enquiry 2: Resources The nineteenth-century The Radical Suffragists The Suffragettes People in the suffrage campaigners movement All four images credit: LSE Library 4 Lesson 2: Enquiry 2: Resources Resources What were the radical suffragists fighting for? At the end of the nineteenth century, the same terms as men.