Notes 1 Introduction: The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies before the First World War 1 The following account condenses much that can be found in more detail in Vellacott, From Liberal to Labour with Women’s Suffrage: The Story of Catherine Marshall, 1993 (hereafter Lib to Lab), in which primary sources are fully ref- erenced. Other relevant secondary sources on which I have drawn include Constance Rover, Women’s Suffrage and Party Politics in Britain: 1866–1914; (1967); Jill Liddington and Jill Norris, One Hand Tied Behind Us: The Rise of the Women’s Suffrage Movement (1978); Leslie Parker Hume, The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, 1897–1914 (1982); Les Garner, Stepping Stones to Women’s Liberty: Feminist Ideas in the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1900–1918 (1984); Sandra Stanley Holton, Feminism and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900–1918 (1986); David Rubinstein, A Different World for Women: The Life of Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1991); Harold L. Smith, The British Women’s Suffrage Campaign, 1866–1928, (1998, new edition in preparation); Martin Pugh, The March of the Women: a Revisionist Analysis of the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage, 1866–1914 (2000). 2 The NU’s move towards democratization took place at the same time as Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst were rejecting attempts to introduce a more structured and democratic constitution in the militant Women’s Social and Political Union. Jill Liddington’s Rebel Girls sheds new light on the capricious nature of the support provided by the WSPU London office to suffragettes at the periphery. 3 Pugh, March of the Women, ch. 5, shows the growth of Conservative Unionist support for women’s suffrage in the pre-war years, and shows also that this support was for a limited, class based suffrage; H. Smith, British Women’s Suffrage Campaign, 18. 4 For more detail on the emergence of the revised constitution, see Lib to Lab, 65–6, 81–5. 5 NUWSS, Annual Report, 1910. 6NUAnnual Report, 1910 lists 15 federations already formed. 7 Caine, From Bombay to Bloomsbury, ch. 11, greatly enhanced my under- standing of the nature of the suffrage contribution of Philippa and Ray Strachey, and will be explored below (ch. 3). Caine does not credit Oliver with as large a role as he played. 8 The following discussion draws closely on Lib to Lab, 312–15. 9 Lady Jane Strachey to James Strachey, cited by Caine Bombay, 182. 10 ‘Present Position of the London Society and its Branches’, printed, with covering letter from Ray Strachey, n.d., marked by Marshall, CEMP. 11 A plea for understanding of the opposition to full federation came from Helen Ward, a member of the LSWS executive in a long private letter to Marshall. Ward vividly depicted the problems caused in London by the 185 186 Notes multiplicity of different suffrage organizations, the constant presence of militancy, and the difficulty of obtaining any certainty of commitment to agreed policy where the climate within branches could be so variable. But although Ward made the Stracheys’ case better than they did she came from a very different perspective; her concern lay with the political work especially among the working class and in the trade unions. [A. Helen Ward] to Marshall, 7 Dec. 1913. CEMP. The letter is damaged and the signa- ture missing; Ward has been identified from the address. Lib to Lab, 311–15, 477–8, nn.10, 12. 12 CC, 19 Dec. 1913, 20 Feb. 1914. 13 Eleanor Rathbone led opposition within the NU executive and ultimately resigned over the EFF. 14 For the bumpy road to the agreement and a full account of the pre-war development of the EFF, see Lib to Lab, chs 8–15, passim; Holton, Feminism and Democracy, chs 4, 5. 15 Martin Pugh gives a useful assessment of the value of the EFF to the Labour Party, but is less reliable in his account of the actions and motives of the suffragists (see, e.g., his unreferenced statement on p. 292 about Marshall’s view of the EFF in 1914), The March of the Women, 264–83. 16 Special EFF Committee, 19 July, 1915. 17 Rubinstein, Different World, 182–3; Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries, 22. 18 Helena Auerbach, the treasurer, was as close a personal friend as Millicent Fawcett ever had; she was there for her when Fawcett needed a confidante, she did her job loyally and with integrity, but she seldom spoke out except on procedural questions. 19 I have found invaluable Elizabeth Crawford, The Women’s Suffrage Move- ment: A Reference Guide, 1866–1928 for some particulars of suffragists’ lives. Alberti, Beyond Suffrage, ch. 2 contains insightful mini-biographies of most of our protagonists. See also Oldfield, Doers of the World (Oldfield has gener- ously made available an affordable paperback edition of this useful collec- tion). Rubinstein, Different World; Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries; Swanwick, I Have Been Young; Hannam, Isabella Ford; Fletcher, Maude Royden. The last is also useful for the youth of Kathleen Courtney. 20 The same sense of responsibility shows in the life of Eleanor Rathbone, whose great wealth, however, made it difficult for her to attempt to walk in the shoes of the less fortunate; her contribution to the Victoria Settlement was as donor, educator, and policy maker. In the outcome, Rathbone was only able to identify with democratic suffragism to a limited extent. Pedersen: Eleanor Rathbone and the Politics of Conscience. For a description of the suffrage movement in Liverpool (Rathbone’s home), see Cowman, ‘Crossing the Great Divide’. Cowman indicates a sharp class and party polit- ical divide among Liverpool suffragists, with the Liverpool WSS (the NU affiliate), Liberal, constitutional and elite in constant rivalry with the Liverpool WSPU, Labour/socialist, militant and working class. 21 Fletcher, Maude Royden, 22–3. 22 Correspondence in WL. 23 Report of provincial council, 12 Nov. 1914, p. 14, CEMP. News also reached the Council that women’s suffrage had been won in Montana and Nevada. Notes 187 2 Response to War: August to October 1914 1 Cooper Willis, England’s Holy War; Lindsay, ‘The Failure of Liberal Opposition’; Hazlehurst, Politicians at War; Vellacott, Bertrand Russell, ch.2. 2 Auerbach to Marshall, 4 August 1914, CEMP. 3 S. Pankhurst, Home Front. 4 See, e.g. several newspaper clippings, ca. 14 August, mostly unidentified, CEMP; S. Pankhurst, Home Front, 23–9; Webb, The War and the Workers, 21. 5 The women’s groups involved included the WCG, the WTUL, and the WLL, Lib to Lab, 360–1. 6 Playne, Society at War, 190. 7 ‘Schemes of Work Suggested by Societies and Individuals’, August 1914, MPL/50/2/9/7. 8 NU executive, 6 Aug. 1914, CEMP; CC, 28 Aug. 1914. Angela K. Smith’s work confirms the way in which suffrage continued latently or overtly to inform the thinking and action of most who had been committed to the cause in the pre-war years. Smith, Suffrage Discourse. 9 Kent, Making Peace, 15–16. 10 Edith Palliser at NU executive, 6 August 1914, CEMP. 11 Rejected by the British War Office, the Scottish Women’s Hospitals offered to work under the French military authorities; Dr Elsie Inglis served with great distinction in Serbia, and died there in 1917. For an interesting discus- sion of the relation between this work and suffrage, see Smith, Suffrage Discourse, 81–2. 12 NU executive, 27 August 1914, CEMP; CC, 11 Sept. 1914. 13 NU executive, 6 Aug. 1914, CEMP. 14 NU executive, 27 Aug. 1914, CEMP. 15 E. Pankhurst to Nancy Astor, 3 May 1926, Nancy Astor MSS, quoted by Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries, 35. 16 See, e.g., Hannam, ‘I had not been to London’; Cowman, ‘Crossing the Great Divide’; Cowman, ‘Incipient Toryism?’; de Vries, ‘Gendering Patriotism’; Purvis, Emmeline Pankhurst, ch.19; Rosen, Rise Up Women!, 246–54; Kent, Making Peace, 23–5; Smith, Suffrage Discourse, ch.2; CC, 28 Aug. 1914. 17 de Vries, ‘Gendering Patriotism’. 18 Draft Syllabus: ‘Women’s Work in Time of War’ [August 1914] MPL/M50/ 2/9/10; do. n.d., with a covering letter from Courtney to ‘Members of the Education Sub-Committee’, 18 Sept. 1914, CEMP; NU executive, 27 Aug. 1914. See also A.M. Williams, ‘Workers’, CC, 11 Sept. 1914. 19 An earlier draft, while reassuring to the men replaced (in a war still expected to be short), is far from feminist by our perceptions; for example, retired schoolmistresses who took over from departing schoolmasters might ‘hand over all or part of the salary to the man’s dependents’; other jobs were to be filled when possible by a relative of the soldier, keeping the posi- tion ‘open for the man on his return from the war’. Although the (under- standable) reassurance about keeping the position open was retained, the clause about the retired schoolteachers, which offended against the princi- ple that the army should take care of its own as well as against the far-from- wealthy schoolmistresses themselves disappeared by the second draft, which presumably was closer to the one circulated. 188 Notes 20 Marshall to Miss Jebb, 18, 26 Aug. 1914; extensive material on the farming problem, CEMP. 21 ‘Women’s Work in Time of War’, MPL/M50/2, 9–10. 22 Material in CEMP and in NU executive minutes, WL; references in CC, passim. 23 Marshall to Miss A. Hobbs, 31 Aug. 1914, CEMP. Marshall describes her office as ‘making special investigation with regard to unemployment and distress, particularly amongst women, to supplement the enquiries which are being conducted by the Government Intelligence Bureau, and the Labour Exchange Department of the BOARD of TRADE’.