The Women's Suffrage Movement in Wales, 1866-1928

An organized women's suffrage movement operated continuously in Britain for more than sixty years, from the mid 1860s until the achievement of equal voting rights with men in 1928. In the decade prior to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, both militant suffragettes and law-abiding suffragists ensured that the issue came to the forefront of British politics. This book is the first large-scale, comprehensive investigation into the movement in Wales, which participated in the agitation throughout the whole of the period. Grounded in primary research of extensive archival material, this study looks at the impact that all the various campaigning organizations had in Wales, it highlights the role of the many hugely committed but unsung individuals on whom local impact was dependent and looks at the stances adopted by various politicians and at parliamentary developments. The book covers the dramatic and sensational actions carried out by the 'suffragettes' in Wales, some of which led to several of the most widely-publicized clashes between demonstrators and authority outside London, and the more mundane work undertaken by the vast majority of campaigners across the decades. Due attention is paid to the opponents of women's suffrage, to their arguments and to their organized resistance. Finally, the study recognizes the survival of the campaign in the face of the wartime difficulties and then details the much-neglected last decade of the campaign, between the granting of partial enfranchisement in 1918 and the triumph of equal franchise in 1928.