Tour: Mon 12 November 2018, 2pm.
Meet: Central Library, St Peter’s Sq, 2pm.
Booking: Please book here with eventbrite.
What You Need To Think About First…

On 12 November 1918, the day after the Great War armistice, David Lloyd George’s Coalition government announced a General Election would be held in Britain that December. It would be the first at which women could vote. Victory at home as well as abroad!

Imagine the joy that surged through Britain when women realised that at last some women could vote and stand for Parliament.

To mark the centenary New Manchester Walks is hosting a special Suffragette City walk on the exact centenary of the date itself, 12 November 2018.

It wasn’t complete success. Only women over 30 who met a particular property qualification – the same Act gave the vote to all men over the age of 21 – would be able to participate, so women weren’t being treated equally with men.

As far as Christabel Pankhurst was concerned this was everything she had fought for. Emmeline Pankhurst was in two minds, but was happy. Sylvia Pankhurst wasn’t impressed; the fight would continue until women were treated the same as men.

Sixteen women stood at the 1918 General Election. They included Norah Dacre Fox, as an Independent in Richmond. She had been imprisoned three times in Holloway Prison for “acts of terrorism”. She was later prominent in the British Union of Fascists and when the Second World War started was imprisoned at Holloway again, this time for her pro-Hitler beliefs.

Charlotte Despard (Labour, Battersea North) had been friends with Karl Marx’s daughter, Eleanor. She had campaigned against the Boer War as a “wicked war of this Capitalistic government” and she toured Britain speaking against the use of conscription in the Great War. Christabel Pankhurst stood for the Women’s Party in Smethwick in the West Midlands. None of these women were elected. Indeed only one woman was, but you’ll have to come on our tour to find out more about that!