This book is the first comprehensive study of the campaign for women's suffrage to appear for over thirty years. It challenges the widely-held assumption that the Victorian suffragists underwent a decline during the 1890s, and sets out to prove that, on the contrary, they had effectively won the argument about votes for womenby 1900. To support this view the author demonstrates how ineffective Anti-Suffragisn was during this period; cites the impetus given to the campaign by the enfranchisement of women in New Zealand and Australia, in 1893 and 1902; and crucially examines the shift towards suffragist support by the Conservative party in the 1890s.The March of the Women also evaluates anew the militant campaign of the Edwardian era, contrasting the sharp divisions over tactics among the London leadership with the more pragmatic approach at grass roots level. It shows how the Pankhursts and the WSPU managed to combine attacking the British Establishment and its values with tapping into it for support and funds; while at the other end of the spectrum the non-militants gathered support for the cause from the working-class and the emergent Labour Party.
Readership: Scholars and students of modern English political and social history; of Women's studies; general readers interested in the struggle for women's rights.
Martin Pugh, Research Professor in History at Liverpool John Moores University
"the most comprehensive overview of the campaign yet to be produced ... he shows that the whole movement was far more varied, subtle and inventive than has been generally assumed." - Catholic Herald
"Pugh brings to the story four essential qualities: a round understanding of the British political structure and how it has evolved; a rich grounding in the archives and secondary sources; a full awareness that here the distinction between social and political history is important; and above all, the historican's fair-minded determination to see things as contempories saw them, without hindsight, wishful thinking or preaching." - Times Literary Supplement
"A concise, fully documented, up-to-date "revisionist analysis" of the women's suffrage campaign is long overdue. Nobody is better equipped to write it than Martin Pugh, who has illuminated so many dimensions of women's history since the 1970s" - Times Literary Supplement
Introduction The Issues;1: The Tactical Dilemmas 2: The Debate Winning the Advantage;3: Decline or Revival? Women's Suffrage in the 1890s 4: The Impact of International Development on Women's Suffrage 5: Conservatism: The Unexpected Ally 6: Liberalism: The Unexpected Enemy 7: The Failure of Anti-Suffragism Edwardian Climax;8: The Anatomy of Millitancy 9: Women's Suffrage and Public Opinion 10: The Revival of Non-Militant Suffragism, 1912-1914 Epilogue: War and the Vote
