Women's suffrage in Wales

Due to differing social structures and a heavily industrialised working-class society, the growth of a national movement in Wales grew but then stuttered in the late nineteenth century in comparison with that of England.

Militant action was not a hallmark of the movements in Wales and Welsh members, who more often identified themselves as suffragists, sought Parliamentary and public support through political and peaceful means.

[4] The coal mining industry, with its absence of pithead baths, led to unpaid women's employment as the need to keep both their homes and the family's menfolk clean became a never ending task.

[5] The increase of wealth created by the mining and metalworking industries saw the creation of new upper-class families who often built their wealthy homes in the centre of the community from which they prospered.

Whereas the pit and foundry owners were initially men, many of whom had political ambitions, their wives sought more charitable activities often connected to improving the lives of the women and children of their husband's workers.

[10] The first suffrage tour of Welsh towns was conducted the following year by Jessie Craigen, who travelled the south of the country visiting Pontypool, Pembroke Dock, Neyland, Saundersfoot and Newport.

[10] Later that year the Bristol & West of England Society for Women's Suffrage sent two of their members, Caroline Biggs and Lilias Ashworth, on a sponsored speaking tour of south Wales which took in Pontypool, Newport, Cardiff and Haverfordwest.

[10] Despite the actions of several prominent Welsh women, such as Lady Amberley and Miss Gertrude Jenner of Wenvoe, no real suffrage movements took hold in the 1870s and the country was reliant on speaking tours from members of English societies, predominantly from Bristol, London and Manchester.

[12] This was a preliminary to a larger meeting that was held on 9 March which was attended by local dignitaries, Miss Jenner, Helen Blackburn and was chaired by the Mayor of Cardiff.

[15] One act of significant importance that did occur during this period was the decision in late 1884 by the delegates of the Aberdare, Merthyr and Dowlais District Mine Association to support a series of talks by Jeanette Wilkinson on the right of women's votes.

[33] Although Lloyd George always stated his support to the suffrage movement in public speeches, the failure of the Liberal Government to make any progress on implementing change led Christabel Pankhurst to believe him to be a secret anti-suffragist.

[38] Just two weeks later one of the most notorious events in the history of suffrage in Wales took place, when Lloyd George returned to his home town of Llanystumdwy to open the village hall.

It was an attempt to remind the public of the larger constitutional and non-militant wing of the movement, and routes were planned from 17 British towns and cities, including Wales.

[53] In south Wales signs of working-class involvement in the suffrage cause took shape through the Women's Co-operative Guild, with a branch opening in Ton Pentre in the Rhondda in 1914 run by Elizabeth Andrews.

[54][55] The WPSU, reformed as the Women's Party from 1917, sent members across Wales, no longer to rally for suffrage but to encourage male volunteers to join the British Army.

[63] Several factors led to the passing of the act, including the efforts of working women, the dilution of anti-suffrage rhetoric and political change in London, where Asquith had been replaced as prime minister by Lloyd George.

[67] Other branches continued the political vision of equal suffrage, notably Bangor, while the Cardiff WSS busied itself by attempting to secure the election of women to local government posts.

[68][69] The fact that the terms of enfranchisement were not equal to men ensured that the surviving suffragist societies still had a focus, and the first point of order was the bill to admit women as MPs.

[73] The Women's Freedom League (WFL), which was formed in 1907 out of schism caused by Emmeline Pankhurst's desire for a more authoritarian style of leadership within the WSPU, was a vocal advocate of equal rights throughout the 1920s.

Initial impressions of women's voting rights in the country can appear to suggest apathy or even hostility towards suffrage, but historians such as Kay Cook and Neil Evans writing in 1991, and built upon by Dr. Kirsti Bohata, argue specific cultural environments led to a more cautious and considered political ideology.

[78] The findings of the report were immensely detailed and were damning towards not only the state of education in Wales but drew a very critical picture of the Welsh as a people, labelling them as immoral and backwards.

[79] The report drew questions over the chastity of the poor and was just as damning to the wealthier women of the country; claiming that English farmers’ daughters were respectable; while their Welsh counterparts Wales were in the "constant habit of being courted in bed".

[83][84] Jane Aaron in 1994 described how the desire for Welsh womanhood to be seen as respectable in the eyes of its "colonial" neighbour endured even when their English counterparts had decided to take up an aggressive or 'unwomanly' mantle to achieve their goals of female emancipation.

[87] In addition, the societies that sprang up in the wealthier coastal towns of the north and south were run by middle-class women, normally of English background with little or no understanding of the Welsh language.

[84] Cook and Evans argue that, despite suffrage in Wales being introduced by a new generation of immigrant middle-class women, there was still a definite 'Welshness' to the ideology fostered by the nation, which was at loggerheads with their English counterparts.

[88] Wales had shown an independent resistance to the EFF and David Lloyd George was still a national institution, despite his prominent role in the government making him an obvious target for disruption.

[90][91] In 1912 after Lloyd George scuppered the third Conciliation Bill, Mansell Moullin quit the organisation and formed the Forward Cymric Suffrage Union, which had a more militant policy.

[89] It depended deeply in its embryonic years on celebrated suffragists from outside its borders to bring crowds to town meetings, but still relied on a network of now forgotten non-militant supporters who organised and campaigned on the ground level.

[95] Trade unionists Vernon Hartshorn and George Barker were vocal supporters of the suffrage movement, while James Grant a socialist propagandist and keen seller of The Suffragette was imprisoned for five days after being arrested for obstruction while lecturing in Treorchy Square.

[99][nb 5] In the period between 1918 and 1928, the WFL in Swansea produced two prominent activists in Emily Frost Phipps and her close friend Clara Neal, who were founder members of their branch.