The term refers in particular to members of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, which engaged in direct action and civil disobedience.

The suffragettes heckled politicians, tried to storm parliament, were attacked and sexually assaulted during battles with the police, chained themselves to railings, smashed windows, carried out a nationwide bombing and arson campaign, and faced anger and ridicule in the media.

The death of one suffragette, Emily Wilding Davison, when she ran in front of George V's horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby, made headlines around the world.

[14] In October 1866, amateur scientist Lydia Becker attended a meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science held in Manchester and heard one of the organisors of the petition, Barbara Bodichon, read a paper entitled Reasons for the Enfranchisement of Women.

Mill presented the petition to Parliament in 1866, by which time the supporters had gathered 1499 signatures, including those of Florence Nightingale, Harriet Martineau, Josephine Butler and Mary Somerville.

[15] In March 1867, Becker wrote an article for the Contemporary Review, in which she said: It surely will not be denied that women have, and ought to have, opinions of their own on subjects of public interest, and on the events which arise as the world wends on its way.

From the outset, the WSPU was determined to move away from the staid campaign methods of NUWSS and instead take more positive action:[21] It was on October 10, 1903 that I invited a number of women to my house in Nelson Street, Manchester, for purposes of organisation.

[28] In July 1908 the WSPU hosted a large demonstration in Heaton Park, near Manchester with speakers on 13 separate platforms including Emmeline, Christabel and Adela Pankhurst.

Even the opponents of the suffrage claim who made themselves heard were perfectly friendly towards the speakers, and the only crowding about them as they left was that of curiosity on the part of those who wished to have a good look at the missioners in the cause.

In 1908, the co-editor of the WSPU's Votes for Women newspaper, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence,[30] designed the suffragettes' colour scheme of purple for loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green for hope.

[31] Fashionable London shops Selfridges and Liberty sold tricolour-striped ribbon for hats, rosettes, badges and belts, as well as coloured garments, underwear, handbags, shoes, slippers and toilet soap.

[33] Sylvia Pankhurst said at the time: "Many suffragists spend more money on clothes than they can comfortably afford, rather than run the risk of being considered outré, and doing harm to the cause".

The board game was set out in a spiral, and players were required to lead their suffragette figure from their home to parliament, past the obstacles faced from Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and the Liberal government.

[34] Also in 1909, suffragettes Daisy Solomon and Elspeth McClelland tried an innovative method of potentially obtaining a meeting with Asquith by sending themselves by Royal Mail courier post; however, Downing Street did not accept the parcel.

[40] In 1914, at least seven churches were bombed or set on fire across the United Kingdom, including Westminster Abbey, where an explosion aimed at destroying the 700-year-old Coronation Chair, only caused minor damage.

[42] Pinfold Manor in Surrey, which was being built for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, was targeted with two bombs on 19 February 1913, only one of which exploded, causing significant damage; in her memoirs, Sylvia Pankhurst said that Emily Davison had carried out the attack.

[42] There were 250 arson or destruction attacks in a six-month period in 1913[42] and in April the newspapers reported "What might have been the most serious outrage yet perpetrated by the Suffragettes": Policemen discovered inside the railings of the Bank of England a bomb timed to explode at midnight.

However, recent analysis of the film of the event suggests that she was merely trying to attach a scarf to the horse, and the suicide theory seems unlikely as she was carrying a return train ticket from Epsom and had holiday plans with her sister in the near future.

[55] It became common practice for suffragettes to refuse food in protest for not being designated as political prisoners, and as a result they would be released after a few days and could return to the "fighting line".

[54] The process of tube-feeding was strenuous without the consent of the hunger strikers, who were typically strapped down and force-fed via stomach or nostril tube, often with a considerable amount of force.

[48] The act enabled the British Government to be absolved of any blame resulting from death or harm due to the self-starvation of the striker and ensured that the suffragettes would be too ill and too weak to participate in demonstrative activities while not in custody.

[65] In early 1913 and in response to the Cat and Mouse Act, the WSPU instituted a secret society of women known as the "Bodyguard" whose role was to physically protect Emmeline Pankhurst and other prominent suffragettes from arrest and assault.

Known members included Katherine Willoughby Marshall, Leonora Cohen and Gertrude Harding; Edith Margaret Garrud was their jujitsu trainer.

As suffragettes speaking in public increasingly found themselves the target of violence and attempted assaults, learning jujitsu was a way for women to defend themselves against angry hecklers.

Singh volunteered as a British Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, serving at an auxiliary military hospital in Isleworth from October 1915 to January 1917.

[73][74][75][76] The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, which had always employed "constitutional" methods, continued to lobby during the war years and compromises were worked out between the NUWSS and the coalition government.

[96] The Pankhurst's name and image and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters are etched on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London that was unveiled in 2018.

[97] In 1903, the Australian suffragist Vida Goldstein adopted the WSPU colours for her campaign for the Senate in 1910 but got them slightly wrong since she thought that they were purple, green and lavender.

[104] In the 2020s, the Suffragette flag began to be increasingly used by British feminists protesting against transgender rights; Ria Patel, the spokesperson on diversity and equality for the Green Party of England and Wales, argued that this use "claims a lineage that goes back to Mary Wollstonecraft, who authored Vindication of the Rights of Women (and like most writers of the time used 'sex' to describe both biology, sexual orientation and gender expression), but often uses the language of Suffragette and post-Suffragette feminism".

[105][106][107][108] ^α The Oxford English Dictionary has this, "Originally a generic term, suffragist came to refer specifically to those advocates of women's suffrage who campaigned through peaceful, constitutional measures, in distinction to the suffragettes who employed direct action and civil disobedience."