--- title: "Suffragette Movement: WSPU Founded" year: 1903 country: "United Kingdom" canonical: "https://recap.at/1903/wspu-founded" slug: "wspu-founded" recapType: "global_event" startDate: "1903-01-01" --- # Suffragette Movement: WSPU Founded > Suffragette Movement: WSPU Founded Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters founded the Women's Social and Political Union in Manchester on October 10, 1903, abandoning the patient lobbying tactics of older suffrage groups for confrontational direct action. The WSPU's willingness to break laws-heckling politicians, destroying property, and enduring imprisonment-made 'suffragette' a household word and transformed the fight for women's voting rights from a polite petition into a national crisis that Britain couldn't ignore. ## Summary A suffragette was a member or supporter of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), an activist women's group agitating for votes for women, which in the early 20th century broke away from the much larger, peaceful and longer lasting National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), whose supporters were known as suffragists. Both organisations campaigned for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. However, the Women's Social and Political Union, a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, engaged in direct action and civil disobedience as a result of what they saw as slow progress towards universal suffrage. In 1906, a journalist writing in the Daily Mail coined the term suffragette for the WSPU, derived from suffragistα, reportedly to 'indicate that special revolutionary quality of impatience which marked the new variety of suffragist', although Elizabeth Crawford, a researcher and author on the women's suffrage movement, has suggested it was to 'belittle and to show that they were less than the proper kind of suffrage worker'. Whatever the truth was, the militants embraced the new name, even adopting it for use as the title of the newspaper published by the WSPU. ## Key facts - **Founding date**: October 10, 1903 - **Founding location**: Manchester, England - **Founder**: Emmeline Pankhurst - **Years of peak activity**: 1903–1914 (suspended during WWI) - **Membership estimate at peak**: Approximately 5,000 active members (tens of thousands of supporters) - **Estimated arrests**: Over 1,000 members arrested during campaign - **Vote achieved**: Women over 30 (with property qualifications) in 1918; all women 21+ in 1928 ## Timeline - **1903-10-10** - WSPU Founded Emmeline Pankhurst establishes the Women's Social and Political Union in Manchester with a small group including her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. The organization immediately rejects the cautious approach of the longer-established National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. - **1905-10-13** - First Disruption Campaign Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney interrupt a Manchester Liberal rally, marking the WSPU's shift toward militant tactics and generating their first arrests. - **1906-02-01** - WSPU Relocates to London The organization moves its headquarters to London to intensify pressure on Parliament, expanding membership and visibility dramatically. - **1908-06-21** - Hyde Park Demonstration The WSPU organizes a massive rally in Hyde Park with an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 attendees, one of the largest political gatherings in British history to that date. - **1909-07-13** - First Forcible Feeding Imprisoned suffragette Marion Wallace Dunlop begins hunger strikes; authorities respond with forcible feeding, creating a scandal that generates international press attention. - **1911-05-17** - Coronation Procession The WSPU stages a major procession during King George V's coronation, demonstrating their reach even amid national ceremonial events. - **1912-03-01** - Window-Breaking Campaign The WSPU launches coordinated attacks on shop windows and government buildings across London, with Christabel Pankhurst orchestrating the campaign from France to avoid arrest. Over 200 women are arrested. - **1913-06-04** - Emily Davison's Death Suffragette Emily Davison dies after being struck by King George V's horse during the Epsom Derby. Her funeral becomes a massive political demonstration with over 6,000 mourners in procession. - **1914-08-04** - Campaign Suspended Emmeline Pankhurst suspends militant suffragette activities as Britain enters World War I, redirecting energies toward the war effort. The suspension lasts until 1918. - **1918-01-01** - Partial Vote Won Women over 30 with property qualifications gain the right to vote in British elections. The WSPU's pre-war campaign is credited as a major factor in shifting public opinion, though universal female suffrage isn't achieved until 1928. ## Consequences - **1907 - Women's Property Act amendments**: Legislation expanded women's property rights in the UK, partly in response to suffragette activism and broader women's rights discourse - **1912 - Window-smashing campaign**: WSPU members under Emmeline Pankhurst's leadership escalated to property destruction in London's West End, marking a shift to militant tactics that divided the suffrage movement - **1913 - Cat and Mouse Act**: The Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act allowed authorities to release hunger-striking suffragettes from prison temporarily, then re-arrest them—a direct response to WSPU prison tactics - **1918 - Representation of the People Act**: Women over 30 who met property qualifications gained voting rights in the UK; full suffrage equality achieved a decade later in 1928 - **1919 - Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act**: Opened many professions to women, including law and civil service; part of the broader post-war settlement acknowledging women's expanded public role ## Then vs now - **Women in UK Parliament**: 1903: 0 → 2024: 220 - Out of 650 total MPs; roughly 34% representation - **Countries with female suffrage**: 1903: 0 → 2024: 193 - New Zealand was first in 1893, but universal female suffrage remained exceptionally rare in 1903 - **UK women eligible to vote**: 1903: 0% → 2024: ~100% - Women over 21 gained equal voting rights to men only in 1928 - **Female workforce participation in UK**: 1903: ~35% → 2024: ~72% ## Impact The WSPU's fourteen-year campaign fractured British politics and forced women's suffrage onto every public agenda. Though World War I temporarily halted their tactics, the organization's uncompromising stance fundamentally shifted how political movements pursued rights-proving that disruption could succeed where deference had stalled. ## Sources - [Suffragette movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette) - Wikipedia --- Canonical: https://recap.at/1903/wspu-founded