The Women's Victory - And After

After a long struggle women in the United Kingdom were finally given the right to vote on 6th February 1918 when the Royal Assent was given to the Representation of the People Act. One of the key suffragette campaigners who fought hard for those rights was Millicent Garrett Fawcett. Fawcett led the biggest suffrage organisation the non-violent (NUWSS) from 1890-1919 and played a key role in winning women the vote. Her book The Womans Victory and After was first published in 1920 and looks back on the history of the womens movement from 1911 to 1918 chronicling the advances her and her fellow campaigners made and the obstacles they encountered during this period. Although the NUWSS steadily gained more support in the lead up to the First World War it was the outbreak of this momentous conflict and devastating effect it had on Britain that was the final breakthrough in gaining them the vote. The need for female support and female workers to aid the economy while hundreds of thousands of men were drafted into battle meant that womens voices could no longer go unheard and womens rights could no longer be ignored. A classic tract that outlines from personal experience the victories for women in this period The Womens Victory is essential reading for anyone interested in this period. Millicent Fawcett (1847 1929) was involved from an early age in the women''s movement through her sister Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and her friend Emily Davies. She was on the first suffrage committee in 1867 and also worked for the Married Woman''s property Act while her house in Cambridge was the base for the women''s lecture scheme from which Newnham College developed. In 1897 she became President of the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). At the outbreak of World War I in 1914 she urged the membership to devote its energies to the War effort; but in 1916 she pressed again for enfranchisement which was recommended by a Parliamentary Conference (1917) and passed by both Houses (1918). She then resigned her presidency but continued to campaign for full suffrage (1928) and for professional opportunities and legal rights. She wrote several books on famous women including Life of Queen Victoria and Womens Suffrage: A Personal History. She was created DBE in 1925.