7 People Who Fought to Give Women the Right to Vote

In early 20th century Britain, the cause of female suffrage was usually ignored by the press and dismissed by politicians. To gain support for their right to vote, suffragettes turned away from peaceful protest and embraced militant tactics that grew to include window breaking and arson. Their fight for equality escalated in violence in 1912 and 1913.

Here are six real-life suffragettes (plus one man) who fought to give women the right to vote:

Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst being arrested at a march outside Buckingham Palace, organized by Pankhurst, to petition King George V, in London on May 21, 1914. On arrival at the palace, the marchers were met with force by the police and violence from the crowd of onlookers.

In 1903, when she was a 45-year-old widow, Emmeline Pankhurst founded the WSPU, whose slogan became “deeds not words.” In her work for the group, she gave speeches that encouraged militant action. She declared in 1913, “Militancy has brought woman suffrage where we want it, that is, to the forefront of practical politics. That’s the justification for it.”

Between 1908 and 1914, Pankhurst was imprisoned 13 times. She would be released after going on hunger strikes, but the police pursued her again once her health had recovered. This cycle only ended with the advent of World War I, when Pankhurst directed WSPU members to support the war effort. In 1918, after the war, Pankhurst was pleased to see women granted limited suffrage.

Hannah Mitchell

Born to a poor family in 1872, Mitchell grew up resenting unfair treatment such as being made to darn her brothers’ socks while they got to relax. However, as an adult she initially considered the fight for female suffrage a middle-class issue: as there was a property requirement for voters, expanding the franchise would do little for women like her.

Instead, Mitchell, who’d worked as a domestic servant and seamstress, devoted her energies to the Independent Labour Party — until she came to feel that the ILP was more focused on universal male suffrage. By 1904, Mitchell had joined the Women’s Social and Political Union, the group headed by Pankhurst whose members became known as suffragettes.

After disrupting a political meeting in 1906, Mitchell was charged with obstruction and given a three-day sentence. Working-class suffragettes with family obligations often found spending time in custody to be difficult — unlike most middle and upper-class women, they had no servants to handle cooking and cleaning while they were away. Mitchell was no exception to this rule — though her husband was a Socialist, he ignored her wishes and paid her fine so she could leave jail after one day. As she noted in her autobiography, The Hard Way Up: “Most of us who were married found that “Votes for Women” were of less interest to our husbands than their own dinners. They simply could not understand why we made such a fuss about it.”

Mitchell left the WSPU in 1907 — in part because she was hurt that Pankhurst didn’t visit when she was recovering from a breakdown — but continued to fight for suffrage with the Women’s Freedom League.

Barbara and Gerald Gould

One real-life couple who both supported female suffrage was Barbara Ayrton Gould and her husband Gerald. Barbara, who’d studied chemistry and physiology at University College, London, became a member of WSPU in 1906 and was a full-time organizer for the group by 1909. Barbara and Gerald got married in 1910.

Gerald supported women’s suffrage with actions like writing a pro-suffrage pamphlet entitled The Democratic Plea. In March 1912, Barbara participated in an attention-grabbing bout of smashing store windows in the West End of London. After this, Barbara spent time in prison; in 1913, she went to France for a time to avoid being rearrested.

Frustrated by WSPU leadership, Barbara left the group in 1914. However, the Goulds didn’t abandon their quest for women’s suffrage: On February 6, 1914, they were among the founders of the United Suffragists, which welcomed both men and women as members. That group ended its campaign when 1918’s Representation of the People Act gave women limited suffrage.

Edith Garrud

Suffragette Edith Garrud was born in 1872. While protesting, suffragettes often faced harassment and attacks, both from the police and members of the public. But thanks to Garrud’s martial arts instruction, which she was offering to suffragettes by 1909, many learned how to defend themselves with jiu-jitsu.

In addition to “suffrajitsu,” as this training came to be nicknamed, Garrud also organized a protective force — called “The Bodyguard” — to keep Pankhurst and other suffragette leaders safe and out of police custody. Besides their martial arts skills, women on protective duty learned to wield clubs they kept hidden in their dresses.

Olive Hockin

One target of suffragette ire was chancellor of the exchequer David Lloyd George. In February 1913, suffragettes bombed an empty house that was being built for Lloyd George.

The actual perpetrator(s) of the bombing were never found — instead, Pankhurst was arrested after declaring, “The authorities need not look for the women who did what was done last night. I accept full responsibility for it.” However, police considered Olive Hockin one of the prime suspects.

Though Hockin wasn’t charged with the Lloyd George bombing, police raided her home in March 1913 after a suffragette paper with her name and address was found at the site of an arson attack on the Roehampton Golf Club. Inside her apartment, they found a “suffragette arsenal” that included acid, a fake license plate, stones, a hammer and wire cutters.

Emily Wilding Davison

Emily Davison, who was born in 1872, joined the WSPU in 1906, and soon was devoting all her energy to the fight for suffrage. Her militant actions included attacking a man with a whip when she mistook him for George, stone-throwing and arson. (Davison has sometimes been labeled as one of the suffragettes who bombed George’s house in 1913, but records indicate the police did not view her as a suspect.)

Davison was jailed nine times for her militancy. During her time behind bars, she was subjected to 49 force-feedings (many suffragettes were force-fed when they started hunger strikes in prison). In an article, she wrote that these feedings were a “hideous torture.”

Davison’s last militant act took place at the Epsom Derby in June 1913. There, she ran in front of, and was subsequently trampled by, the king’s horse; she died a few days later. Davison’s true intentions have been debated: Some feel she wanted to become a martyr, others believe she only aimed to make a statement by placing the suffragette colors of purple, white and green on the king’s horse. The fact that Davison had a return train ticket in her purse and was planning a vacation in France indicate she didn’t intend to commit suicide, but there is no definitive answer.