The Vote Before The Vote

Few people realise that Mrs Pankhurst's Suffragettes were born out of a Women’s Rights movement begun over 60 years previously. In this time they had already won for women the right to vote, and stand, in local elections, and achieved other considerable advances.

Women in the 19th century had huge obstacles to overcome, so the movement for equal citizenship was not a single issue campaign. The activists, of both sexes, demanded for women:

• A legal existence separate from their father or husband
• Control of their own earnings, money and property
• The right to work and to join a trade union or professional body
• Equal rights to education including universities
• The opportunity to enter the professions e.g. law, accountancy, medicine, science
• Equal custody rights of their children
• Equal divorce rights
• The right to serve on juries
• The local and parliamentary vote on the same terms as men
• The right to stand for election to public office

Read more about The Vote Before The Vote here. We'll also be updating this site throughout the exhibition, so please keep checking back to see what's new.

The Women