British Suffrage Movement

The pioneer figure of British feminism was the writer Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). During the 1830s and 1840s British suffragism was supported by the Chartists, who fought for a sweeping program of human rights. Later, some liberal legislators favored woman suffrage, among them John Stuart Mill. In 1897 the National Union of Woman Suffrage Societies was formed. A faction of this group, led by the feminist Emmeline Pankhurst, established the militant Women's Social and Political Union in 1903. The union's tactics included boycotting, bombing, and picketing. In 1913 a suffragist publicized her cause by deliberately hurling herself to her death under the hooves of horses racing at Epsom Downs.

In 1918 the British Parliament gave voting rights to all female householders, householders' wives, and female university graduates over 30 years of age. In 1928 Parliament lowered the voting age of women to 21.