This Seminar Study was the first book to trace the British women’s suffrage campaign from its origins in the 1860s through to the achievement of equal suffrage in 1928.Unlike most studies of the period, the book pays equal attention to the period after 1914 when suffrage legislation was actually obtained. In this new edition, Smith provides new evidence drawn from the author’s research on how the main post-1918 women’s organisation [the NUSEC] worked with Conservative Party women to persuade the Conservative Party to endorse equal franchise rights. 

Smith focuses on the actions of reformers and their opponents, with due attention paid to the campaigns in Scotlandand Walesas well as the movements in England. Within a chronological framework he explores why women’s suffrage was such a contentious issue, and how women gained the vote despite opponents’ fears that it would undermine gender boundaries (thus the suffrage campaign is firmly placed in the context of gender conflicts developing during this period). The campaign is not treated in isolation: not only is it viewed as part of the emerging women’s movement but it is also integrated into the wider political picture. Thus the book sheds light on related issues, such as the reasons for the Liberal Party’s decline and the Conservative Party’s unexpected electoral success in the interwar years.