A history of the women’s movement in Sheffield, England in the twentieth century, examining how women’s roles evolved during and between the world wars. This book looks into the role of women of Sheffield and how it has evolved from the powerlessness of a woman involved in a wife sale, to the achievement of the election of its first female Lord Mayor. Using newspapers of the period, archive material and modern photographs, Struggle and Suffrage in Sheffield examines how the role of women slowly changed in the city. It also highlights the militancy of the Sheffield suffragettes who not only organised demonstrations in Sheffield, but also sent groups to take part in some of the most notorious demonstrations in London. Following these demonstrations several local women were badly manhandled by police before being arrested and sent to Holloway Prison. Adela Pankhurst tried at first to bring the women of the Sheffield WSPU to achieve the vote through peaceful means, only when the Conciliation Bill of June 1910 was dropped, did she then encourage them to take more militant action. Following the outbreak of both world wars the women of Sheffield worked in the steelworks making munitions. They worked day and night shifts as bombs were falling about them, but when both wars ended they were abruptly dismissed, as the men returned to take up their former jobs. Only following a meeting with PM Gordon Brown and the erection of a bronze statue of Women of Steel in 2016, did Sheffield women truly get the acknowledgment they deserved.

This book focuses on how there was more to women’s history than just the suffrage campaign and women’s war work by looking at the broader context of women’s achievements. The book is divided into themes looking at education, work, marriage, relationships, health and maternity, poverty and housing, and the involvement of women in political parties and campaigns for social and legal reforms, including the right to vote. It explores these themes through the lives of both the well-known and women who rarely, if ever, make the history books. The stories of Norwich women such as Mabel Clarkson, the first female sheriff in England, and one of the first women councillors and Lady Lord Mayor; and Dorothy Jewson, the first female MP in Norwich and East Anglia, provide the backdrop to the history of campaigns against poverty and women’s right to vote. Drawing on published and unpublished material held in the record office and heritage centre, the National Archives, museums and private collections, this book explores the lives of individual women to chart transformational changes in society at large, and Norwich in particular. These social, political and legal changes can be traced through the lives of divorcee Elizabeth Gurney; suffragette Miriam Pratt; nurse Philippa Flowerday, blacksmith Elizabeth Sabberton; economist and writer Harriet Martineau and abolitionist and writer Amelia Opie, and numerous schoolteachers, clerks, tradeswomen, weavers, WWI munitionettes and more.

Much has been written about the men of Wakefield, but apart from a couple of well-documented individuals, the women of Wakefield have remained largely ignored. Yet many women in this prosperous West Riding town worked hard to improve their lives and those of other women. Whether this was healthcare, housing, working conditions or providing refuge and training so that girls with no means of support could be made fit for employment, Wakefield’s women worked separately and together to achieve their mutual goals. Some were active campaigners and lobbyists, others chose vocations that quietly improved the lives of the women around them. Struggle and Suffrage in Wakefield uses historical newspaper articles, minutes of meetings, annual reports, first-hand stories and research into census returns to illustrate how women’s lives changed over a 100 year period and reveal some of those Wakefield women whose influence made things happen.

The story of Leeds is bound up in the stories of its women workers. But what were conditions like for ordinary women, and how did their lives change in the hundred years between 1850 and 1950? Who were the women who toiled in the mills, factories and sweatshops that transformed the city’s landscape? Where and how did they live? What did they do in their leisure time? What happened to them when they needed medical care? What did the campaign for suffrage mean in real-life terms for the women who had no vote and whose voices have rarely been heard? In Leeds, the campaign for suffrage was set against a backdrop of industry that relied on women workers for whom hardship was a fact of life. As the campaign for votes for women gained traction from the 1860s, social and political reformers and activists worked to improve conditions not just in industry, but in schools, hospitals and in the opportunities available to women and girls. Some of the women, like the prominent suffragette Leonora Cohen and Leeds’ first female MP, Alice Bacon, are still talked about, but the city’s history is full of the stories of exceptional, inspirational women who in their own ways did their bit, broke the mould, and refused to fit into proscribed roles. In doing so, they opened the door for women to achieve some of the freedoms we now take for granted. This new, fully illustrated book brings them back from obscurity and lets their voices to heard.

This collection explores the aftermath of the Representation of the People Act, which gave some British women the vote. Experts examine the paths taken by both former-suffragists as well as their anti-suffragist adversaries, the practices of suffrage commemoration, and the changing priorities and formations of British feminism in this era.

This book looks into the role of women of Sheffield and how it has evolved from the powerlessness of a woman involved in a wife sale, to the achievement of the election of its first female Lord Mayor. Using, newspapers of the period, archive material and modern photographs, this book examines how the role of women slowly changed in the city. It also highlights the militancy of the Sheffield suffragettes who not only organized demonstrations in Sheffield, but also sent groups to take part in some of the most notorious demonstrations in London. Following these demonstrations several local women were badly manhandled by police before being arrested and sent to Holloway Prison. Adela Pankhurst tried at first to bring the women of the Sheffield WSPU to achieve the vote through peaceful means, only when the Conciliation Bill of June 1910 was dropped, did she then encourage them to take more militant action. Following the outbreak of both world wars the women of Sheffield worked in the steelworks making munitions. They worked day and night shifts often as bombs were falling about them, but when both wars ended they were abruptly dismissed, often with little notice as the men returned to take up their former jobs. Not until 2010 did the women of Sheffield get thanks or any kind of recognition for their services during both world wars. Only following a meeting with PM Gordon Brown and the erection of a bronze statue of Women of Steel in 2016, did Sheffield women truly get the acknowledgment they deserved.