Stornoway Women's Suffrage Society

The Stornoway suffrage association was formed of 25 women, from a community very different from the middle class London or working class factory women joining the big city suffrage societies or the militant Women's Social and Political Union (suffragette) activities, elsewhere in Scotland and across Britain.[1]

Hebridean women were mainly heavy manual workers, strong physical women who worked gutting fish for the herring trawler industry,[2] following the fleet locally, and travelling with other women from fishing villages around the coast of Scotland, and Britain gutting the fish in the herring season.

Despite having no rights to vote, the women made a significant financial contribution to the islands (£75,000 p.a. before the First World War); or worked in crofting, in small plots growing crops and keeping animals, whilst their men were away at sea. Men contributed less overall for the islands prosperity (£25,000 p.a.) at that time than the fisherwomen.[3]

The notion of a woman's rights to work and travel was normal in coastal communities, making it a simpler case for equal franchise.[3] The Stornoway Town Council supported the motion to give women the vote, before the Representation of the People Act (1918) made it real.

Hebridean women, on the remotest island St. Kilda (now uninhabited) were among the first to vote.[4]

The munitions factories recruited these hard working women, taking 500 from the islands at the start of the war.[1]

Women from the islands, who were formally educated and went on to work internationally at that time, included Helen MacDougal, who became a doctor and radiographer in the Scottish Women's military hospital in Serbia, during the First World War, but less celebrated than her brother[3][5]

The organisation like others in Scotland was affiliated to the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. Despite their rural setting, activities included members speaking at public meetings, distributing fliers, and writing articles in the local press to promote the cause of women's suffrage, and share what was happening, by having visiting speakers, even prior to the formation of the society, such as Jessie Craigen[6] from the better known suffrage movement within the larger cities.[7] [1]

A play 'Deeds Not Words' was commissioned and toured the Hebrides, on the centenary of women's right to vote, in 2018, researched and written by Toria Banks, directed by Muriel Ann Macleod, music by Mary Ann Kennedy, with a local and Scottish female cast and production team.[1]

This was sponsored by Rural Nations Scotland CIC and others, [3] to celebrate women's suffrage movements in the Hebrides, a hidden history of local engagement in the national struggle for women's suffrage prior to 1918.[1]

Director Muriel Ann Macleod said about the research, the touring production and future museum display:

'“Everything that celebrates the Hebrides changes perception and I certainly hope people will think differently about their grannies and what they did.”'

• King, Elspeth (1978) The Scottish Women’s Suffrage Movement. Glasgow. People’s Palace Museum
• Leneman, Leah (1995) A Guid Cause: The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Scotland. Edinburgh. Mercat Press.
• Leneman, Leah (2000) The Scottish Suffragettes. Edinburgh. National Museums of Scotland. 190166340x
• Pedersen, Sarah (2017) The Scottish Suffragettes and the Press. London. Palgrave MacMillan. 9781137538338

• Feminism in the United Kingdom
• List of suffragists and suffragettes
• List of women's rights activists
• List of women's rights organizations
• Timeline of women's suffrage
• Women's suffrage organizations