Women's suffrage in Scotland

Women's suffrage was the seeking of the right of women to vote in elections. It was carried out by both men and women, it was a very elongated and gruelling campaign that went on for 86 years before the Representation of the People Act 1918 was introduced on 6 February 1918, which provided a few women with the right to vote.[1]

Anna Munro advertising the Scottish Women's Freedom League

One of the earlier societies supporting women's rights to vote was established in Scotland's capital, the Edinburgh National Society for Women's Suffrage.[2]

Scottish suffragettes released from prison with Flora Drummond

Later Scotland's suffragettes were part of the British Women's Political and Social Union militant movement, and took part in campaigns locally and in London; for example when Winston Churchill arrived to stand for election as M.P. in Dundee in 1908 he was followed by 27 of the national leaders of the women's suffrage movements. At one point he even hid in a shed and tried to host a meeting there.[3]

Scottish women like Flora Drummond had leadership roles with the Pankhursts, in the London WSPU headquarters, and celebrated the Scottish community of activists on their release from prison.[4] Others like Frances Parker, from New Zealand, were organising the West of Scotland WSPU and like others was infamously subjected to force feeding orally and rectally in Scottish [5] and British prisons.[6] Parker was also arrested when trying to disrupt David Lloyd George from giving a speech in the Music Hall in Aberdeen, and allegedly set fire to Burns Cottage in Alloway, Ayrshire.[7]

There were many Scottish women across all classes who took an active role in the movement to draw attention to the growing demands for equal right to Votes for Women.

Scottish branches of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies were active in the main cities and even in the rural and remote areas such as Dornoch,[8][9] in the Highlands, Stornoway with 27 women forming a suffrage association,[10] from the remote Western Isles (the Hebrides), as well as NUWSS Orcadian group[11] in Orkney and a Shetland suffrage society.[12]

Fanny Parker being escorted out from Ayr Sheriff Court