by Barbara Anderson

Created on: October 07, 2008

The Suffragette movement really begin in Britain in 1832 when Lord Grey pushed the controversial "Great Reform Act" through Parliament. The Act was intended to reform the electoral process by extending the right to vote to the more people. However, the document inadvertedly used the word "males" instead of "people", thus legally excluding women from the vote. In 1847, the first leaflet advocating votes for women appeared, and suffrage societies began to form throughout the country.

In 1869, John Stuart Mill, a member of the British Parliament and strong advocate of women's rights, unsuccessfully led an attempt to secure votes for women in the "Second Reform Act". This was followed, one year later, by a fresh attempt, also unsuccessful, to win the right to vote for women by Richard Pankhurst, another member of Parliament. His wife Emmeline and daughter Chistabel would later become two of the major leaders of the Suffragette movement.

In 1893, New Zealand became the first country to allow women to vote, followed nine years later by Australia.

Emboldened by their sister suffragettes in these other parts of the British empire, and frustrated by the lack of progress in reform at home, the leaders of the Suffragette movement took matters into their own hands. The Women's Social and Political Union held its first meeting on October 10, 1903, and declared that the situation was so serious that civil disobedience would be the order of the day.

Women initially began protesting peacefully by chaining themselves to railings. They hired boats and sailed up the Thames, shouting abusive comments directed at Parliament. Later, the campaign extended to minor vandalism in an attempt to make their point. In 1905, Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kennedy were the first to be jailed for disrupting a Liberal Party meeting when they asked two Liberal politicians (Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey) if they believed that women should have the right to vote. When neither man replied, they took out a banner with the slogan "Votes for Women", and shouted at the two men. Arrested for causing an obstruction and assault on a policeman, they refused to pay their fines, and their jailing created headlines throughout the world.

When civil disobedience did not quickly lead to the desired result, some suffragettes resorted to violence in an attempt to achieve their goals. In 1912, Christabel Pankhurst began organizing a secret arson campaign. The group burned churches since the Church of England

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