A very detailed account of the most famous organisation to fight for Votes for Women in Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and focused on the leading figures, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, though with detailed information about other activists.

I found this interesting but a little frustrating. I have read quite a bit about the suffrage movement and have my own opinions on some of the issues and people involved.

This book would be invaluable to anyone needing a reference work or wanting to research further on the suffragettes, as it brings together a lot of information. Also it is generously illustrated with 40 pages of
black and white photographic plates showing portrait photos of leading suffragettes, pictures of posters and propaganda materials, and photographs of marches. It is meticulously referenced with many pages of endnotes giving sources.

However, this level of detail does at times weigh down the narrative and makes the book a challenging read.

On the politics of the suffragettes, Diane Atkinson is keen to defend the legacy of the movement and repeats a number of times that Emmeline Pankhurst and her eldest daughter Christabel didn't move increasingly to the right, but she doesn't offer much evidence of this. For much of the period of campaigning between 1906 and 1914 the government was Liberal and Asquith as Prime Minister was not inclined to grant women the vote, to discuss it etc, but neither were many Conservative politicians. Yet Emmeline Pankhurst eventually did join the Conservative Party and stood for Parliament as a Tory candidate in Whitechapel in 1928 (though in fact she died before the election). Before that, the suffragettes not actually abandoned activity at the outbreak of war, they turned to taking a very aggressively pro-military position There are some mentions of Sylvia Pankhurst's growing differences - she remained a socialist, and was close to the Labour Party, particularly some of its more left wing leading figures, and to the Communist Party.

Anyway, I found the assertions and a lot of detail rather than analysis a bit frustrating. ( )

Rise Up, Women! :The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes
By Diane Atkinson
2017
Bloomsbury

Comprehensive and thoroughly researched, this 600+ page history of the campaign for Votes for Women in Great Britain between 1903-1914.
Formed by the infamous Parkhurst sisters, the WSPU (Womens Social and Political Union) followed the Independant Labour Party. Selling pamphlets, newspapers they eventually expanded and moved from Manchester to London in 1906. The Suffragists were often targeted and arrested on trivial charges and given sentences from 1 day to several months, many arrested numerous times. In 1908 the colors of purple, white and green were used to symbolize a Suffragette. In 1909 The Womens
Exhibition in Knightsbridge lasted 2 weeks, with speeches, demonstrations and marches against the Bill of Rights. Jailed Suffragettes began hunger strikes and were force fed, often through the nose, until the women became so frail they were released for fear they would die while in their care. And 'Black Friday', November 18, 1910 when 150 women were physically and sexually assaulted by police at a now famous protest against Winston Churchill .....and many more events are chronicled in the fascinating and beautifully written history. There are many B&W photos throughout the book.
Powerful...Remarkable...highly recommendationed. Excellent notes, as well! ( )

Rise up Women! – A Fantastic Chronicle of the Fight for Women’s Suffrage

It is 100 years ago that some women finally gained the vote, after years of fighting for the right to do so. 110 years ago, this year close to half a million-people gathered in Hyde Park, London, and celebrated “Women’s Sunday”. This was a peaceful, good humoured event that still did not persuade the Members of Parliament or the Government to extend the franchise to women. Peaceful campaigning had gained nothing in the fight for suffrage, others began to look at other ways to protest.

Today, even as someone has studied history and both undergraduate and post-graduate level, I had forgotten the humiliation that the suffragettes suffered. When you listen to the government today lecturing the world about democracy, one just to look back at how women were treated, and all they wanted was the vote.

Diane Atkinson has managed to bring this to the fore, with her brilliantly written and researched Rise Up Women! She brings some clarity and honesty to the vitriol the suffragettes faced, as the white middle-class and upper-class males protected their monopoly on the levers of power.

What comes through this excellent volume is the power of the bloody difficult women who continued to challenge the establishment and at the same time changed the perception of women, for the better, before the war in 1914.

I must admit I do like the riposte Kitty Marion gave to the magistrate, who has said women may get the vote if they behaved, Marion replied “Men don’t always behave properly and they the vote.” When one thinks what these men did to the suffragettes is unforgiveable, force-feeding with maximum violence. Nose and throats widened with knives to insert the unwashed feeding tubes.

It must never be forgotten that by 1903 seven countries, among them two countries in the Empire, Australia and New Zealand, had some form of female suffrage. It was Emmeline Pankhurst, Mancunian social reformer and her three daughters who founded the Women’s Social and Political Union in October 1903, that Atkinson rightly begins with, after discussing the previous reform acts.

From here Atkinson gives a voice to the hundreds of unsung women who fought and supported the suffragette campaign. While Atkinson gives as many women as possible a voice, it can sometimes feel like an encyclopaedia, and it is the first encyclopaedia I have read cover to cover and enjoyed.

What does scream out from every page is the sheer bloody mindedness of the women, the courage of large numbers of women campaigners. It also reminds us of the disgusting brutality by the government and their agents of violence, the police against the women. The so-called national hero, Winston Churchill, when Home Secretary, told the police to “throw the women around from one to the other.”

Sometimes history is never straightforward, leaves some questions unanswered, and those answers we do get are not necessarily easy or pleasant. The research that went in to this book and the accounts relayed reminds us that the battle for female suffrage was not easy, pleasant.

This is a wonderful book, totally engrossing read, and with over 600 pages to read and digest, an education and a reminder of what we have now and that work still needs to be done. ( )