Pacifists, Patriots, and the Vote: The Erosion of Democratic Suffragism in Britain During the First World War

Exploring the causes and consequences of the divergence between those suffragists who wanted to prepare hearts and minds for a lasting peace to follow the war and those who just wanted to get on with defeating the enemy, this narrative reveals a new dimension of the campaign for the vote. This study traces the resurgence of a conservative suffrage leadership, questions the inevitability of the narrow franchise granted to women in 1918, and suggests that something important was lost, especially to the Labour party and to feminism, when a broad vision of democracy and patriotism became a casualty of war, self-interest and jingoism.