Beginnings: My Journey through the Bristol Suffrage Movement.
- Mapping Women's Suffrage
- Nov 10
- 4 min read
by Becca Aspden
My journey home from my studies at Warwick University to the Isle of Wight to research votes for women campaigners there, first took me for a short stay in Bristol. So, I decided while I was there to read about some of the women I came across, learn about them, and put them on the Mapping Women's Suffrage map.
While the centre of the women’s suffrage movement may have been in London, other towns and cities across the country had vibrant suffrage groups and movements too. Bristol was home to many incredible women activists so for this mini blog, I focus on a few of those that fostered the growing suffrage scene in Bristol in its early days. In next week’s final blog, I look at some later more radical Bristol ‘suffragettes’.
Agnes Beddoe was born in Scotland in 1832. After signing the 1866 petition to parliament for female suffrage, she joined the first committee of the Bristol and Clifton Branch of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage. She remained on the committee until her death. She held many talks throughout her life and opened her home for meetings. In 1889, she joined the executive committee of the law-abiding National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) as the Bristol and Clifton Society belonged to the organisation.
Later in her life, though she remained committed to the NUWSS, she also donated to the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and attended meetings alongside key WSPU women such as working class mill girl Annie Kenney and leader Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst herself. Agnes’ husband also aided the WSPU from time to time and was also president of the branch of the Bristol Men's League for Women’s Suffrage – a law-abiding society where supportive men could help work and organize for the women’s campaign. Agnes died in 1914 but is featured on a banner forever honouring her suffrage campaign work. It is currently held by LSE Women’s Library. Her activism was instrumental in the foundations of the Bristolian suffrage movement for women.
Two other key figures who worked alongside Agnes in forming the movement were the Priestman Sisters. Anna Maria and Mary Priestman both signed the 1866 suffrage petition to parliament while living in Lancashire. The sisters later moved to 37 Durdham House in Bristol in 1870 and lived there for the rest of their lives. Both women were executive committee members of the Bristol and West England Society for Women’s Suffrage which came under the umbrella of the law abiding NUWSS. However, both sisters were willing to take part in acts of civil protest at not having the vote, refusing to pay tax in 1870, which led to their dining chairs being removed until their fine was paid anonymously. ‘No Vote, No Tax’ was a popular slogan in the women’s suffrage campaign and had played an important role in other historical campaigns.
Anna Maria helped form the first Women’s Liberal Association where women only used their social networking and organisational skills (which many would be MPS relied on) to support men who were pro-suffrage candidates. She also believed in mobilising the lower as well as the middle classes for the female suffrage cause, so she donated £1,000 towards activities and work to build up this area of the suffrage movement.
Mary followed in her older sister's footsteps, joining the Union of Practical Suffragists formed by Anna Maria in 1896. She also followed Anna Maria to the WSPU, donating £25 together in 1908. The sisters supported Annie Kenney when she moved to Bristol as a WSPU organiser in 1907. The sisters tragically died within 5 days of each other in October 1914. As Quakers and pacifists, it has been inferred that they were simply heartbroken by the outbreak of the Great World War.
The Priestman sisters and Agnes Beddoe were important in helping grow participation in the movement beyond the upper classes and fought through their political networks for the expansion of support for the movement in parliament itself. These three women are among many who laid the foundation stones of a movement in Bristol that was considered so valuable to the cause, that the WSPU employed their new leading light, Annie Kenney in 1907, to continue organising and fuelling what these inspiring women had begun. I pick up on Bristol’s ‘suffragettes’ in my next and final mini-blog.
About the Author
Becca Aspden is an undergraduate Warwick history student and URSS researcher. Originally from the Isle of Wight, she has a strong passion for local history and heritage. She has written multiple exhibition pieces for the IW Steam Railway as a conservation volunteer. She became interested in women's suffrage through her degree and is continuing her research on the Island's suffrage movement and other local history projects
Bibliography
Crawford, Elizabeth, The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866 -1928. (London, UCL Press, 1999) pp. 565-67.
Liddington, Jill, Vanishing for the Vote: Suffrage, Citizenship and the Battle for the Census (1st ed., Manchester University Press, 2014) p.319.
Reed, Hayley (2016) ‘The Women behind the Suffrage Banner’, LSE History - Telling LSE’s Story <https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsehistory/2016/06/08/the-women-behind-suffrage-banner/#:~:text=Agnes%20Montgomerie%20Beddoe%20was%20member,the%20Married%20Women's%20Property%20Act>
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