Name/TitleWoman's Franchise: The Need of the Hour
About this objectSlim pamphlet titled 'Woman's Franchise: The Need of the Hour' by Mrs Wolstenholme Elmy (signed with her pseudonym Ignota). Published by the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and priced one penny.
Fully digitised (16 pages)
MakerWolstenholme-Elmy, Elizabeth
Maker RoleAuthor
MakerIndependent Labour Party
Maker RolePublisher
Date Made1907
Period1900s
Place MadeEngland, London
Place NotesIndependent Labour Party (ILP), 23 Bride Lane, Fleet Street, London, E.C.
Medium and MaterialsOrganic, paper
MeasurementsH: 221 x W: 140 mm
Subject and Association KeywordsWomen's suffrage
Subject and Association KeywordsGender equality
Subject and Association KeywordsParty politics
Subject and Association KeywordsHealth & well-being
Subject and Association Descriptionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Wolstenholme_Elmy:
Elizabeth Clarke Wolstenholme Elmy (1833–12 March 1918) was a life-long campaigner and organiser, significant in the history of women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. She wrote essays and some poetry, using the pseudonyms E and Ignota.
Wolstenholme founded the Manchester Committee for the Enfranchisement of Women in 1866 and began 50 years of vigorous campaigning for women's suffrage—the right to vote. She gave up her school in 1871 and became the first paid employee of the women's movement when she was employed to lobby Parliament with regard to laws that were injurious to women. Nicknamed 'the Scourge of the Commons' or the 'Government Watchdog', Wolstenholme took her role seriously. When local women's suffragist groups faltered following the disappointment of failed suffrage bills, Wolstenholme was instrumental in maintaining the momentum of her city's committee with a re-grouping in 1867 under the name Manchester Society for Women's Suffrage.
In 1877 the women's suffrage campaign was centralised as the National Society for Women's Suffrage. Wolstenholme was a founding member (with Harriet McIlquham and Alice Cliff Scatcherd) of the Women's Franchise League in 1889. Wolstenholme left the organisation and founded the Women's Emancipation Union in 1891 ... Following the death of their benefactor and a halving of their subscriptions in the slump following the loss of the 1897 Women's Suffrage Bill, the WEU folded. The final meeting was held in 1899, when the speakers included Harriot Stanton Blatch and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Wolstenholme, a friend and colleague of Emmeline Pankhurst, was invited onto the executive committee of the Women's Social and Political Union. The WEU is starting to be recognised as a forerunner to the combative 'militant' WSPU suffragettes. She was on the stage when Keir Hardie and Pankhurst spoke to a large crowd in Trafalgar Square, and also wrote an eyewitness account of the 1906 Boggart Hole Clough meeting and the 1908 Women's Sunday where she was honoured with her own stand. In the 1911 Coronation Procession, watching from a balcony, she was dubbed 'England's oldest' suffragette ('militant suffragist'). Wolstenholme resigned from the WSPU in 1913 when its violent activities threatened human life.
She became vice-president of the Women's Tax Resistance League in the same year. She also gave her support to the Lancashire and Cheshire Textile and other Workers' Representation Committee, formed in Manchester during 1903 headed by Esther Roper.[16]
Wolstenholme was not a single issue campaigner and wanted parity between the sexes. She became secretary to the Married Women's Property Committee from 1867 until its success with the introduction of the Married Women's Property Act 1882. In 1869, Wolstenholme invited Josephine Butler to be president of the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, a campaign which succeeded in 1886. In 1883 Wolstenholme worked for the Guardianship of Infants Committee that became an act in 1886 (see Custody of Infants Act 1873).
Named CollectionGlasgow Women's Library
Object TypeDocument
Object numberGWL-2022-59-3
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved