Working Class Heroes

Despite having its roots in working class areas like Manchester, the suffrage campaign is largely remembered as a movement of white, middle class, well-educated women like Millicent Fawcett and the Pankhursts. Indeed, the 1918 Representation of the People Act only granted the vote to home-owning women over 30, so working class women remained unable to vote until universal suffrage was introduced ten years later, in 1928. The 'working class struggle' was a contentious issue within the suffrage movement, but the role of women workers - from the mills of northern England to the factories of east London - should not be forgotten.

Born in Leeds, Mary Gawthorpe was the daughter of a leatherworker and a former mill worker. She was a member of the Women's Labour League, and later the WSPU. Mary co-founded and edited the radical newspaper The Freewoman. After moving to New York in 1916, Mary was active in the American suffrage and trade union movements.

Mary MacArthur was a Scottish trade unionist and suffragist. Born in Glasgow, she moved to London in 1903 and became secretary of the Women's Trade Union League. She was a founder of the National Federation of Women Workers, and the National Anti-Sweating League - a movement against the use of sweatshops.

Helen Blackburn was born in Ireland, and later moved to London. She was an early campaigner for working women's rights, and secretary of the Bristol and West of England Suffrage Society. In 1891, Helen co-founded the Women's Employment Defence League. She edited the Englishwoman's Review from 1889-1902 and, in 1896, co-edited The Conditions of Working Women and the Factory Acts.

Esther Roper was secretary of Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage, before meeting and falling in love with Eva Gore-Booth, an Irish poet and aristocrat. Despite her privileged background, Eva moved to live with Esther in Manchester, where the couple founded the Lancashire and Cheshire Women's Textile and Other Workers Representation Committee with Sarah Reddish and Sarah Dickenson. They also founded and edited Women's Labour News.

Born in east London, Julia Scurr was a socialist and poor law guardian. She was a member of Sylvia Pankhurst's East London Federation of Suffragettes, and later joined United Suffragists.