MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT and SUFFRAGISTS

Millicent Garret Fawcett was born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk in 1847.  She was a British writer, reformer, feminist, suffragist, and political worker. In 1867 she married Henry Fawcett, an economist. He was a defender of human rights and because of his condition of blindness; he depended upon her all the time. That is why Millicent Garret started to be really involved in his work. In this year, she also became part of the management of the London National Societies for Women’s Suffrage.

Mrs Fawcett had been engaged for many years in the higher education of women and their political and economic future. At certain time of her live she became more prominent and active because of her husband’s death (1884) and also because of the division of the suffrage movement over association with particular parties, she was in favour of the non-alignment of the women's suffrage movement with political parties. Various small societies had grown up with the same aspiration, the advancing of the cause of women’s suffrage. In 1896 these were associated under the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, and Mrs. Fawcett in 1907 became the president of this movement.

At first she supported the more visible militancy. Woman’s Social and Political Union pledged to work by militant, with no lawful tactics. When revolutionary militants increased their violence she was strongly opposed to the methods of suffragists and all out disassociated the N.U.W.S.S .

Millicent Garrett Fawcett emphasized her efforts on a bill to achieve the women’s right to vote to singles and widows. This attempt failed and only the Labour Party had support women’s suffrage. Like clockwork N.U.W.S.S aligned officially with Labour Party.

Then she supported the effort of the British war in the World War I. She thought that if women supported it, women’s suffrage would be conferred when the war finished.

In 1919, Parliament admitted the Representation of the People Act and British women over the age of thirty were allowed to vote. The next president was Eleanor Rathbone. She and organization, now transformed itself into the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (N.U.S.E.C), worked for reduce the voting age for women to 21, as for men. Millicent Garret Fawcett disagreed some reformations by the N.U.S.E.C and left her position on the board of the

organization.

In 1924 she was awarded with the Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, and also became Dame Millicent Fawcett. Finally she died in 1929 in London.

If you want to know more information about Millicent Garret Fawcett and the Women's Right to Vote you can find more information in this interesting video-clip: