Author: Dr Richard Whitmore
Alice Hawkins and the Suffragette Movement in Edwardian Leicester
The campaign for the suffrage is perhaps the best-known aspect of women's political fight in the early part of the 20th century, yet little is known of the local women who engaged in this struggle. Indeed, the assumption that only wealthy women were involved in the militant campaign has led not only to the distortion of the WSPU membership, but it also neglects the significant contribution made by working-class women within it.
Previously, few investigations have been carried out into local organisations of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and as a consequence our understanding of local women within the party has been limited.
Focusing on this central omission, this book, through the life and times of Alice Hawkins, seeks to redress the balance and add to our understanding of who the suffragettes were. But, more importantly, this book is about a woman who gave her life to the cause and, through her personality, shaped the lives of thousands of women.
The importance of this book is that it is now slowly being recognised that history cannot shut away the lives and experiences of thousands of women like Alice Hawkins to concentrate on what was, to all intents and purposes, the public sphere. Her history, and those women like her, is an important omission, and without it the social composition of the movement will always remain unclear and the extent to which working women were involved will always remain hidden. Thus, the story of Alice Hawkins and the Leicester WSPU is, without doubt, crucial to our understanding of the organisation.
