Struggle and Suffrage in Portsmouth

Book excerpt: This social and political history of women’s suffrage in Portsmouth, England, covers a century of struggle from the mid-nineteenth century into the twentieth. The women of Portsmouth had to be tough. Many of them kept their families together during wartime, others worked in domestic service or in nearby stay factories. The local suffrage movement was driven as much by the lack of opportunity as by ruinously unjust laws. This volume shines a light on the women of Portsmouth who struggled for change. In the Victorian Era, women had few rights, and faced being thrown into an asylum thanks to the Contagious Diseases Acts. But in the First World War, they proved their ability to work effectively in the male workforce. And in World War II, women persevered as Portsmouth was destroyed by enemy bombing. Through this long, tumultuous period, a gathering chorus of pioneering women raised their voices. Those voices are now collected here, allowing the women of Portsmouth to tell their own stories of the fight for equality.