page_title: Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton
section_title: (1908) Conversion to suffragette cause
hierarchical_section_title: Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton / Women's suffrage / (1908) Conversion to suffragette cause
caption_attribution_description: A British suffragette handbill produced during the women's suffrage movement. Women were granted the right to vote in Britain in 1918 at the end of the First Gulf War. David LLoyd George, who was PM at the time, passed the Bill allowing the women the right to vote as long as they were over 28 years old and owned a certain amount of land/property. this meant that at the beginning only middle/upper class women could vote in local and general elections. The first General election after women could vote, saw 39.1% of women eligible to vote turn out and vote with 98% of the votes going to Lloyd George and the liberals. it could be argued that Lloyd George only passed the bill to win more votes to keep him in power longer. After Lloyd George was forced out of office in May 1923 after losing an election, he was replaced by John Major Senior who was then followed uip by Winston Churchill in 1940 after a National Government, coalition, was formed.
context_page_description: Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton, usually known as Constance Lytton, was an influential British suffragette activist, writer, speaker and campaigner for prison reform, votes for women, and birth control. She sometimes used the name Jane Warton.
  Although born and raised in the privileged ruling class of British society, Lytton rejected this background to join the Women's Social and Political Union, the most militant group of suffragette activists campaigning for "Votes for Women".
  She was subsequently imprisoned four times, including once in Walton gaol in Liverpool under the nom de guerre of Jane Warton, where she was force fed while on hunger strike. She chose the alias and disguise of Jane Warton, an 'ugly London seamstress', to avoid receiving special treatment and privileges because of her family connections: she was the daughter of a viceroy and the sister of a member of the House of Lords. She wrote pamphlets on women's rights, articles in The Times newspaper, and a book on her experiences, Prisons and Prisoners, which was published in 1914.
context_section_description: Between September 1908 and October 1909 Constance Lytton's conversion to the militant suffragette cause was complete. On 10 September 1908 she wrote to Adela Smith:
  I met some suffragettes down at the ['Green Lady Hostel' run by the Esperance] club in Littlehampton… They have come into personal first-hand contact with prison abuses. My hobby of prison reform has thereby taken on new vigour… I intend to interview the female inspector of Holloway prison, and will take part in the Suffragette breakfast with the next batch of released Suffrage prisoners on 16 September. I had a long talk with Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence. She mostly talked Woman Suffrage, about which, though I sympathise with the cause, she left me unconverted as to my criticisms of some of their methods.
  She subsequently met other suffragettes, including Annie Kenney and Pethick-Lawrence, at the Green Lady Hostel and on a tour of Holloway prison. On 14 October 1908, she wrote to her mother:
  I went to the Suffragette Office to see Mrs. Lawrence and to congratulate her on the meeting of the day before, inquire the latest news, and finally say: "You know my reservations as to some of your methods, but my sympathies are much more with you than with any of your opponents… I want to be of use if I can. Is there anything I can possibly do to help you?" A good deal of talk ensued. She said, "Yes," I could help them. Could I see to it that Herbert Gladstone was asked to treat the Suffragettes as political offenders, which they are, and not as common criminals, which they are not?.
  In Prison and Prisoners, she stated: "Women had tried repeatedly, and always in vain, every peaceable means open to them of influencing successive governments. Processions and petitions were absolutely useless. In January 1909 I decided to become a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU)." Working for the WSPU she made speeches throughout the country, and used her family connections to campaign in Parliament. She wrote to the Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone asking for Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst to be released from prison.
  On Friday, 8th October 1909, Christabel Pankhurst and I were on our way to Newcastle. I had made up my mind that I was going to throw a stone. We went to the Haymarket [an area in Central Newcastle] where the car with Mr. Lloyd George [Chancellor of the Exchequer] would probably pass. As the motor appeared I stepped out into the road, stood straight in front of the car, shouted out, "How can you, who say you back the women's cause, stay on in a government which refuses them the vote, and is persecuting them for asking it," and threw a stone at the car. I aimed low to avoid injuring the chauffeur or passengers.
caption: Suffragette handbill
exif: {"Image Make": "HP", "Image Model": "HP pstc6100", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 128, 255, 128, 255]", "Image ExifOffset": "198", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:12:18 19:06:32", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "581", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "939", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF DeviceSettingDescription": "[1, 0, 19, 0, 32, 32, 32, 48, 65, 48, 32, 32, 32, 55, 65, 48, 32, 32, 32, 56, ... ]"}