Women of Cambridge: Voices, Votes, and Victory

Overview

At the turn of the twentieth century, the campaign for women’s right to vote gathered momentum nationwide, and Cambridge was no exception.

Graphic image shows a collage of an illustrated cream bricked wall. Layered are photographic images including a purple tinted photo of the front exterior of the Cambridge Corn Exchange building, a coloured photographic image of the bronze statue of Millicent Fawcett holding 'Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere' suffrage sign, a black and white photographic image of women at a suffrage protest holding signs and an image of a green poster advertising in black text a suffrage meeting at the Corn Exchange.

Millicent Fawcett, the President of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), was a local, and she found support from the women’s university colleges of Girton, Newnham and the teacher training colleges. Less noted, but vital, were men’s societies. Cambridge hosted three, formed by male relatives of suffragists and an increasing circle of university academics.

Crowds in the Corn Exchange

The city’s halls became hubs of debate, with events at the Guildhall and Corn Exchange drawing large crowds. In 1909, more than 2,000 people crammed into the 1,500-seat Corn Exchange to discuss women’s right to vote, with many standing on the corn traders’ desks.

Though many supported reform, small groups of male undergraduates would disrupt meetings, and an anti-suffrage meeting was also held in the Corn Exchange with the aim of urging Parliament to reject votes for women. Some feared that if women got the vote, then they would never vote for war. Others worried that it would open the door for the working class man’s right to vote.

Votes for Women

The First World War brought the right political climate for suffrage to be accepted as women’s roles in society were transformed. In 1918, women gained the parliamentary vote; equal voting rights with men followed in 1928. The Guildhall, Market Square, and the Corn Exchange remain witnesses to a movement that reshaped Cambridge, and Britain.

Did you know? ‘Suffrage’ means the right to vote? ‘Suffragette’ was the term used to describe the more militant activists; yet the more peaceful ‘Suffragists’ in groups like the NUWSS outnumbered them twenty-five times over.