The Suffragettes Might Be Pardoned For Crimes Committed Fighting For The Right To Vote

Amber Rudd has promised to ‘look into it’.

The Suffragettes Might Be Pardoned For Crimes Committed Fighting For The Right To Vote

by Georgia Aspinall |
Published on

Contrary to popular belief, the fight for women to get the vote wasn’t all chaining women to rails and throwing themselves under horses. The suffragettes were a lot more creative than that, and we mean creative in the same way accountants mean creative… criminal. Setting shit on fire, smashing windows of shops and offices, vandalizing public property, the list goes on.

According to The Suffragettes Arrested, this amounted to 1300 arrests from 1906-1914, with multiple sentences served by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters alike. The Fawcett Society has now called for all of the suffragettes who were arrested in pursuit of the right to vote to be pardoned for their crimes, as tribute to mark the centenary since women were first given the right.

Amber Rudd addressed the campaign on ITV’S Good Morning Britain, promising to ‘look into’ the individual cases, admitting that pardoning for arson or violence is ‘a little trickier’. She said:

‘Instinctively I can see where that campaign is coming from so I will take a look and see if there is a proposal that I can take more seriously.’

The modern day suffragettes? Check out the women fighting gender inequality on Instagram...

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However, the likelihood of the pardons coming to light seems slim, with her stressing the complications behind bypassing the law. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

‘I will take a look at it, but I must be frank, it is complicated because if you’re going to give a legal pardon for things like arson and violence it’s not as straightforward as people think it might be, but I will certainly look at proposals.’

This comes after chief executive of the Fawcett Society, Sam Smethers, stated that there is no better time than now – while we’re celebrating 100 years since the first right to vote – to pay homage to the brave women who sacrificed everything for the right to vote. She said:

‘Suffragette activism was for a noble cause and many of them became political prisoners.

‘It would be a fitting tribute to pardon them now. They made such sacrifices so that we could all enjoy the rights we have today. In any meaningful sense of the word, they were not criminals.’

The initiative has been supported by Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davison, who wrote in the Daily Telegraph:

‘Voting was a value judgment, not an intrinsic right. That inequality is one of the reasons why I support calls by family members to offer a posthumous pardon to those suffragettes charged with righting that wrong.’

Whether or not the pardons will come to light remains to be seen, right now we’re inclined to believe when she says ‘look into’ it’s about as meaningful as when accountants (and the suffragettes) say ‘creative’.

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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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