Glasgow played a full and often fiery part in the long fight for votes for women. The city had its patient, law-abiding suffragists, who argued and petitioned for decades, and its militant suffragettes, who smashed windows, set fires and went to prison and hunger strike for the cause. In 1914 that militancy erupted in a pitched battle around Emmeline Pankhurst on the platform of the St Andrew’s Halls. And when war brought the campaign to a sudden halt, many of Glasgow’s suffrage women turned their formidable skills to the rent strikes and the wider struggles of Red Clydeside.
This page tells the story of the movement in Glasgow: its two wings, its leading figures, its militant deeds, the drama at the St Andrew’s Halls, and the winning of the vote.
Two wings of one movement
The campaign for women’s suffrage in Glasgow, as across Britain, had two distinct wings. The older were the constitutional suffragists, organised from the 1870s in bodies such as the Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for Women’s Suffrage, who pursued the vote patiently and peacefully through petitions, meetings and pressure on Parliament. The younger and more impatient were the militant suffragettes of the Women’s Social and Political Union, who from around 1906 adopted the motto ‘deeds, not words’ and were prepared to break the law to force the issue. Glasgow had strong branches of both.
The Glasgow suffragettes
The militant movement in Glasgow produced a remarkable group of women. Foremost among them was Helen Crawfurd, a minister’s wife turned firebrand who would later become a leading figure in Red Clydeside. Alongside her worked determined campaigners such as Janie Allan, Frances Parker and Ethel Moorhead, organising rallies, selling the movement’s newspaper and defying the authorities at every turn. They were educated, courageous and utterly committed — and in a city that also produced Marion Gilchrist, the first woman to graduate in medicine from the University of Glasgow, they embodied a wider surge of women into public life.
Deeds not words
As the government continued to refuse the vote, the militants’ tactics grew steadily bolder. In the years before the First World War, Scottish suffragettes broke shop and office windows, cut telegraph wires, and carried out a campaign of arson and attacks on property — empty buildings, railway stations and the like were set alight to dramatise the cause, though always with the aim of destroying property rather than harming people. Paintings were slashed and post-boxes attacked. It was a deliberately confrontational strategy, born of decades of patient campaigning that had achieved nothing.
Prison & hunger strike
Militancy carried a heavy price. Suffragettes were arrested and imprisoned, and in jail many went on hunger strike in protest. The authorities responded with the brutal practice of force-feeding, and when that drew public outrage they passed the notorious ‘Cat and Mouse Act’, which released weakened hunger-strikers only to re-arrest them once they had recovered. Scottish prisons saw their share of these grim scenes. Far from breaking the movement, the suffering of the imprisoned women won it sympathy and swelled its ranks with fresh recruits.
The St Andrew’s Halls
The most dramatic episode came on 9 March 1914, when Emmeline Pankhurst — on the run under the Cat and Mouse Act — appeared to address a packed rally at the St Andrew’s Halls in Glasgow. As she rose to speak, police stormed the platform to seize her. What followed was a pitched battle: her bodyguard of women stewards fought back fiercely, and the platform had been rigged with hidden defences to hinder the police. Pankhurst was dragged away and arrested amid uproar, but the ‘Battle of the St Andrew’s Halls’ became a byword for the courage and defiance of the Glasgow suffragettes.
War & the rent strikes
Then, in August 1914, war broke out, and the suffrage campaign was suspended almost overnight. But the energies it had unleashed did not disappear. Many of Glasgow’s suffrage women simply redirected their organising genius into the struggles of the home front — above all the 1915 rent strikes, in which the skills of mass mobilisation honed in the suffrage movement helped working-class women win rent control across the country. Helen Crawfurd and others moved seamlessly from the fight for the vote to the fight over housing and peace.
The vote won
Victory, when it came, came in stages. In 1918, in the aftermath of the war, the Representation of the People Act finally gave the parliamentary vote to women over thirty who met a property qualification — a partial and unequal measure, but a historic breakthrough. Full equality followed in 1928, when women won the vote on the same terms as men, at twenty-one. The long campaign, in which Glasgow’s women had played so bold a part, had been won at last, transforming the political life of the city and the nation alike.
At a glance
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Campaign | From the 1870s to 1918 |
| Two wings | Constitutional & militant |
| The militants | The WSPU (suffragettes) |
| Local leader | Helen Crawfurd |
| Wildest night | The St Andrew’s Halls, 1914 |
| Then | Into the 1915 rent strikes |
| Victory | Votes in 1918 & 1928 |
Frequently asked questions
What was the suffrage movement in Glasgow?
It was the campaign for votes for women, which was strong in Glasgow from the 1870s onwards. It had a peaceful, constitutional wing of suffragists and a militant wing of suffragettes, and it played a full part in the wider British struggle.
What was the difference between suffragists and suffragettes?
Suffragists campaigned peacefully and lawfully, through petitions and persuasion. Suffragettes, organised in the Women’s Social and Political Union, adopted militant, law-breaking tactics under the slogan ‘deeds, not words’ to force the government to act.
Who were Glasgow’s leading suffragettes?
They included Helen Crawfurd, later a leading figure in Red Clydeside, along with campaigners such as Janie Allan, Frances Parker and Ethel Moorhead. Glasgow also produced Marion Gilchrist, the first woman to graduate in medicine from its university.
What militant tactics did the suffragettes use?
In the years before 1914 they broke windows, cut telegraph wires and carried out arson attacks on empty buildings and property to dramatise their cause, aiming to damage property rather than harm people. Many were imprisoned and went on hunger strike.
What happened at the St Andrew’s Halls in 1914?
On 9 March 1914 Emmeline Pankhurst spoke at a rally there while wanted by the police. When officers stormed the platform to arrest her, her women stewards fought back in a violent struggle — the ‘Battle of the St Andrew’s Halls’ — before she was seized and taken away.
How did the First World War affect the movement?
The suffrage campaign was suspended when war broke out in 1914. Many Glasgow suffrage women redirected their skills into the home-front struggles, notably the 1915 rent strikes and the peace movement, carrying their organising experience into Red Clydeside.
When did women get the vote?
The Representation of the People Act of 1918 gave the parliamentary vote to women over thirty who met a property qualification. Full equality, with women voting on the same terms as men at twenty-one, followed in 1928.