‘Political conditions in wales are quite different …’ party politics and votes for women in Wales, 1912–151

Abstract

In 1912, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies adopted a policy of electoral support for the Labour Party, known as the Election Fighting Fund (EFF). The most determined opposition to this policy came from the South Wales Federation of Women's Suffrage Societies. The article re-examines the story of that opposition, as well as the attempt by the EFF Committee to work in the North Monmouthshire constituency of the Home Secretary, Reginald McKenna, against the wishes of local suffragists. The article suggests that accounts of this period in British suffrage history have presented a too simplistic account, which masks the diversity of women's politics in Wales; and that the nature of coalfield communities combined with the parliamentary focus of the EFF to marginalise the working-class and Labour movement women of the area.