Suffragette book?

[BeyondTheWall]

Quick question...

Does anyone have any particular recommendations for a book to read up on the history of the suffragettes? Random part of a history programme made me realise i know very little

You could start with Emmeline Pankhurst's autobiography 'My Own Story'. I've got it but not read it yet so not sure if that's much of a recommendation.

I've just finished reading My Own Story. Its a very clear and immediate account of the Suffragette campaign.There are some quite detailed accounts of parliamentary procedures, bills, amendments etc which to be honest I found a little dry, but at the same time they were utterly necessary: Only having exhausted every legal avenue, having tried to present petitions etc and were denied did they decide on military action.

I thought the book was fascinating and well worth a read.

Its easy to remember the Pankhursts and the suffragettes because of their spectacular tactics, and forget that there was also a non-militant movement, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, for which Millicent Fawcett gets most credit. At first Fawcett supported Emmeline Pankhurst's approach, but later she came to see Pankhurst as an embarrassment, and thought she was actually harming the cause. So now we tend to think of the militant pro-suffrage movement as having gained the vote for women, when really that wasn't the only group involved, and maybe not the group that mainly won the victory. So now Emmeline Pankhurst has a statue beside the Houses of Parliament, and Millicent Fawcett gets remembered by a blue plaque on her old house.

I've just finished "My Own Story" too. It is dry in parts with all the technical descriptions of the mechanics of Bills etc. but these served to show the incredible Machiavellian contortions that Asquith (and others) employed to make "promises" they had no intention of keeping and how they used Parliamentary shenanigans to let the women down time after time - thus leading to the escalating violence employed by the suffragettes once all trust was lost.

Oo thank you - this had (obviously, from july) disappeared off my tio, was lucky i spotted it!
I will have a look at my own story :)