Song of Their Own

The Fight for Votes for Women in Ipswich

What did women from the Ipswich area have to do with getting the vote? Surely it was only in London that suffragettes chained themselves to railings, held enormous processions, went to prison, and burned down buildings. But women were also making their voice heard in towns and villages across Britain. This book shows how much women in and around Ipswich were involved—right from the beginning in 1866, up to the outbreak of World War I. They held exhibitions, meetings, fairs, and demonstrations; they put on suffrage plays; they shut themselves in to avoid the Census; they resisted tax—for which their leader went to prison—and had to react to a local act of suffragette arson. At a time when women had very little power inside or outside the home, it is the story of how ordinary women supported each other to demand a say in the affairs of the UK.