Women's Social and Political Union

Women's Social and Political Union

Annie Kenney (left) and Christabel Pankhurst, c. 1908
Abbreviation	WSPU
Formation	10 October 1903
Founders	Emmeline Pankhurst Christabel Pankhurst
Founded at	62 Nelson Street, Manchester, England
Dissolved	1917/1918
Type	Women-only political movement
Purpose	Votes for women
Motto	"Deeds, not words"
Headquarters	4 Clement's Inn, Strand, London; Lincoln's Inn House, Kingsway, London
Methods	Demonstrations, marches, direct action, hunger strikes, bombings

The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903.^[1] Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and policies were tightly controlled by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. Sylvia was eventually expelled.

The WSPU membership became known for civil disobedience and direct action. Emmeline Pankhurst described them as engaging in a "reign of terror".^[2] Group members heckled politicians, held demonstrations and marches, broke the law to force arrests, broke windows in prominent buildings, set fire to or introduced chemicals into postboxes thus injuring several postal workers, and committed a series of arsons that killed at least five people and injured at least 24. When imprisoned, the group's members engaged in hunger strikes and were subject to force-feeding. Emmeline Pankhurst said the group's goal was "to make England and every department of English life insecure and unsafe".^[3]