In Part 1 of these three articles exploring the way in which the rail network influenced the suffrage campaign, I looked at how trains were instrumental in facilitating suffrage campaigns, including militant activism, as well as enabling suffrage organisations to set up and run their national networks. I also explored the way that trains became arenas for sometimes violent encounters between suffragettes and politicians. You can read "Cheap and Easy Railway Traffic: Suffrage and the Railways Part 1 here. The second part described how the Glasgow to London train became the focus of a struggle with the police when suffragettes attempted to rescue Mrs Pankhurst on her way to Holloway Gaol. You can read " Cheap and Easy Railway" Traffic Part 2: The Battle to Free Mrs Pankhurst here. In Part 3, I take a look at how trains and railway stations were themselves targets of suffragette militancy. In March 1913, Hugh Franklin, who we met in Part 1 when he assaulted...

In February 1912 the Bristol Liberal MP Charles E H Hobhouse addressed a meeting of the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage in the city’s Colston Hall. During his speech he remarked, “In the present days of cheap and easy railway traffic they [the suffragettes] could always arrange numerous deputations or demonstrations and they could be as noisy as their funds permitted – (laughter)…” ( Western Daily Press , 17 February 1912). Hobhouse was anti-women’s suffrage and remained so even after the passage of the 1918 Representation of the People Act gave the vote to some British women. Although he had no understanding of or sympathy with the suffrage movement, his statement does show that he understood one thing: the importance of the rail network to the suffrage movement. In this three-part article, I’ll be exploring the connections between the railway system and the suffrage campaign, particularly the militant campaign. Both militant and non-militant women’s franchis...