Millicent Garrett Fawcett

“ All the experienced political men who supported women's suffrage told us that when the 1874 Parliament came to an end a change of Government was highly probable, a new Liberal Government would be in power, and would certainly deal with the question of representation—that then would be the great opportunity, the psychological moment, for the enfranchisement of women. ”

“ The volumes of his correspondence, published in 1908, show how constantly his mind dwelt on the grave injustice to women involved by their exclusion from political rights, and also how deeply he was convinced that the whole of society loses by treating them as if they had no responsibility for the right conduct of national affairs. ”

“ I have but selected from a very large number, all ardent suffragists, a few names that stand out pre-eminently in my memory among the glorious company whose efforts laid the foundations on which we at the present day are still building the superstructure of equal opportunity and equal justice for women and men. ”

“ The Chartist, who denies the suffrage to women, is a Chartist only because he is not a lord; he is one of those levellers who would level only down to themselves." [3]
This essay, with its clear, pointed, and epigrammatic style, produced a great effect on the more cultivated section of public opinion. If Mrs. Mill had lived longer she would probably have inaugurated the practical organisation of a women's enfranchisement movement, but she died in the autumn of 1858. ”

“ It was an enormous advantage to the whole women's movement, not only in England, but all over the world, that it had for its leader and champion a man in the front rank of political philosophers and thinkers. ”

“ These ladies had taken an active part in starting the women's suffrage societies in their own towns. Five important societies came into existence almost simultaneously in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, and Birmingham, and as they almost immediately devised a plan for combining individual responsibility with united action, they formed the nucleus of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, which has become the largest organisation of the kind in the United Kingdom, and in October 1911 numbered 305 societies, a number which is constantly and rapidly increasing. ”

“ Working men were supposed to be the enemies of property, and working men were in an enormous numerical majority over all other classes combined. "You must not have the vote because there are so many of you" was a much more effective argument when used against working men than it is when used against women; because the working classes are fifteen or sixteen times more numerous than all other classes combined, whereas women are only slightly in excess of men. ”

“ With the suffrage work carried on by the societies, other work for improving the legal status of women, resisting encroachments upon their constitutional liberties, and improving their means of education went on with vigour, sobriety, and enthusiasm ”

“ He formed a school at the universities, and in all centres of intellectual activity, and from that school a large number of the chief leaders and supporters of the women's movement have been derived.
As early as 1851 an essay on the "Enfranchisement of Women" had appeared in the Westminster Review. It had been written by Mrs. J. S. Mill, and took the form of a review of the proceedings of a Convention of Women held in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the previous year to promote the cause of the political enfranchisement of women. ”

“ The Reform Bill of 1867 more than doubled this number. It is not in human nature for members of Parliament really to like a very large increase in the number of their constituents. Besides the extra trouble and expense involved, there was in 1865 another deterrent—terror. Those who held power feared the working classes. ”

“ In Edinburgh Miss Flora Stevenson was elected to the first School Board, and was continuously re-elected for thirty-three years until her death in 1905. From the date of her election she was appointed by her colleagues to act as convener of some of their most important committees, and in 1900 was unanimously elected the chairman of the board ”