votes for women!

North of Ireland Women’s Suffrage Society

In the wake of the Reform Act 1832, suffrage societies began to emerge across Britain and Ireland. In 1866, 25 Irish women were among those who signed John Stuart Mill’s petition to parliament asking for votes for women.¹ The campaign gained further momentum after the passing of the Reform Act 1867, which extended the vote to all men who fulfilled certain property requirements – but still made no mention of votes for women.  

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In 1873, Belfast woman Isabella Tod began a suffrage tour, speaking in Carrickfergus, Coleraine, Armagh, Dungannon and Derry/Londonderry². Tod also founded the North of Ireland Women’s Suffrage Society (NIWSS), the first suffrage society to be formed in Ireland³. Many more suffrage societies were subsequently established and the movement began to accelerate. 

Shortly after Tod’s death, a fund was raised by voluntary subscription to commemorate her services to the community. The money collected was used to purchase this portrait and to endow a scholarship (confined to female candidates) at Queen's University Belfast. The scholarship, for a small amount of money, is still awarded by the university. 

Belfast Activists  

The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was formed in England in 1903 and began mounting a militant campaign to advance their cause. Their founder and prominent suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst came to Ulster in 1910 to address activists in the north of Ireland⁴. In 1911, two members of the NIWSS were sent as Belfast representatives to London as part of a WSPU demonstration. They were Dr Elizabeth Bell, the first woman to qualify as a doctor in Ulster, and Margaret Robinson.  

Born in Banbridge in 1876, Margaret Robinson was the eldest of three daughters. Her father was a managing director at William Walker and Co., and her mother was involved in local charity work. Her family valued her education and she was sent to attend Victoria College in Belfast. After her parents passed away in her late twenties, Margaret and her younger sister, who would later go to Queen’s and study medicine, moved to Whitehead, Co. Antrim. She then began her studies to become a schoolteacher.  

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Margaret gained her degree in Mathematics from the Royal University of Ireland, which had been the first university in Ireland to award degrees to women in 1882. She soon began teaching at Richmond College in Belfast. She joined the NIWSS in 1908, and began attending society meetings at the Ulster Hall. 

Suffragette Demonstration 

When the Belfast society was asked to send delegates to the demonstration in London, Margaret volunteered. At the demonstration, the suffragettes had agreed that if their demands were not met, they would begin throwing stones at the windows of Swan and Edgar’s department store on Regent Street. Margaret broke a window with her first shot. 

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A crowd of suffragettes surrounded Margaret as she threw the stones, but police officers were also present. Margaret was arrested and sentenced to two months in HMP Holloway. Conditions were harsh, with stifling heat and no ventilation in the cell. Margaret and her fellow suffragettes broke the windows in their cells with their shoes until they were given functioning windows. 

Upon her release, she left the prison arm in arm with two friends, concealing a mug from the prison as it was tied around her waist. This mug was donated to us by her family and is now on display in our Modern History gallery.  

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After her time in prison, Margaret returned to Ulster to continue teaching and campaigning for women’s suffrage. When a Belfast branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was established in September 1913, she was among the suffrage campaigners who joined the organisation, selling their paper ‘Votes for Women’ in Belfast and attending public meetings. The NIWSS ultimately merged with the Belfast branch of the WSPU, and soon their militant campaign increased. In April and May 1914, five suffragette arson attacks occurred in Ulster, including a bomb attempt at Lisburn Cathedral⁵. Some of the suffragettes were charged and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol, including Madge Muir and Dorothy Evans.  

Political Tension 

Whilst suffragette militancy was escalating, political tension was building around Europe. In response to the declaration of war in 1914 by King George V, the WSPU issued a statement that they would cease all militant action, and all of their branches were encouraged to do the same. In Ulster some suffragettes continued their fight, but most women saw suffrage as a secondary concern in comparison to the onset of the First World War⁶. The pressure built by the campaigning of suffragettes pre-1914 was not forgotten, and in 1918 after the end of the war, women over 30 finally got the vote.  

Lifelong Advocate 

Margaret moved to Inverness and then to Rugby to take up new teaching positions, and later bought a school in Co. Wicklow which she ran until she retired at 58 years old. She continued to be involved in advocacy for women through her work with the Irish Countrywomen’s Association, founding her local branch and serving as its chairwoman. 

Margaret Robinson died in 1979 aged 103. When she celebrated her 100th birthday, her story was covered in many national newspapers, and she proudly posed with her mug from HMP Holloway at a family gathering. 

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Remembrance  

In 2018, a hundred years after the passing of the Representation of the People Act, the Processions parade took place across the UK. Women marched in Belfast, London, Cardiff and Edinburgh to remember their forebearer’s historic win of the vote for women. The Ulster Museum recently collected a banner from this march. It was created through workshops facilitated by local visual artist Bobbi Rae Purdy, which involved Falls Women’s Centre, Shankill Women’s Centre, Greenway Women’s Centre, Windsor Women’s Centre and Atlas Women’s Centre. We also have collected items like this tote bag which was produced in support of the march. 

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Margaret and her fellow activists faced many challenges in their fight for the vote, and it is important that we remember their struggle and the role they played in securing the vote for women. 

Speaking to Brian Harrison in an oral history interview in 1975, then aged 99, Margaret said she was delighted that the younger generation were interested in the role she played in the suffrage movement. She explained that she was often asked about it when her former students would visit her. Several of them asked her, ‘Weren’t you afraid?’ She simply replied, ‘afraid of what?’