Women’s Suffrage in Shetland
Only a small society in a remote group of islands ... yet Shetland had women on the school boards as early as London and Edinburgh. The first suffrage speakers came here in 1873; the first President of the 1909 Shetland Women’s Suffrage Society marched with Mrs Pankhurst, and the second President was the wife of Asquith’s Secretary for Scotland. Taylor takes the reader from the first calls of ‘Votes for Women’ in the French and American revolutions through the long struggle before World War I – where many Shetland woman left the isles as nurses and canteen workers – and up to the vote at last.
Praise for Women’s Suffrage in Shetland
“Splendid ... an indication of how much more there can be done in the field of women’s history in Shetland. ”
Author’s Comment
This book began with a week in the National Archives of Scotland, in Edinburgh, working with other teachers to create materials on women’s suffrage for school use. I had no idea then how long women had to fight for the vote, or what other areas were included in that struggle: education, finance, equity in marriage and at work. I thought I’d write a pamphlet on the movement in Shetland, and ended up doing two years of research and a 320 page study of the whole movement.
