The gender agenda: the British suffrage movement

This will be an Hybrid meeting with the speaker in Exeter Hall and the talk live streamed over Zoom.   The Hall will open at 7:15pm (UK Time) with the talk starting at 8pm.   The Zoom element will start at 7:55 pm.

Speaker: Simon Wenham

Summary: It is often assumed that the enfranchisement of women was the inevitable result of a successful campaign mounted by suffragettes, but the reality was far more complicated. A wide range of people with different agendas were represented in the debate, including not only the notorious and polarising Women’s Social and Political Union, whose radical civil disobedience caused so much unrest, but also a number of pioneering women who were part of the ‘anti’ movement. This talk will chart the development of the campaign and how the vote was eventually won.

Speaker Bio: Dr Simon Wenham is a member of the part-time tutor panel of Oxford University’s Continuing Education Department where he teaches courses on the Victorian period (see below for details). His doctoral research at the University of Oxford was on the history of Salter Bros Ltd, an Oxford-based Thames boat firm. The thesis was turned into the book Pleasure Boating on the Thames: a History of Salter Bros 1858 – Present Day (published in 2014 and updated in 2017) and he is also the author of Hobbs of Henley: a History (published in 2020).

Simon has been a regular contributor to Radio Oxford and has done interviews for a number of television documentaries (shown on Channel 4, Channel 5 and TBN), as well as providing advice for books and programmes on a variety of subjects.

His current research interests include the social history of Victorian Britain, the river Thames, the city of Oxford and the development of leisure. Previous historical interests include child labour in the Industrial Revolution, the holocaust, slavery in antebellum America and the reformation.

For registration details please see the relevant page in the Members’ Area here.