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The work of Eva Gore-Booth, alongside that of Esther Roper was responsible for the close link between the struggle for women’s rights in industry and the struggle for women’s right to vote. As a middle class suffragist representing Manchester, the work of Gore-Booth was mainly recognized in the Lancashire cotton towns from 1899 to 1913. Her struggle began when Eva became a member of the executive committee of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. Carrying out work at the Ancoats settlement, Eva became co-secretary of the Manchester and Salford Women’s Trade Union Council. 1902 saw Eva Gore-Booth campaigning at the Clitheroe by-election on behalf of David Shackleton, a Labour candidate that promised Eva he would show support for the women’s enfranchisement. Shackleton was elected yet he did not act upon his promise made to Eva. This led to the founding of the Lancashire and Cheshire Women Textile and Other Worker’s Representation Committee by Eva Gore-Booth, Esther Roper and Sarah Reddish. The setting up of this committee led to Eva Gore-Booth meeting Christabel Pankhurst who also felt strongly about women’s rights. However, in 1904, Christabel caused some controversy in the Women’s Trade Union Council as she attempted to force the council to make women’s suffrage one of its aims to which they refused. This led to the resignation of Eva Gore-Booth from the council. Resigning from that particular council, Eva Gore-Booth alongside Sarah Dickenson who had also resigned, set up the Manchester and Salford Women’s Trade and Labour Council. As part of this council, Eva and other suffragists used constitutional methods of campaigning. In the general election of 1906, they put forward their own candidate, Thorley Smith yet he was defeated. In May of 1906 Eva was present in the suffrage deputation to Campbell Bannerman. Her true feeling of helplessness after the failure of this deputation was captured in two poems, which she wrote. These poems were titled ‘Women’s Trades on the Embankment’ and ‘A Lost Opportunity’.

In 1907 Eva Gore-Booth, reluctant to give up hope, contributed an essay “The Women’s Suffrage Movement Among Trade Unionists” to The Case for Women’s Suffrage. In this essay Eva gave a summary of reasons for the methods of the LCWTOW campaign to gain a vote for working women. In 1908 Eva was a delegate to the Labour Party Conference at Hull where she proposed a motion in favour of women’s suffrage. This motion was defeated in favour of one for adult suffrage. The end of 1909 saw Eva Gore-Booth help to run the radical suffragist general election campaign at Rossendale where once again a candidate was put forward but was defeated. In 1910, Eva showed her support for the New Constitutional Society For Women’s Suffrage and in 1911 with Esther Roper, she attended a meeting in London of the Fabian Women’s Group. On November 17 of the same year Eva was a member of the deputation representing the working women of the north of England. This deputation called upon Lloyd George not to drop the Conciliation Bill. 1911 was also the year that Eva put herself in the shoes of the working women when she worked for a short time as a pit-brow lass to sample the working conditions for herself. However, as war broke out, Eva and Esther took up welfare work among German women and children in England. In December 1913, Eva signed the ”Open Christmas Letter” to women of Germany and Austria. 1915 then saw Eva Gore-Booth become a member of the Women’s Peace Crusade and in 1916 the No-Conscription Fellowship.

Eva Gore-Booth continued to work for peace, writing poetry and for a privately circulated journal, Urania, for the rest of her life.

Crawford, E (1999). The Women’s Suffrage Movement. UK & USA: UCL Press. Crawford, E (2006). The Women’s Suffrage Movement In Britain And Ireland. UK & USA: Routledge.