 Liverpool Women's Suffrage Society campaign shop for 1910 Kirkdale by-election | |
| Abbreviation | LWSS |
|---|---|
| Merged into | Liverpool Women Citizen's Association |
| Formation | January 1894 |
| Founders | Edith Bright Lydia Allen Booth Nessie Stewart-Brown |
| Type | Suffrage society |
Key people | Eleanor Rathbone |
The Liverpool Women's Suffrage Society was set up in 1894 by Edith Bright, Lydia Allen Booth and Nessie Stewart-Brown to promote the enfranchisement of women. The society held its first meeting in a Liverpool temperance hall, with Millicent Fawcett, head of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), as its guest speaker. The society set up headquarters in Lord Street. The group became affiliated with the NUWSS in 1898, it held meetings in cafés which included talks, poetry and dance recitals. Members were recruited from prominent members of society and they distanced themselves from working class suffrage societies such as Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).
Eleanor Rathbone led the society as its secretary from 1897, especially in campaigning in the 1910 elections. Three campaign shops were opened around Liverpool, asking men to vote for candidates who supported votes for women, especially Alexander Gordon Cameron. In 1911, Rathbone and Stewart-Brown set up a branch of the society to educate women who would soon get the vote. When the society disagreed with the NUWSS, it merged with the Municipal Women's Association to create the Liverpool Women's Citizens Association in 1919.