Struggle and Suffrage in Sheffield

A history of the women's movement in Sheffield, England in the twentieth century, examining how women's roles evolved during and between the world wars.

This book looks into the role of women of Sheffield and how it has evolved from the powerlessness of a woman involved in a wife sale, to the achievement of the election of its first female Lord Mayor. Using newspapers of the period, archive material and modern photographs, Struggle and Suffrage in Sheffield examines how the role of women slowly changed in the city. It also highlights the militancy of the Sheffield suffragettes who not only organised demonstrations in Sheffield, but also sent groups to take part in some of the most notorious demonstrations in London. Following these demonstrations several local women were badly manhandled by police before being arrested and sent to Holloway Prison. Adela Pankhurst tried at first to bring the women of the Sheffield WSPU to achieve the vote through peaceful means, only when the Conciliation Bill of June 1910 was dropped, did she then encourage them to take more militant action.


Following the outbreak of both world wars the women of Sheffield worked in the steelworks making munitions. They worked day and night shifts as bombs were falling about them, but when both wars ended they were abruptly dismissed, as the men returned to take up their former jobs. Only following a meeting with PM Gordon Brown and the erection of a bronze statue of Women of Steel in 2016, did Sheffield women truly get the acknowledgment they deserved.