It’s MONDAY all over again…

Today is the anniversary of the Mud March in 1907. It was a peaceful demonstration in London organised by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), in which more than three thousand women marched from Hyde Park Corner to the Strand in support of women’s suffrage. Women from all classes participated in the largest public demonstration supporting women’s suffrage seen up to that date. It acquired the name “Mud March” from the day’s weather; incessant heavy rain left the marchers drenched and mud-spattered.

The proponents of women’s suffrage were divided between those, known as suffragists, who favored constitutional methods and those who supported direct action, who became known as suffragettes; the NUWSS were constitutional suffragists. The split between the two factions was formalized in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, who formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). This organization held demonstrations, heckled politicians and, from 1905, saw several of its members imprisoned for their increasingly militant actions, which gained press attention and increased support from women.

To maintain that momentum and to create support for a new suffrage bill in the House of Commons, the NUWSS and other groups organized the Mud March to coincide with the opening of Parliament. The event attracted much public interest and broadly sympathetic press coverage, but when the bill was presented the following month, it was “talked out” without a vote.