The writing style is an easy narrative that doesn’t much engage in reflection, but seeks to tell the story of the suffragettes. Maybe it’s a little ironic that a chap is telling the story of the chappesses, but Frank Meeres has undeniable enthusiasm for his subject.

Winston Churchill is mentioned a few times in this book. The British hero of World War II took a dim view on women’s sufferance and actively opposed it. The suffragette movement occasionally singled him out for that reason and occasionally blocked his election to parliament.

The protests seem almost tame by modern standards, yet the shock of middle-class women causing any kind of trouble was incredibly shocking. If I’ve had been brought up to believe that women were the “gentle sex”, you had a rude awakening! Even so, despite arson and window breaking, care was taken to avoid injury to life.

This was an informative book, presenting the events in a linear fashion. There was nothing challenging or particularly thought provoking, except that the suffragettes achieved their aims primarily through peaceful means. Window smashing was a common “violent” means of protest, but seems to have rather traumatized the perpetrators. Where more serious damage to property was conducted (arson and small incendiary bombs), great care was taken to avoid injury or death – the suffragette herself being at the greatest risk.

The use of hunger and, later, thirst strikes, seemed to strike more terror into the government than the “violent” demonstrations. Force-feeding was traumatic and greatly harmed the victim.

Nancy Astor was the first woman MP to take a seat in the commons (who wasn’t a suffragette and was born in the States), however the very first woman elected was Countess Constance Markievicz – of the Irish republican party Sinn Fein. Members of Sinn Fein never take their seats in parliament because it requires an oath of allegiance to the monarch. It’s not a wasted vote: it’s a statement that she and Sinn Fein were able to make because of woman’s suffrage.