Women's Social and Political Union - WSPU During World War I

WSPU During World War I

On the outbreak of war, Christabel Pankhurst was living in Paris, in order to run the organisation without fear of arrest. Her autocratic control enabled her, over the objections of Kitty Marion and others, to declare on the outbreak of World War I that the WSPU should abandon its campaigns in favour of a nationalistic stance supporting the British government in the war. The WSPU stopped publishing The Suffragette, and in April 1915 it launched a new journal, Britannia. While the majority of WSPU members supported the war, a small number formed the Suffragettes of the Women's Social Political Union (SWSPU) and the Independent Women's Social and Political Union (IWSPU). The WSPU faded from public attention, and was dissolved in 1917, with Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst founding the Women's Party.