300 British delegates talk to Prime Minister (jan 1, 1906 – dec 31, 1906)
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300 women representing over 125,000 male and female suffragists argued for women’s suffrage with Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman. “The Prime Minister agreed with the delegation's arguments, but ‘was obliged to add that he proposed to do nothing at all about it.’ His reasons were that there were too many differences of opinion on the matter in the Cabinet and the Liberal Party (of which he was a member), and that ‘his hands were tied.’ He urged the women ‘“to go on pestering”, and to exercise “the virtue of patience.”' Some of the women to whom Campbell-Bannerman advised to be patient had been working for women's rights for as many as fifty years; his advice to ‘keep on pestering’ was soon to prove quite unwise. His thoughtless words infuriated his audience, and ‘by those foolish words the militant movement became irrevocably established, and the stage of revolt began.’ The younger suffragettes realized that the polite methods previously used by the older generation were achieving nothing. The only option left was to act up for the press; the activists realized that ‘tea parties would not do it: sensational publicity and martyrdom might. The Press would not be able to resist publishing sensational exploits.’ Most suffragettes turned to these methods”. The NUWSS and the WSPU split and became the two major factions of the British suffrage movement-- the NUWSS did not believe that “sensationalism” was necessary and stuck to peaceful petitions and demonstrations, while the WSPU “quickly switched to more press-baiting methods” though these methods were ”far from the more militant tactics it would eventually attain.” The WSPU held publicity in high regard and were told to "’conduct the biggest publicity campaign ever known; make it more colourful and more commanding of attention than anything ever seen before.’”
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