George Lansbury is probably best known as the Christian pacifist who led the Labour party from 1932 to 1935. As one of only three government ministers who kept their seats in Labour’s 1931 general election defeat (the other two were Clement Attlee and Stafford Cripps), great responsibility fell on Lansbury’s shoulders at a difficult time. What is less well known about Lansbury is his deep commitment to women’s suffrage, and his extraordinary act of self-sacrifice in support of the cause.
Born in 1859, the third of nine children, Lansbury first grew up in East Anglia, before moving around several times, following his father’s job as a supervisor on the railways. Eventually, the Lansbury family settled in Whitechapel in the East End of London, the area he became most associated with. Lansbury’s working-class background initially led him to Gladstonian liberalism, but it was a short-lived emigration to Australia in the mid-1880s that gave him his passion for the issue of women’s rights, after he saw the terrible conditions faced by emigrant women (John Shepherd, George Lansbury (Oxford University Press, 2002), p.15).
In the 1890s, Lansbury became a socialist, serving on the Poplar Board of Poor Law Guardians. He won a seat in the House of Commons in 1910. In the first election of that year, in the January, he had performed well as the Labour candidate for Bow and Bromley, before winning that same seat in the second election within 12 months, held in the December.
As a member of parliament, Lansbury’s conviction in the cause of votes for women deepened. Lansbury’s biographer, John Shepherd, records that The Times reported on 11 November 1912 that Lansbury had travelled to France with the suffragette leader, Emmeline Pankhurst to meet her daughter, Christabel, who was in hiding from the British police at a hotel in Paris (Shepherd, Lansbury, p.115).
Lansbury supported votes for women with more than words. After less than two years as an MP, he resigned his seat to fight a by-election on the cause of women’s suffrage. On 26 November 1912, Lansbury lost his seat by 751 votes to the Conservative and Unionist candidate, Reginald Blair, who was an anti-suffragist.
After Lansbury spoke in favour of the Women’s Social and Political Union at a rally at the Albert Hall in April 1913, he was arrested for breach of the peace. Lansbury refused to be ‘bound over to keep the peace’ and was imprisoned at Pentonville. A protracted legal process followed, with a demand placed on Lansbury to provide sureties guaranteeing future good behaviour. Lansbury went on hunger and thirst strike in prison, and was only released in August 1913 on the orders of the Secretary of State, Reginald McKenna.
Lansbury was not to return to Parliament in 1922. He became editor of the Daily Heraldand was to serve as mayor of Poplar. He was again imprisoned on a matter of principle in 1921, as part of the ‘Polar Rates Revolt’, when local councillors protested against the way that provision for London’s poorest fell disproportionately on the least rich local authorities.
Many great sacrifices were made in the cause of women’s suffrage. Emily Davison was to die in 1913 after throwing herself in front of the King’s horse at the Derby. Lansbury may not have won the Bow and Bromley by-election of 1912, but the publicity that he attracted to the cause of women’s suffrage was a significant contribution. George Lansbury’s principled stand should not be forgotten.
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Nick Thomas-Symonds writes the Labour history column for Progress and tweets @NThomasSymonds
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Photo: BBC Radio 4
There’s an irony in a Labour Lansbury losing to a Tory Blair!
Rather than a badly organised and frankly disastrous bye-election, it would be better to recall the 1912 Labour Party Conference where Conference supported women trade unionists in their insistence that any extension of the franchise should be on an equal basis for women and men. The resolution was adopted by Conference against the powerful opposition of the Mineworkers Union. Crucial groundwork for the success of the resolution was laid by the suffragist National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies working with supporters in the Labour Party.
There is a tendency among some commentators to exaggerate the importance of the Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) in securing the franchise for women. The WSPU leadership was autocratic in the way it ran the organisation. This led to the breakaway from the WSPU of the Women’s Freedom League. The WSPU also drove out Labour supporters. It should not be forgotten that women did not get the vote on equal terms in 1918, despite the deal that the Government did with the WSPU on the outbreak of the First World War. Securing the vote on equal terms took another 10 years of campaigning and was only achieved in 1928.
Lansbury’s decision to resign was certainly self-sacrifice but opposed by many of his colleagues in the Labour Party. His defeat deprived his East End constituents of progressive representation in Parliament on key issues that mattered to them – sweated labour/low pay, healthcare, housing, schools, union recognition, unemployment/underemployment etc.
Lansbury was unquestionably an individual of high principle and deep integrity but he lacked judgement at the most critical times. This was cruelly exposed by Ernest Bevin at the 1935 Labour Party Conference, and led the Party to find a much better leader in Clement Attlee.