Skip to content

Local Heroes - Your streets were their streets Local Heroes - Your streets were their streets

The names of 197 local men who lost their lives in World War I are
inscribed on the bells of the Memorial Community Church in Plaistow. They are our local heroes

Follow the story on

Women

Votes for Women

The war helped the cause of the “suffrage movement” which campaigned for women to have the right to vote. Women took on the jobs usually done by men during the war, and their efforts had helped to win it.

The Imperial War Museum website has photos of women at work during the war.

Local women had been active in the suffrage movement for many years. In 1906 the  London branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union was set up in Canning Town.

Women were rewarded for their work during the war with limited rights to vote in 1918. East Ham North was one of the first boroughs to return a woman MP, Susan Lawrence, in 1923. Then in July 1928 women were given equal rights to the vote.

Thanks for this to The Newham Story.

 

Back to top