The United Procession of Women, or Mud March as it became known, was a peaceful demonstration in London on 9 February 1907 organised by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) in which more than 3,000 women marched from Hyde Park Corner to the Strand in support of women's suffrage. Women from all classes participated in what was the largest public demonstration supporting women's suffrage seen until then. It acquired the name "Mud March" from the day's weather since incessant heavy rain left the marchers drenched and mud-spattered.
The proponents of women's suffrage were divided between those who favoured constitutional methods and those who supported direct action. In 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Known as the suffragettes, the WSPU held demonstrations, heckled politicians, and from 1905 saw several of its members imprisoned, which gained press attention and increased support from women. To maintain that momentum and to create support for a new suffrage bill in the British House of Commons, the NUWSS and other groups organised the Mud March to coincide with the opening of Parliament. The event attracted much public interest and broadly sympathetic press coverage, but when the bill was presented the following month, it was "talked out" without a vote.
While the march failed to influence the immediate parliamentary process, it had a considerable impact on public awareness and on the movement's future tactics. Large peaceful public demonstrations, which had never been attempted, became standard features of the suffrage campaign. On 21 June 1908, up to 500,000 people attended Women's Sunday, a WSPU rally in Hyde Park. The marches showed that the fight for women's suffrage had the support of women in every stratum of society, and despite their social differences, they united to work together for a common cause.
Background
In October 1897, Millicent Fawcett was the driving force behind the formation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), a new umbrella organisation for all the factions and regional societies, and the liaison with sympathetic MPs. Initially, 1u groups affiliated to the new central body. The organisation became the leading body that followed a constitutional path to women's suffrage. In October 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel Pankhurst formed a women-only group in Manchester, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Although the NUWSS sought its objectives through constitutional means, such as petitions to Parliament, the WSPU organised open-air meetings and heckled politicians and chose jail over fines when it was prosecuted. From 1906, it began to use the nickname "suffragettes", which differentiated it from the constitutionalist "suffragists".
At the time of the Mud March, before the suffragette campaign had progressed to damaging property, relations between the WSPU and the NUWSS remained cordial. When 11 suffragettes were jailed in October 1906 after a protest in the House of Commons lobby, Fawcett and the NUWSS stood by them. On 27 October 1906, in a letter to The Times, she wrote:
The militant actions of the WSPU raised the profile of the women's suffrage campaign in Britain, and the NUWSS wanted to show that it was as committed as were the suffragettes to the cause. In January 1906, the Liberal Party, led by Henry Campbell-Bannerman, had won an overwhelming general election victory. Although before the election, many Liberal MPs had promised that the new administration would introduce a women's suffrage bill, once in power, Campbell-Bannerman said that it was "not realistic" to introduce new legislation. A month after the election, the WSPU held a successful London march, which was attended by 300–400 women. To show that there was support for a suffrage bill, the Central Society for Women's Suffrage suggested in November 1906 to hold a mass procession in London to coincide with the opening of Parliament in February. The NUWSS called on its members to join the march.