Počátky hnutí za získání ženského volebního práva ve Velké Británii v druhé polovině 60. let 19. století

The paper focuses on the first phase of women’s efforts to gain the right to vote. There had been discussion over the preparation of the Second Reform Act about widening the franchise. In 1866, a group of women gathered in the Kensington Society came up with an idea to create a petition which called for right for women householders to gain right to vote on the same basis as men did, without the distinction of sex. The petition of 1866 reached an unexpected number of signatures and MP John Stuart Mill presented the question of women’s suffrage in the House of Commons. The paper follows the arguments for and against the women’s suffrage in the 1860s. The 1866 petition was an important step in the women’s emancipation movement as it started a broader movement to gain the suffrage.