Cicely Mary Hamilton, was an English actress, writer, journalist, suffragist and feminist, part of the struggle for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. She is now best known for the feminist play How the Vote was Won, which sees a male anti-suffragist change his mind when the women in his life go on strike. She was also the author of one of the most frequently performed suffrage plays, A Pageant of Great Women (1909), which featured the character of Jane Austen as one of its "Learned Women."

The Women Writers' Suffrage League (WWSL) was an organisation in the United Kingdom formed in 1908 by Cicely Hamilton and Bessie Hatton. The organisation stated that it wanted "to obtain the Parliamentary Franchise for women on the same terms as it is, or may be, granted to men. Its methods are the methods proper to writers – the use of the pen." The organisation viewed itself as a writers' group rather than a literary society. Membership was not based on literary merit, but instead was granted to anyone who had published and sold a written work. Members also paid an annual subscription fee of 2s. 6d. The league was inclusive and welcomed writers of all genders, classes, genres, and political persuasions provided they were in favor of women's suffrage. By 1911 the league was composed of conservatives, liberals and socialists, women of power and women who worked hard and members of the military. The league disbanded on 24 January 1919 following the passing Representation of the People Act in February 1918, granting women over the age of 30 the right to vote.