Both the constitutional campaigns of the LWSS and the flamboyance of the WSPU demonstrate the richness of suffrage politics, as practised at a local level. They also emphasise that suffrage was not just a campaign for the vote but a catalyst that politicised Edwardian women and drew them into the public arena. There was a steady entry of women into public political life on Merseyside as the suffrage campaign progressed. Women directed their suffrage activity not only through the WSPU and LWSS but also into a myriad of smaller groups dedicated to the issue. Some of these formed from splits in the WSPU. Others emerged from larger political groups such as the Women's Liberal Suffrage Federation, providing a forum for suffrage work for those women who preferred their politics to be party based. A further group including the church societies often shared membership with larger suffrage organisations. By 1914, there were 53 national bodies in which writers, actresses, artists, Liberal women, Jewish women, and many more could proclaim their identity as suffragists. While membership of some of these was dependent on external factors such as religious or political affiliation, others allowed for an overlap in membership which also demonstrates the vital importance of friendship networks in building local branches and breaking down barriers between organisations that appear impenetrable at leadership level.

The presence of so many smaller groups suggests that it was suffrage that persuaded many previously apolitical women to leave the private sphere and adopt a public identity as political actors. It also highlights the necessity for further questioning the focus of suffrage historiography on the WSPU/NUWSS’ militant/constitutionalist split. The broader range of organisations attracted a membership that spanned this divide, and became important in their own right, making the division irrelevant. Organisations can be divided into two categories: ‘oppositional’ groups, which splintered from the WSPU, demanding both the vote and alternative methods of organising for it; and ‘alternative’ societies, which sought to expand sites of suffrage activity while allowing their members to retain allegiance to other suffrage organisations. One organisation has reluctantly been omitted: the Liverpool Men's League for Women's Suffrage (LMLWS). This branch, which formed in 1908, gave great support to the NUWSS, the WFL and the WSPU.