In response the Liberal Party launched Women's Liberal Associations which allowed women more freedom to allocate a role and voice for themselves and were not a mere subsidiary of the national party.[17] The organisation of women in the Liberal Party in Wales began around 1890 supported by prominent members Gwyneth Vaughan, Nora Phillips and Sybil Thomas.[17] In 1891 an Aberdare branch of the Women's Liberal Foundation was founded and it quickly began advocating votes for women and began leafleting in both English and Welsh.[17] By 1893 there were said to be 7,000 members of the Welsh Union of Women's Liberal Associations which had raised to 9,000 by 1895.[17] At a meeting of the North Wales Liberal Foundation in 1895 it was decided that Women's Liberal Federation would merge with Cymru Fydd, a political pressure group for home rule, to form a new Welsh Liberal Federation and equal rights for women were written into the objects of the organisation.[20] Despite some early successes Liberal organisation floundered as they headed into the new century and apart from the Cardiff branch which achieved some successes, many of the branches had closed by 1907.[21]