Women and Politics
Late Nineteenth to Early Twentieth
Century
Overview
• Introduction
• Women and Local Government
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Politics of the Parish
Parish Office Holding
Women Poor Law Guardians
County Councils
• Party Politics
– Liberals
– Conservatives
– Socialists
Parishes
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Local government in the nineteenth century was confused and overlapping
Electoral processes depended upon custom and local precedent rather than
regulation from the centre. This produced opportunities for women to participate,
and to exercise authority, in their local neighbourhoods.
The civil parish remained the primary unit of local government until late
nineteenth century. By the mid nineteenth century there were over 15,000
parishes compared with only 1,000 other local government institutions.
Main parish officers were the churchwardens, overseers of the poor, surveyors of
the highways, and constables. There were also a number of elected parish servants
which often included sextons, parish or vestry clerks, beadles, scavengers, and the
master and mistress of the workhouse.
Rudolph Gneist calculated that five per cent of the adult male population held
parish office each year in 1800 – a total of around 100,000 people.
David Eastwood has estimated that around 400,000 people were attending parish
meetings by the turn of the nineteenth century.
Female Office Holding
Date
Place
Office
1800
Hampstead, Middx
Board of Guardians included Lady
of Manor
1800
Paddington, Middx
Pew opener
1800
Stoke Newington, Middx
Sextoness
1807
Wormingford, Essex
Parish offices including
churchwarden, overseer,
surveyor, constable
1808
Copford, Essex
Overseer supervised workhouse
supplies
1811
Stoke Newington, Middx
Sextoness
1814
Wormingford, Essex
Parish offices including
churchwarden, overseer,
surveyor, constable
1819
Stoke Newington, Middx
Sextoness (office considered a
charity as the oldest of 4
candidates all women was
chosen)
1828
Minshull Vernon, Cheshire
Constable, overseer, supervisor
1831
County Wexford, Ireland
Sextoness
1838-40
Norfolk
Parish Clerk
1854
Misson, Notts
Overseer
1866
Harrow, Middx
Sextoness (had to find an
assistant her duties mainly
confined to pew opening)
Women Poor Law Guardians
• Women were also able to hold office as poor law guardians
not tested in law until 1875 when Martha Merrington was
returned for the Kensington
• Other high-profile candidates: Harriett McIlquham
(Boddington, Tewkesbury Union, 1881: first married woman
guardian), Eva McLaren (Lambeth, 1882), Helena Shearer
(Islington, 1884 although she was later disqualified from
serving) and Louisa Twining (Kensington, 1888)
• Women campaigners asserted the specific contribution of
women regarding the work of the Poor Law Guardians
• Educated women in electoral process itself
Women voters in a parish election in Lichfield, 1843
Occupations of Lichfield female voters
Occupation
Total
Of independent means
4
Proprietor of house and
land
1
Butcher
1
Publican
1
Dressmaker
1
Laundress
2
Washerwoman
1
Pauper
2
Female Servant
1
Not stated
5
Occupation of municipal voters, Basingstoke 1869-70
Occupation
No occupation given
Number
14
Annuitant
9
Dressmaker/Seamstress
9
Laundress
9
Retailer
9
Servant/service
6
Innkeeper
6
Schoolmistress/assistant
5
Landowner/independent means
4
Other
3
County Councils
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Women ratepayers received further rights to vote in town councils in 1882 and for
County Councils in 1888
London County Council had 118 councillors elected by household suffrage and
could also co-opt
Act stated that ‘every person shall be qualified to be a councillor who is qualified
to elect to the office of a councillor’.
Women’s rights campaigners established ‘The Society for Promoting the Return of
Women as County Councillors’
Jane Cobden, Margaret Sandhurst and Emma Cons became Councillors
In February 1890 the women retook their seats making powerful statements to the
Council. Emma Cons, for example, stated:
– My feelings on the subject of women councillors are as strong as ever, and I shall neglect no
means in my power to secure a perfect freedom of choice to the ratepayers, and equal
municipal rights for women as for men. It is a bitter experience when one for the first time
fully realizes that even a long life spent in the service of one’s fellow citizens is powerless to
blot out the disgrace and crime (in the eyes of the law) of having been born a woman.
•
Disenfranchised by court action but Women’s Local Government Society continued
to campaign for the election of female councillors and finally achieved their aim in
1907
Liberal Party
• Strong links between liberalism and feminism
• Women’s Liberal Federation was established in 1887
• Dominated by women suffragists who viewed the local associations
as a means of keeping the party alert to women’s rights issues.
• Membership of the WLF was 75,000 in 1892 rising to 133,215 by
1912.
• WLF educated women into political processes (including voting and
holding office in local government); undertook administration
associated with the expanded electorate; encouraged all women
eligible to vote in local elections to register and vote; pushed for
greater female representation on bodies such as school boards
• WLF largest female political party organisation and the most
effective but fractured by the women’s suffrage question
Conservative Party
• Organisation of Conservative women occurred under the auspices
of the Primrose League founded in 1883 in England and Wales and
1884 in Scotland
• Defended traditional pillars of society: Church, Crown and Empire.
Harked back to a romantic medievalism. League branches were
Habitations and its members were Knights and Dames. The League
was ruled by a Grand Council .
• By the early twentieth century the League membership exceeded
one million members. Female membership was around 49 per cent.
• Organised entertainments; administered elections; canvassed
voters; ran political meetings; distributed propaganda eg by Cycling
Corps
• Were limits and their activities were governed by men
Socialist Parties
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Women played key roles in Independent Labour Party and Social Democratic
Federation. Demanded inclusion in politics on more radical terms than those used
by Conservative or Liberal women.
Equality was harder to achieve in practice particularly for working class women
Women rarely took on key branch roles focusing instead on the social side of the
movement. Women who took on national roles were often from the middle class.
Separate women’s groups began to attach to local branches of the ILP and SDF in
the 1890s.
In Scotland, the Glasgow Women’s Labour Party sent delegates to the ILP annual
conference and devised their own election manifesto.
SDF approved the formation of women’s socialist circles in 1904. Involved in
educational work, the national association drawing up a syllabus and providing
specially commissioned essays so all members could participate in weekly
discussions.
Women’s Labour League founded in 1906 had 100 branches by 1911. Ran
afternoon meetings to maximise attendance and balanced political instruction,
education and recreation. Organised campaigns around child welfare. Provided
food and clothing for strikers children.