Women's involvement in electoral politics and local government
Politics not beyond the reach of 18c and early 19c women
Women’s ‘virtual representation’ in this period = a form of political identity for women (Gleadle & Richardson)
Aristocratic/upper-class women
Chronology for aristocratic influence
18c = ‘aristocratic century’ - patronage vital part of political and public life
French Revolutionary period – aristocratic dominance in Britain threatened
1815-1880s revival of aristocratic confidence BUT widening of male franchise
Chronology for aristocratic women’s influence
1832 Reform Act – all women specifically excluded from franchise
1832 – 1860s – dominance of domestic ideology but
1841 Bedchamber Crisis (Queen Victoria could not retain ‘Whig’ ladies in waiting during a Tory administration) – private sphere not necessarily a depoliticised one for aristocratic women (Reynolds)
1870s/1880s aristocratic women leading women’s party political auxiliaries
1885 General Election - new style of political canvassing by upper-class women
Participation of women
debate amongst aristocratic women about their involvement in politics
some argued women not suited to politics because their intellects different from men’s
some believed political commitment was unfeminine
when aristocratic women supported the family interest, they did so by
- promoting family prestige, influence and economic position
- exercising patronage
- involvement in politics
Activities
‘social politics’ – aristocratic women supported male relatives by
- holding receptions and social events
- electoral ‘treating’ in family-held constituencies
- visiting electors
- canvassing electors to obtain their support of family’s candidate
- supporting the family interest
- deemed acceptable way that women could engage in public sphere BUT
- public support of candidates who were not relatives was not, e.g. 1784 Westminster Election – Duchess of Devonshire canvassed strangers (not her tenants or employees) on behalf of Charles James Fox, who was not her relative
self-generated political activity – women demonstrating their own interest/involvement in politics
- direct intervention in electoral politics by 18c and early 19c women landowners – controlled unreformed boroughs which were part of family estates
- influenced selection of candidates (Reynolds, Richardson)
- pressurised workforce/tenantry to vote in favour of their
- candidate (Richardson)
- 18c aristocratic women observed debates in H. of Parliament
- 1834 rebuilt H. of Parliament – special galleries for women observers
- political salons, e.g. Lady Palmerston, Duchess of Devonshire
- offered social setting where political discussions could take place outside of Parliament
- salonnieres often acted as unofficial party whips (Forman)
- family and kinship networks between women – could discuss
- politics and ideas (Gleadle & Richardson)
party politics
aristocratic women became patrons and leaders of women’s party-political auxiliaries, eg
Primrose League (1883) – Conservatives
Women’s Liberal Federation (1887) - Liberals
Corrupt Practices Act 1883 – canvassers for political parties could not be paid – opportunities for upper-class
women to campaign for their male relatives
very different from ‘Lady of the Manor’ style visiting of
tenants or workforce
new style of canvassing developed by Primrose League women
behaved with complete propriety
systematically worked electoral wards
between elections:
- worked as unpaid assistants to paid Conservative agents
- visited Conservative supporters
- kept canvass books recording known Conservative supporters
- kept electoral registers up-to-date
Middle-class women
witnesses to electoral procedures – called as witnesses into Parliamentary investigations into corrupt practices in elections
women’s evidence called for
spoke in a public sphere
seen as authorities on community custom and practice
local office-holding – women’s capacity to hold posts in community connected with their property ownership
single women and widows could exercise rights to act as vergers, sextons, parish clerks – rights lost in 1835
18c. widows and spinsters assigned to men their voting rights in local politics
electoral politics
contemporaries believed that women had important influence over the way their husbands voted
wives important – specifically sought by canvassing candidates
the vote seen as ‘a piece of family property’
how vote exercised was negotiated between husband and wife
if wife’s property ownership carried voting rights, these were exercised by her husband
alternatively, women saw themselves as stakeholders in their husbands’ vote – this gave them ‘virtual representation’
exclusive dealing – economic aspect of canvassing - wives supported/boycotted shopkeepers known to support a particular candidate
local politics
1869 Municipal Franchise Act
women ratepayers in England and Wales allowed to vote in local elections
1870s+ women could stand for election to local authority management boards, e.g. workhouses, school boards, Poor Law boards
women’s involvement in local government probably at its height in late 19c and early 20c
Conclusions
Older accounts of the ‘novelty’ of women’s political activity and suffrage campaigning in the late 19c and early 20c may be compared with recent research into women’s involvement in all sorts of political areas in the 18c and early 19c
More nuanced readings in this newer work
Continuities of custom and practice
Significance of community interests
New ways of looking at networks, domestic ideology, gender, sociability
On the other hand, how far women developed their own political consciousness remains an on-going debate
Power of women in political processes
Aristocratic women – still unenfranchised; influence derived from connections with men; influence indirect
Middle-class women – wives canvassed to exert influence over
their husbands’ votes
working-class women believed to have enormous influence over their husbands, including how they voted
Women’s participatory politics – from 1870s, still in the gift of men who passed the legislation allowing female property owners a limited, local franchise and entry to local office holding
Female suffrage – women’s political auxiliaries – party loyalty before suffrage? – hard to organise cross-class and cross-party agreements between women