Talk:Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom

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[edit] Lily Maxwell

Merge tag has been on the above article for some time. I would merge it myself but I don't know enough about the topic to know whether Maxwell was even a significant figure in the context described, so probably one of the committed editors on this article could handle it better? Cheers Jdcooper (talk) 18:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The seeds of political feminism

I intend to edit the first two paragraph of this section as I think it is misleading if not in error on several points.

Here's my analysis

"Although the vast majority of women did not have the vote in 1832 (most regions at this time required some sort of land ownership)"

"most regions" - surely we should be speaking here of constituencies.

I've just checked page 19 and 20 in Michael Brock's "The Great Reform Act" and totalled the number of constituencies in early 1832 as follows:- 113 county constituencies - 261 borough constituencies - and three university seats. (I've done my additions rather hurriedly so they might be out by one or two out.)

The franchise in the counties as far as I'm aware was property based. In England's boroughs (202) only 41 were property based. How the franchise was based in Welsh, Irish and Scottish borough I'm not entirely sure but I'm fairly certain it wasn't property based in each one. The probability therefore is that the franchise was not property based in most constituencies. (In 80 English boroughs the franchise lay with its freemen, in another 29 with members of the corporation, in another 38 scot and lot payers and in 14 potwallopers.)

"The vast majority of woman did not have the vote"

So how many women prior to 1832 did have the vote? I wish who ever makes such statements would come up with an answer. How many women for instance voted in the 1831 election? Was it a hundred? Ten? None?

I've read everything the twenty odd volumes of "The History of Parliament" has to say on fifty six English borough constituencies for the period 1660 - 1790 and there is not one mention of woman voting - although granted old Mrs Tookey in New Romney seemed to control four chap who did: her two sons and two nephews.

I'm only aware of one instance of a woman electing MPs. Elizabeth Copley did so between 1553 - 1555 seemingly on four occasions in the borough of Gatton. Her husband had been basically the borough's only elector (he owned it) and his son was still a minor on his death so his widow voted in his stead

""the Reform Act ....explicitly banned women from participating in local and national elections."

As far as I'm aware the Reform Act said nothing about local elections. It said nothing about women either as far as I'm aware. It did implicitly confirm, however, that women were not to have a role in the electoral system - it would have been astonishing had it not done so. The Act confirmed a number of things and the fact it confirmed that women were excluded from voting I don't think merits much attention.

" After the bill was passed, MP Henry Hunt argued that any woman who was single, a tax payer and had sufficient property should be allowed to vote. One such wealthy woman, Mary Smith, was used in this speech as an example."

The philosopher Jeremy Bentham advocated female suffrage before the Reform Act in 1818. (source page 176 "Parliamentary Reform" by John Cannon) and I have been informed by an authority of the period that there were other male supporters of female suffrage in the 1790s. The 1832 Reform Act did not therefore spark the advocacy of female suffrage

Ned of the Hills

217.155.193.205 (talk) 09:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Women voting prior to 1832

It was previously claimed, before my own deletion on the ground it was misleading,that prior to 1832:-

"a very small number of wealthy women were able to vote"

I have been advised that if there is any truth in this claim it is likely to be found in one or all of the following works:-

Elaine Chalus, Elite Women in English Political Life c. 1754-1790 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005)

Judith S. Lewis, Sacred to Female Patriotism: Gender, Class, and Politics in Late Georgian Britain (NY: Routledge, 2003),

Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson, eds, Women in British Politics, 1760-1860: the power of the petticoat (NY: St Martin's Press, 2000

I live some distance from a good library so it will be some time before I can check these books.

I would be very interested to learn if any of these books can verify that women voted in national elections prior to 1832 - and if so to what extent.

I believe if there were cases of women voting prior to 1832 they occurred very rarely and in exceptional circumstances. There would have to be quite a number of cases before it could be suggested that women were enfranchised prior to 1832. "One swallow does not a summer make."

Ned of the Hills

217.155.193.205 (talk) 08:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)