Suffrage Outside Suffragism

Suffrage Outside Suffragism

Suffrage Outside Suffragism Women's Vote in Britain, 1880-1914 Edited by Myriam Boussahba-Bravard palg

* Editorial matter, selection and introduction Myriam Boussahba-Bravard 2007 All remaining chapters their respective authors 2007 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-1-4039-9596-4 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-54491-2 ISBN 978-0-230-80131-8 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230801318 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Suffrage outside suffragism: women's vote in Britain, 1880-1914 I edited by Myriam Boussahba-Bravard. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Women-Suffrage-Great Britain-History. 2. Great Britain History-Edward VII, 1901-1910.1. Boussahba-Bravard, Myriam, 1963- JN979.S86 2007 324.6' 230941-dc22 2006049294 10 9 16 15 8 7 6 14 13 12 5 11 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 Transferred to Digital Printing 2008

Contents Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors vii viii 1 Introduction Myriam Boussahba-Bravard 1 Part I Protecting the Centre: National Parties and the Control of Women 33 2 Women in the Labour Party and Women's Suffrage Pat Thane 35 3 The Conservative Party and Women's Suffrage Lori Maguire 4 Gender, Suffrage and Party: Liberal Women's Organisations, 1880-1914 Linda Walker 52 77 Part II In the Hub of Things: Local Activism and Sexual Politics 103 5 The National Union of Women Workers and Women's Suffrage Julia Bush 6 The Women's Co-operative Guild and Suffrage Gillian Scott 105 132 7 'To make the world a better place': Socialist Women and Women's Suffrage in Bristol, 1910-1920 June Hannam 8 The Primrose League and Women's Suffrage, 1883-1918 Philippe Vervaecke 157 180 v

vi Contents Part III Beyond the Structure: Mastering and Discarding Organisational Structures 9 Unionised Women Teachers and Women's Suffrage Susan Trouve-Finding 10 Avant-garde Women and Women's Suffrage Lucy Delap Index 203 205 231 256

Acknowledgements I wish to thank all the contributors for their participation in the book. Contributors who have been part since the beginning have shown patience. Contributors who have joined us at a later stage have been really good with the deadlines imposed by the editor. I would also like to thank Anne Besnault-Levita, Julia Bush, Georges-Claude Guilbert, June Hannam, Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin and Geraldine Vaughan for their helpful comments on the earlier drafts of the introduction. The final version is, of course, my sole responsibility. vii

Notes on Contributors Myriam Boussahba-Bravard is Maitre de conferences in British Studies, University of Rouen, France. Her research focuses on suffrage history and periodicals in the Edwardian period. Myriam's forthcoming publications in French academic journals and books include 'Le suffragisme ou le deni de la theorisation politique, 1900-1914', ed. Claire Charlot (Paris: Ophrys, 2007); 'Resistance passive et citoyennete: la rebellion fiscale de la bourgeoise edouardienne' (Paris: Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, forthcoming); 'L'argumentaire des "races" europeennes dans les revues Contemporary, Fortnighly et Nineteenth Century 1900-1914' (Paris: L'Harmattan, collection Eugenisme et racisme, 2006); 'L'argumentaire eugeniste dans les revues Contemporary, Fortnighly et Nineteenth Century 1900-1914' (Presses Universitaires de Lille 3, 2007). She is currently writing a book-length biography of the feminist Teresa Billington-Greig (1877-1964). Julia Bush is Senior Lecturer in History, University of Northampton, Northampton, UK. Her books include Behind the Lines: East London Labour and World War I (1984) and Edwardian Ladies and Imperial Power (2000), as well as contributions to oral history and community history publications and journal articles on labour history and women's history in The London Journal, History Workshop Journal, Women's History Review, Women's Studies International Forum, Women's History Notebooks, Literature and History and History of Education. Her current research focuses upon conservative women in the period 1880-1920, and a forthcoming book is titled Women Against the Vote (Oxford University Press, 2007). Lucy Delap is Research Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and the History Faculty, University of Cambridge, UK. She is completing a book, The Feminist Avant-Garde: Transatlantic Encounters, c.1900-1920s, which explores the intellectual history and cultural politics of feminism, set within Anglo-American transatlantic exchanges of the early twentieth century. She has co-edited with Maria DiCenzo and Leila Ryan a collection of primary sources, Feminism and the Periodical Press, 1900-1918 (Routledge, 2005). She is an associate editor of History and Policy, and is currently working on domestic service and the idea of service in twentieth-century Britain. viii

Notes on Contributors ix June Hannam is Professor and Associate Dean, Humanities, Languages and Social Science Faculty, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. She is the author of two books, Isabella Ford, 1855-1924 (Blackwell, 1989) and (with K. Hunt) Socialist Women, Britain c.1880 to 1920 (Routledge, 2002). She has written a number of articles on the Independent Labour Party and the 'woman question' and on the women's movement in Bristol. Her current research interest is in the politics of the emotions and Labour Party women MPs and candidates in the interwar years. Lori Maguire received her doctorate at St Antony's College, Oxford and is currently Professor of British Studies at the University of Paris VIII, France. She is the author of two books Anglo-American Policy towards the Free French and Conservative Women: a History of Women and the Conservative Party and co-author of La democratie au 20e siixle. She has published numerous articles in French and English. Gillian Scott is Principal Lecturer in the School of Historical and Critical Studies at the University of Brighton, UK, where she has been in full-time employment since 1989. Her previous work experience included adult education and the British Consumers' Co-operative movement. The focus of her research is the relationship between feminist ideas and the organisation of working-class women in modern Britain. She has published several articles on different aspects of the history of the Women's Co-operative Guild, and a book, Feminism and the Politics of Working Women (UCL Press, 1998). She is the course leader of undergraduate programmes in the Humanities, and a member of the interdisciplinary 'Gender and Built Space' research grouping, at the University of Brighton. Pat Thane (MA Oxford, PhD LSE) has been Professor of Contemporary British History, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, UK, since October 2002. She was Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Sussex, UK, from 1994-2002. Her main publications are: The Foundations of the Welfare State (Longman, 1982, 2nd edn 1996); Women and Gender Policies: Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States, 1880s-1950s, co-editor with Gisela Bock (Routledge, 1990); Old Age from Antiquity to Post-Modernity, co-editor with Paul Johnson (Routledge, 1998); Old Age in England: Past Experiences, Present Issues (Oxford University Press, May 2000); Women and Ageing in Britain since 1500, co-editor with Lynne Botelho (Longman, 2001); Labour's First Century: the Labour Party 1900-2000, co-editor with Duncan Tanner and Nick Tiratsoo (Cambridge University Press, 2000); The Long History of Old Age, editor (Thames and Hudson, Getty Museum, LA, 2005).

x Notes on Contributors Susan Trouve-Finding is Maitre de conferences in British Studies, University of Poitiers, France. Her research interests include social policy, education policy, family policy in postwar Britain and the role of teachers in twentieth-century Britain and France. She has published extensively on these fields in French academic publications. A recent comparative article on women primary teachers appeared in History of Education, 2005, S. She is currently preparing a book on contemporary British family policy. Philippe Vervaecke is Maitre de conferences in British Studies, University of Lille III, France. Philippe is an alumnus from the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud and from the London School of Economics, where he obtained an MAin International History. His PhD (2003) is entitled 'La Primrose League, 1883-2000: Culture et pratiques politiques d'un mouvement conservateur'. It covers the social and political history of the Primrose League from the days of its creation in 1883 to its recent demise in 2000. His research interests include popular conservatism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Victorian and Edwardian political culture, women's involvement in politics and British political iconography, on which he has published articles in French academic journals. Linda Walker is Research Fellow in the School of Nursing, University of Manchester, UK, currently working on the health of female shop workers in Britain, 1880-1930. Her wider research interests encompass the first wave of feminism and the formation of women's political associations in relation to the Victorian and Edwardian women's movement which was the subject of her doctoral dissertation at the University of Manchester (1984). Her publications include 'Party Political Women: a Comparative Study of Liberal Women and the Primrose League, 1890-1914', in Jane Rendall, ed., Equal or Different: Women's Politics 1800-1914 (Basil Blackwell, 1987) and articles on Liberal women for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). She has taught women's history and modem social and political history in universities since the 1970s.