Manchester University Press
7 The Census Bill and the boycott plan
Abstract
The Census Committee civil servants polished the questions that would be asked of households, to give the information that welfare reformers needed. The census would now ask for each married woman: how many children born alive to the current marriage, how many still living and how many had died. The census schedule would be completed and signed by ‘the Head of Family’, usually the husband. So women, till then merely deprived of a vote, were now deprived of a voice: their husband held the pen to record their experienced of childbirth and child deaths. Insult was thus added to injury. Although unaware of the devil in the census detail, the WFL was alert to the coming census. In summer 1910 it planned a census conference, inviting the many suffrage organizations. Meanwhile, in July Asquith's cabinet shelved the Conciliation Bill ~ where it joined the cobwebs among previous such suffrage bills. ‘So another hope is killed’, lamented Henry Nevinson sadly in his diary. Was this one more reason to boycott the coming census?
Abstract
The Census Committee civil servants polished the questions that would be asked of households, to give the information that welfare reformers needed. The census would now ask for each married woman: how many children born alive to the current marriage, how many still living and how many had died. The census schedule would be completed and signed by ‘the Head of Family’, usually the husband. So women, till then merely deprived of a vote, were now deprived of a voice: their husband held the pen to record their experienced of childbirth and child deaths. Insult was thus added to injury. Although unaware of the devil in the census detail, the WFL was alert to the coming census. In summer 1910 it planned a census conference, inviting the many suffrage organizations. Meanwhile, in July Asquith's cabinet shelved the Conciliation Bill ~ where it joined the cobwebs among previous such suffrage bills. ‘So another hope is killed’, lamented Henry Nevinson sadly in his diary. Was this one more reason to boycott the coming census?
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents 237
- List of maps vii
- List of figures viii
- Acknowledgements xi
- List of abbreviations xiii
- Chronology xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Part I Prelude: people and their politics
- 1 Charlotte Despard and John Burns, the Colossus of Battersea 13
- 2 Muriel Matters goes vanning it with Asquith 24
- 3 Propaganda culture 36
- 4 Parallel politics 48
-
Part II Narrative: October 1909 to April 1911
- 5 Plotting across central London 63
- 6 The battle for John Burns’s Battersea revisited 71
- 7 The Census Bill and the boycott plan 78
- 8 Lloyd George goes a-wooing versus Burns’s ‘vixens in velvet’ 86
- 9 The King’s Speech 97
- 10 Battleground for democracy 108
-
Part III Census night: places and spaces
- 11 Emily Wilding Davison’s Westminster – and beyond 125
- 12 The Nevinsons’ Hampstead – and central London entertainments 132
- 13 Laurence Housman’s Kensington, with Clemence in Dorset 145
- 14 Annie Kenney’s Bristol and Mary Blathwayt’s Bath 154
- 15 Jessie Stephenson’s Manchester and Hannah Mitchell’s Oldham Road 169
- 16 English journey 183
-
Part IV The census and beyond
- 17 After census night 197
- 18 Telling the story 209
- 19 Sources and their analysis 219
-
Front matter
- Contents 237
- Introduction 239
- Abbreviations 242
- Key mass evasions 243
- London boroughs and Middlesex 245
- Midlands 300
- Southern England 333
- Northern England 342
- Notes 363
- Select bibliography 389
- Index 395
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents 237
- List of maps vii
- List of figures viii
- Acknowledgements xi
- List of abbreviations xiii
- Chronology xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Part I Prelude: people and their politics
- 1 Charlotte Despard and John Burns, the Colossus of Battersea 13
- 2 Muriel Matters goes vanning it with Asquith 24
- 3 Propaganda culture 36
- 4 Parallel politics 48
-
Part II Narrative: October 1909 to April 1911
- 5 Plotting across central London 63
- 6 The battle for John Burns’s Battersea revisited 71
- 7 The Census Bill and the boycott plan 78
- 8 Lloyd George goes a-wooing versus Burns’s ‘vixens in velvet’ 86
- 9 The King’s Speech 97
- 10 Battleground for democracy 108
-
Part III Census night: places and spaces
- 11 Emily Wilding Davison’s Westminster – and beyond 125
- 12 The Nevinsons’ Hampstead – and central London entertainments 132
- 13 Laurence Housman’s Kensington, with Clemence in Dorset 145
- 14 Annie Kenney’s Bristol and Mary Blathwayt’s Bath 154
- 15 Jessie Stephenson’s Manchester and Hannah Mitchell’s Oldham Road 169
- 16 English journey 183
-
Part IV The census and beyond
- 17 After census night 197
- 18 Telling the story 209
- 19 Sources and their analysis 219
-
Front matter
- Contents 237
- Introduction 239
- Abbreviations 242
- Key mass evasions 243
- London boroughs and Middlesex 245
- Midlands 300
- Southern England 333
- Northern England 342
- Notes 363
- Select bibliography 389
- Index 395
