Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter One Introduction to Merseyside
- Chapter Two ‘The workwomen of Liverpool are sadly in need of reform’: Women in Trade Unions, 1890–1914
- Chapter Three Early Political Activity, 1890–1905
- Chapter Four The Liverpool Women's Suffrage Society
- Chapter Five ‘A real live organisation’: The Liverpool Women's Social and Political Union, 1905–14
- Chapter Six Other Suffrage Organisations
- Chapter Seven Later Party Political Activity, 1905–14
- Chapter Eight The War
- Chapter Nine Conclusion – The Erasure of a Way of Life?
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter Five - ‘A real live organisation’: The Liverpool Women's Social and Political Union, 1905–14
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter One Introduction to Merseyside
- Chapter Two ‘The workwomen of Liverpool are sadly in need of reform’: Women in Trade Unions, 1890–1914
- Chapter Three Early Political Activity, 1890–1905
- Chapter Four The Liverpool Women's Suffrage Society
- Chapter Five ‘A real live organisation’: The Liverpool Women's Social and Political Union, 1905–14
- Chapter Six Other Suffrage Organisations
- Chapter Seven Later Party Political Activity, 1905–14
- Chapter Eight The War
- Chapter Nine Conclusion – The Erasure of a Way of Life?
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Early interest in suffrage on Merseyside coincided with the growth of socialism. In April 1905, both collided at the annual general meeting of the LWSS when an argument about organisation developed. Although the society was attracting attention, it had made no effort to extend its committee or alter its working practices. Concerned with the limitations of this approach, two socialist supporters brought an amendment to the AGM suggesting that, instead of automatically re-electing the committee en bloc, there ought to be a ballot of members. Mr Buxton, the proposer, explained that wholesale re-election was
calculated to deprive the members of any share whatever of representation on the committee… ninety per cent of the women who would be enfranchised by the Women's Enfranchisement Bill would be working women, and yet [they] had no representation on the committee…
Mrs Alice Morrissey, seconding, had further criticisms of the society:
She had been a member… for twelve months and had been very much disappointed in the work. She had thought the society would be a real live organisation and she would wish to take an active part in it. No headway would be made unless meetings were to be held in different parts of the town…
Buxton, who refused to negotiate the point in private, added that he ‘strongly resented the idea that the committee should be reserved to ladies of a particular class or clique’.
Stung by a public attack from fellow suffragists, the leaders of the LWSS retaliated. Mr T. Patterson, from the Chair, felt that the difficulty faced by ‘Miss Rathbone and the ladies… on the committee’ was ‘how to induce the working women of Liverpool to take an interest in the movement’ which the socialists denied. Eleanor Rathbone, who found the motion ‘distinctly discourteous’, remarked cuttingly that
If the committee which had worked for the movement for many years before the lady and gentleman who brought forward the amendment entered the society… had been advised that there was a desire for a more democratic organisation, they would have been delighted to agree.
The meeting rejected the amendment almost unanimously.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Mrs Brown is a Man and a BrotherWomen in Merseyside’s Political Organisations 1890–1920, pp. 77 - 96Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2004