Lady Colin Campbell (in Cassell's Etiquette of Good Society, 1911) is a stickler. Undoubtedly, she is the 1911 equivalent of someone who writes to the BBC to complain about the bad spelling of modern youth. Undoubtedly, were she to belong to this century, she would frown upon many common habits - watching DVDs in bed, microwave meals, texting. But even bearing in mind that she may be stricter than the average Mama, her set of rules about introductions is - well, below:
How to introduce someone in 1911
1. Ask the lady if she is happy to be introduced to the gentleman
2. Introduce the gentleman to the lady (not the other way around.) Now go away.
3. The lady and gentleman will converse.
On second meeting someone in 1911
1. It is the lady's role to recognise and acknowledge the gentleman - he may not either bow or shake hands until she has made the first movement. Nor must he ignore her.
2. If they meet on the street, the gentleman must then walk by the lady's side, because 'on no occasion is it permissible for a lady to stand for any time while talking in the street.'
It must have been really tricky timing saying goodbye to people. Did you just have to go round another block if you still had something left to say? And also - why? What wrong message were you sending out if you stood and chatted on a street corner? I dread to think.
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Not much different, except gloves
I hoped, in flicking through Cassell's Etiquette of Good Society, edited and revised in 1911 by Lady Colin Campbell, to find the ways of a bygone world. But it was the similarities that came through first: complaints and tensions that I recognise:
On letter writing: 'Nowadays, when so much correspondence goes on daily, few letters are indited which are really worthy of commendation. The lives we live are so crowded with events...'
On bridesmaids' dresses: 'The bride has her ideas... and it is only right that her wishes should be mainly consulted, but let her consider others as well as herself...'
On language: 'barbarous mutilation of phrases' (Such as 'thanks' for 'thank you')
The exception? Gloves. Ladies must wear gloves at all times if in company. I only spot this fact because of the emphasis given to moments we could remove them - before the soup course at dinner, and to put on a wedding ring during a marriage service.
On letter writing: 'Nowadays, when so much correspondence goes on daily, few letters are indited which are really worthy of commendation. The lives we live are so crowded with events...'
On bridesmaids' dresses: 'The bride has her ideas... and it is only right that her wishes should be mainly consulted, but let her consider others as well as herself...'
On language: 'barbarous mutilation of phrases' (Such as 'thanks' for 'thank you')
The exception? Gloves. Ladies must wear gloves at all times if in company. I only spot this fact because of the emphasis given to moments we could remove them - before the soup course at dinner, and to put on a wedding ring during a marriage service.
Saturday, 20 August 2011
How often did they do it in 1911?
It's a scoop, there's no doubt about it. It's a statistic you'd struggle to find reliably today, let alone for 1911. And it means I can get the word 'sex' into my blog, which should up its popularity nicely. Here goes, in the words of the Medical Adviser of the Sunday Chronicle:
'the question as to the frequency of marital intercourse, which is one that is often asked, cannot be answered in a general way. Much depends on the robustness, age and general health of the parties interested: where these are satisfactory twice a week may be taken as a permissible average.'
Well, there's a fact of married life.
Sunday, 31 July 2011
More than a million more
The Women's Enfranchisement Bill of May 1911 is an amendment of the same bill of 1910. It's plugged through Parliament again and again, with small alterations until eventually, in 1918, it goes through and women over 30 get the vote. The major difference between the 1911 version and the one before is that a slightly different group of women are under discussion: fewer 'ladies' and more working women, leading to a proposed proportion within the voting class of one woman for every seven men.
I warm to the proposer, George Kemp - 'I believe that at the present time the nation suffers a loss by the exclusion of capable women from the power to select Members of Parliament... we have no extra talent to throw away... we cannot afford to do without them.' But what actually catches my attention is a worry that's resonating through the House - the worry that eventually all women would end up voting. And the reason for this worry? In the words of Mr MacKinder - in the UK, '...you have more than a million more women than men.'
There are still over a million more women than men: the ratio is 95 to 100. The question about what is changed by having a large corpus of women voters is interesting - but it hasn't produced the sort of coup MacKinder is worried about. For me, however, this population statistic puts a new perspective on the whole story of women's liberation.
As a woman, as a participant in that story, I feel, rhetorically, like one of a struggling minority. Women who are 'firsts' - first students, first MPs, first in Board Rooms - are lauded as parallels to similar 'firsts' amongst members of genuine minority groups, for example as defined by ethnicity.
Celebration of these achievements is great, but I wonder whether the fact we are a majority should change how we think about them. Rhetorically speaking, the injustice is certainly greater if we remember we are not just half, but more than half of the human race. And rhetoric always helps. But is there more? For instance, can being one of a majority be a disadvantage?
Refs:
A Century of Change - Trends in UK Statistics since 1900
Hansard - Women's Enfranchisement Bill 1911
Office of National Statistics.
I warm to the proposer, George Kemp - 'I believe that at the present time the nation suffers a loss by the exclusion of capable women from the power to select Members of Parliament... we have no extra talent to throw away... we cannot afford to do without them.' But what actually catches my attention is a worry that's resonating through the House - the worry that eventually all women would end up voting. And the reason for this worry? In the words of Mr MacKinder - in the UK, '...you have more than a million more women than men.'
There are still over a million more women than men: the ratio is 95 to 100. The question about what is changed by having a large corpus of women voters is interesting - but it hasn't produced the sort of coup MacKinder is worried about. For me, however, this population statistic puts a new perspective on the whole story of women's liberation.
As a woman, as a participant in that story, I feel, rhetorically, like one of a struggling minority. Women who are 'firsts' - first students, first MPs, first in Board Rooms - are lauded as parallels to similar 'firsts' amongst members of genuine minority groups, for example as defined by ethnicity.
Celebration of these achievements is great, but I wonder whether the fact we are a majority should change how we think about them. Rhetorically speaking, the injustice is certainly greater if we remember we are not just half, but more than half of the human race. And rhetoric always helps. But is there more? For instance, can being one of a majority be a disadvantage?
Refs:
A Century of Change - Trends in UK Statistics since 1900
Hansard - Women's Enfranchisement Bill 1911
Office of National Statistics.
Monday, 20 June 2011
Discovering stars in 1911
I've been wondering for a while about the reason for this blog - not the obvious reason, that time travel has not been invented yet and somebody has to try to compensate, but the deeper one: why anyone would want to time travel in the first place.
And it struck me the other day that I'm looking for role models. Obviously, the challenges facing women today aren't what they were in 1911. But as I've researched this blog it's become clear that things weren't as different back then as I had thought. I've also realised that it's not been a few charismatic, controversial leaders who have moved women's liberation forward: it has been a crowd of people taking each a small step, from the hundreds of women who persuaded reluctant fathers to send them to university to the thousands today pushing through to the highest ranks of the professions while working out how to balance that with family lives.
Many of those small steps have gone little remembered. Last week I found the story of Williamina P Fleming. Her obituary was published a hundred years ago this month. As Curator of Astronomical Photographs at Harvard she spent thirty years working with a catalogue of very early glass plate photographs of the night sky. She analysed images of over ten thousand stars, discovering ten entirely new ones. And she faced the question of what stepping into a male sphere does for your essential likeability as a woman. Annie Cannon, the author of Fleming's obituary in Science, (Vol 33(861), 987-88, June 1911), gives full credit to her discoveries and to her thorough, systematic approach to a library of 200,000 fragile glass plates. She then concludes that ...'of a large hearted, sympathetic nature, and keenly interested in all that pertains to life, [she] won friends easily, while her love of her home and an unusual skill in needlework prove that a life spent in the routine of science need not destroy the attractive human element of a woman's nature'
Williamina P Fleming was one of many who demonstrated, through living out her life, that female and scientist were not mutually exclusive. We no longer use needlework to make that proof, and thanks to Fleming and hundreds more we don't have so many exclusions to eliminate. But I think we are still facing that challenge on some fronts.
And it struck me the other day that I'm looking for role models. Obviously, the challenges facing women today aren't what they were in 1911. But as I've researched this blog it's become clear that things weren't as different back then as I had thought. I've also realised that it's not been a few charismatic, controversial leaders who have moved women's liberation forward: it has been a crowd of people taking each a small step, from the hundreds of women who persuaded reluctant fathers to send them to university to the thousands today pushing through to the highest ranks of the professions while working out how to balance that with family lives.
Many of those small steps have gone little remembered. Last week I found the story of Williamina P Fleming. Her obituary was published a hundred years ago this month. As Curator of Astronomical Photographs at Harvard she spent thirty years working with a catalogue of very early glass plate photographs of the night sky. She analysed images of over ten thousand stars, discovering ten entirely new ones. And she faced the question of what stepping into a male sphere does for your essential likeability as a woman. Annie Cannon, the author of Fleming's obituary in Science, (Vol 33(861), 987-88, June 1911), gives full credit to her discoveries and to her thorough, systematic approach to a library of 200,000 fragile glass plates. She then concludes that ...'of a large hearted, sympathetic nature, and keenly interested in all that pertains to life, [she] won friends easily, while her love of her home and an unusual skill in needlework prove that a life spent in the routine of science need not destroy the attractive human element of a woman's nature'
Williamina P Fleming was one of many who demonstrated, through living out her life, that female and scientist were not mutually exclusive. We no longer use needlework to make that proof, and thanks to Fleming and hundreds more we don't have so many exclusions to eliminate. But I think we are still facing that challenge on some fronts.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Bicycle use and abuse
I was cycling quietly home from work, as I do most days. I stopped abruptly to have an eye-to-eye with a truck driver before he gave me right of way. Then I cycled on, pedal, pedal, pedal, until my peace was rudely interrupted:
"You should learn to cycle, girl," came a squawk somewhere behind my left shoulder. I stopped, wondering what was going on. The voice came from a woman leaning out of a car window. "I saw what happened, you didn't see that van. You should learn to cycle."
I didn't really have a good response (judging it unhelpful to observe that the truck, being elephant sized, white, and stationary in the middle of the road, was not something I'd have missed). I cycled on. The woman started her car and swerved out to overtake me, then stopped at a T-junction to lecture me some more. Eventually she got bored and drove off.
Determined to use my fury for something constructive I decided to look up cycling in 1911. Would I have been on the roads? OK, OK, not cycling to work from a shared flat, in jeans. But cycling? I strike lucky: the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1911 has more information than I knew there was to know about bicycles, and the picture is just like my bike, well, nearly. (Admittedly this is because as a cyclist I am a little behind the times.)
Then I found the story of Viscountess Harberton, told by Surrey History. Her 1911 obituary pictured her in something called Rational Dress. Rational Dress was a long divided skirt devised especially for cycling, resented noisily by certain readers of the Daily Mail - 'that disgusting dress called rationals'. In 1899, Viscountess Harburton was refused luncheon in the coffee-room of the Hautboy Hotel in Ockham because of her choice to wear it.
I cheer her mentally and wonder if my car-driving foe had such a good 1911 story behind her. To my regret, the answer is yes - I've discovered Dorothy Levitt. But that's a story for another day.
"You should learn to cycle, girl," came a squawk somewhere behind my left shoulder. I stopped, wondering what was going on. The voice came from a woman leaning out of a car window. "I saw what happened, you didn't see that van. You should learn to cycle."
I didn't really have a good response (judging it unhelpful to observe that the truck, being elephant sized, white, and stationary in the middle of the road, was not something I'd have missed). I cycled on. The woman started her car and swerved out to overtake me, then stopped at a T-junction to lecture me some more. Eventually she got bored and drove off.
Determined to use my fury for something constructive I decided to look up cycling in 1911. Would I have been on the roads? OK, OK, not cycling to work from a shared flat, in jeans. But cycling? I strike lucky: the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1911 has more information than I knew there was to know about bicycles, and the picture is just like my bike, well, nearly. (Admittedly this is because as a cyclist I am a little behind the times.)
I cheer her mentally and wonder if my car-driving foe had such a good 1911 story behind her. To my regret, the answer is yes - I've discovered Dorothy Levitt. But that's a story for another day.
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Bachelor's Buttons for the Bellenden Big Lunch
Our street is making a habit of the Big Lunch - an Eden Project inspired event that gets street parties happening across the UK at lunchtime one Sunday a year. Bellenden Road is great for it - there's food from all over the world (go Peckham!) and particularly, it stars amazing carved watermelons.
I'm going to add to the variety with food from the past. I have been wanting to make Bachelor's Buttons for a while now. The recipe doesn't sound particularly exciting, but their name does.
It's a lost joke from 1911. Not a raucous laugh-out-loud joke but a shared between-friends nudge. Why, I wonder, rubbing in butter (3oz) to flour and sugar (6oz, 3oz) do they have that name? Are they for feeding to bachelors seductively, or winking at them over with a cup of tea? Are they the sort of dry, dull fare bachelors make for themselves? I stir in baking powder (1/2 tsp) and an egg, and start to make 'walnut sized pieces' and roll them in sugar. They are particularly large buttons: was there a fashion amongst bachelors to ornament their jackets with outsize closing devices?
Got it. As I pop then in the oven (what is a 'moderate oven?' Oven precision has come on - I go for 180 degrees) the buttons in rows look lost. That, I am sure, is why they are Bachelor's Buttons - nobody to sew them on.
Though the enormous button theory is getting more entertaining - when I pull them out of the oven 20 minutes later they are a couple of inches across. And the sugar makes them good and sparkly. Could it be that the bachelors of 1911 were, just a bit, bling?
(Recipe credit: Unrivalled Cookery for the Middle Classes (1911) by Miss Tuxford. They're excellent, by the way - somewhere between shortbread and macaroon)
I'm going to add to the variety with food from the past. I have been wanting to make Bachelor's Buttons for a while now. The recipe doesn't sound particularly exciting, but their name does.
It's a lost joke from 1911. Not a raucous laugh-out-loud joke but a shared between-friends nudge. Why, I wonder, rubbing in butter (3oz) to flour and sugar (6oz, 3oz) do they have that name? Are they for feeding to bachelors seductively, or winking at them over with a cup of tea? Are they the sort of dry, dull fare bachelors make for themselves? I stir in baking powder (1/2 tsp) and an egg, and start to make 'walnut sized pieces' and roll them in sugar. They are particularly large buttons: was there a fashion amongst bachelors to ornament their jackets with outsize closing devices?
Got it. As I pop then in the oven (what is a 'moderate oven?' Oven precision has come on - I go for 180 degrees) the buttons in rows look lost. That, I am sure, is why they are Bachelor's Buttons - nobody to sew them on.
Though the enormous button theory is getting more entertaining - when I pull them out of the oven 20 minutes later they are a couple of inches across. And the sugar makes them good and sparkly. Could it be that the bachelors of 1911 were, just a bit, bling?
(Recipe credit: Unrivalled Cookery for the Middle Classes (1911) by Miss Tuxford. They're excellent, by the way - somewhere between shortbread and macaroon)
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
1911 Cures for Hiccups
Ah, who would be without an outdated medical encyclopedia?
Here's how you cure hiccups in 1911 - although as the Medical Adviser* puts it, there are many recommended cures 'none of which are often any use'. You can:
- hold your breath and count to a hundred
- apply heat to the back of the neck
- take an emetic to produce vomiting (surely a worse symptom than a hiccup?)
- inhale chloroform (not without medical advice though as, he acknowledges, chloroform is dangerous stuff)
- take potassium bromide (now withdrawn for use on humans - it's toxic - but still used to treat epilepsy in dogs - Wikipedia)
I'm glad we have moved on from chloroform, bromides and vomiting (and would like to emphasise to anyone reading this that it is seriously out of date advice - don't take it.) NHS Direct agrees only about holding your breath and has several new suggestions for cures that include eating granulated sugar.
We've moved on, but we've still not cured hiccups.
*(of the Sunday Chronicle, as quoted in 1000 Medical Hints - the care of the body in health and disease, 1911)
Here's how you cure hiccups in 1911 - although as the Medical Adviser* puts it, there are many recommended cures 'none of which are often any use'. You can:
- hold your breath and count to a hundred
- apply heat to the back of the neck
- take an emetic to produce vomiting (surely a worse symptom than a hiccup?)
- inhale chloroform (not without medical advice though as, he acknowledges, chloroform is dangerous stuff)
- take potassium bromide (now withdrawn for use on humans - it's toxic - but still used to treat epilepsy in dogs - Wikipedia)
I'm glad we have moved on from chloroform, bromides and vomiting (and would like to emphasise to anyone reading this that it is seriously out of date advice - don't take it.) NHS Direct agrees only about holding your breath and has several new suggestions for cures that include eating granulated sugar.
We've moved on, but we've still not cured hiccups.
*(of the Sunday Chronicle, as quoted in 1000 Medical Hints - the care of the body in health and disease, 1911)
Monday, 30 May 2011
Wife or Husband, Selection of
Doctors of 1911 (according to that edition of 1000 Medical Hints - The care of the body in health and disease by the Medical Adviser of the Sunday Chronicle) 'are often asked questions relating to the suitability of certain persons for the purposes of matrimony... one does not have to be a member of the Eugenics Society, or an enthusiastic believer in Eugenics... a fashionable pastime... to feel how important it is that married couples should not start life handicapped'.
And the doctors' response? The Medical Adviser (who goes entirely unnamed) is clear that there is no general rule. He is comfortable with the marriage of near relations, such as cousins, so long as there is no 'cancer, nervous trouble or insanity' in the family. He is opposed to marriages between 'May and December' - where a husband is more than ten or twelve years older than his wife; of course, 'the wife should never be older than the husband by more than a year or two at the most.'
'Marriages between different races are generally more or less sterile' he concludes, firmly and with reference to some observations of cross-racial marriages. And then: 'I heartily approve of men marrying when they are in their early twenties - provided, of course, their pecuniary condition is such as to permit it.'
Hard as I'm trying to imagine myself in 1911, taking this advice is a step too far. I wonder if people still ask their doctors about who they should marry. It's not in NHS Direct: I wonder what they're told.
And the doctors' response? The Medical Adviser (who goes entirely unnamed) is clear that there is no general rule. He is comfortable with the marriage of near relations, such as cousins, so long as there is no 'cancer, nervous trouble or insanity' in the family. He is opposed to marriages between 'May and December' - where a husband is more than ten or twelve years older than his wife; of course, 'the wife should never be older than the husband by more than a year or two at the most.'
'Marriages between different races are generally more or less sterile' he concludes, firmly and with reference to some observations of cross-racial marriages. And then: 'I heartily approve of men marrying when they are in their early twenties - provided, of course, their pecuniary condition is such as to permit it.'
Hard as I'm trying to imagine myself in 1911, taking this advice is a step too far. I wonder if people still ask their doctors about who they should marry. It's not in NHS Direct: I wonder what they're told.
Thursday, 28 April 2011
The woman who saved the children
How had I not heard of Eglantyne Jebb? 105 years older than me, in 1911 she was touring the Tyrol with her sick mother, writing passionate letters to a former colleague and wondering about her social purpose. Two years later, affair over, she set off for the Balkans (a war zone) to oversee the distribution of aid, including investigating the truth of a massacre. The information she uncovered was so sensitive she sewed it into her clothing for safety.
It's what Eglantyne did six years later that makes me think I should know her: just after the First World War she founded Save the Children. With her team - including one of her equally interesting sisters - she organised relief for children all over Europe, including those in 'enemy' countries. What she did there has left a legacy, not only in lives saved and an organisation of international standing, but in the whole way we think about children at war.
I've just finished her biography - The Woman Who Saved the Children, by Clare Mulley. Amazed by Eglantyne's achievements, I enjoyed following her through her life - finding empathy with her frequent depression and her feelings of purposelessness, and finding hope in the fact that she did, eventually, figure it all out.
I am inspired - but also outraged. How many other eminent, impressive women have I never heard of? The 1920s-30s are a period I studied at GCSE: I know about Lloyd George and Clemenceau but had not once heard of the parallel, influential peace movement, with its often female leaders.
I will go in search of further such women. Meanwhile thank you Clare Mulley - I recommend this book to everyone.
It's what Eglantyne did six years later that makes me think I should know her: just after the First World War she founded Save the Children. With her team - including one of her equally interesting sisters - she organised relief for children all over Europe, including those in 'enemy' countries. What she did there has left a legacy, not only in lives saved and an organisation of international standing, but in the whole way we think about children at war.
I've just finished her biography - The Woman Who Saved the Children, by Clare Mulley. Amazed by Eglantyne's achievements, I enjoyed following her through her life - finding empathy with her frequent depression and her feelings of purposelessness, and finding hope in the fact that she did, eventually, figure it all out.
I am inspired - but also outraged. How many other eminent, impressive women have I never heard of? The 1920s-30s are a period I studied at GCSE: I know about Lloyd George and Clemenceau but had not once heard of the parallel, influential peace movement, with its often female leaders.
I will go in search of further such women. Meanwhile thank you Clare Mulley - I recommend this book to everyone.
Monday, 4 April 2011
Historical Mutton Research Episode 2
Saturday's historical mutton tasted surprisingly good. Not really very strongly of anything, but mild and brothy, comfort food. The mutton was like tougher, stronger lamb.
I'm quite looking forward to using up the leftovers. Someone suggested boiling it all a bit more would improve the mutton. Boil boil. I'm going to cheat and add fresh parsley and frozen peas. I sit in the kitchen typing and waiting.
My housemate comes home. "Alex, no offence but - in the nicest of possible ways, your cabbage is making the house smell of school dinners." There is no cabbage in it. Which makes his point about the smell even more telling.
As he prepares courgette cakes and beautiful smelling sausages, I try to eat my soggy, nearly burnt pearl barley, my still-tough and now tasteless mutton, and the bloated corpses of what were carrots. I think this is the basis of England's bad cooking reputation. I do not want to live in 1911. I do not like it at all.
Luckily I have chocolate to take the taste away. And my housemate makes me a cup of fresh ginger tea. This century is much better.
I'm quite looking forward to using up the leftovers. Someone suggested boiling it all a bit more would improve the mutton. Boil boil. I'm going to cheat and add fresh parsley and frozen peas. I sit in the kitchen typing and waiting.
My housemate comes home. "Alex, no offence but - in the nicest of possible ways, your cabbage is making the house smell of school dinners." There is no cabbage in it. Which makes his point about the smell even more telling.
As he prepares courgette cakes and beautiful smelling sausages, I try to eat my soggy, nearly burnt pearl barley, my still-tough and now tasteless mutton, and the bloated corpses of what were carrots. I think this is the basis of England's bad cooking reputation. I do not want to live in 1911. I do not like it at all.
Luckily I have chocolate to take the taste away. And my housemate makes me a cup of fresh ginger tea. This century is much better.
Saturday, 2 April 2011
Historical Mutton Research Episode 1
The real way to get into the mind of a woman of 1911 is to cook and eat what she'd have cooked and eaten, right? So - time for my 1911 mutton stew. I have put in the research - the recipe is from a book I found in the British Library called Unrivalled Cookery for the Middle Classes (1911)by a Miss Tuxford.
First, ingredients. Purchasing process not very 1911: mutton from freezer, turnips from large supermarket echoing with 'boops' and thanks for using the self-checkout. Parsley from Rye Lane, full of pound shops and Afro-Caribbean grocers.
The recipes in Unrivalled Cookery for the Middle Classes are simple but also lacking in detail. There is an assumption you know how to cook. I wash the barley, cut the fat off the mutton and cut into 'neat pieces'. I wonder what size of 'neat piece' is meant for the vegetables, cut them as neatly as I can. Then I put everything else in the pan, incidentally spilling pearl barley all over the floor. (Would I have had servants? Statistically I suppose it's more likely I would have been one. But this is cookery for the Middle Classes which suggests there was a group that fended for themselves - maybe with the assistance of a Home Help or similar. The quantity in the recipe is only for one or two.)
I am not going to obey Miss Tuxford's 'Rules for Cooking Green Vegetables.' Apparently they should be cooked with the lid off the pan to allow all poisonous gases to escape, and with salt and soda in the water. This following an hour's soaking in salted water.
Right, now to wait an hour and a half. Smells good. Quantities, if anyone's curious - 1/2 lb mutton, 2 onions, 1 carrot, pepper and salt, 1/4lb macaroni / pearl barley / rice, 1 turnip, pinch ground mace, dessertspoonful parsley,
First, ingredients. Purchasing process not very 1911: mutton from freezer, turnips from large supermarket echoing with 'boops' and thanks for using the self-checkout. Parsley from Rye Lane, full of pound shops and Afro-Caribbean grocers.
The recipes in Unrivalled Cookery for the Middle Classes are simple but also lacking in detail. There is an assumption you know how to cook. I wash the barley, cut the fat off the mutton and cut into 'neat pieces'. I wonder what size of 'neat piece' is meant for the vegetables, cut them as neatly as I can. Then I put everything else in the pan, incidentally spilling pearl barley all over the floor. (Would I have had servants? Statistically I suppose it's more likely I would have been one. But this is cookery for the Middle Classes which suggests there was a group that fended for themselves - maybe with the assistance of a Home Help or similar. The quantity in the recipe is only for one or two.)
I am not going to obey Miss Tuxford's 'Rules for Cooking Green Vegetables.' Apparently they should be cooked with the lid off the pan to allow all poisonous gases to escape, and with salt and soda in the water. This following an hour's soaking in salted water.
Right, now to wait an hour and a half. Smells good. Quantities, if anyone's curious - 1/2 lb mutton, 2 onions, 1 carrot, pepper and salt, 1/4lb macaroni / pearl barley / rice, 1 turnip, pinch ground mace, dessertspoonful parsley,
Unrivalled Cookery For The Middle Classes
I took myself to the British Library to browse through a 1911 cookbook:
I was looking for a recipe for mutton stew - but more on that another day. The ads seemed worth a post of their own.
"Pure food for the family table - Reynolds' Wheatmeal Bread. Awarded 75 Gold Medals. Has stood every test for quality and now a recognised standard article. The Lancet says: "Excellent to the taste." Your baker can supply your orders - ask for Reynolds' Pure Wheatmeal Bread, and refuse substitutes. Postcards addressed to - J Reynolds and Co Ltd., 61 Albert Flour Mills, Gloucester."
Coombs' Eureka! Self-raising Flour, Sold in 3d., 6d., 1/- and 2/6 Bags. Is the Best and Absolutely Pure. 21 Gold Medals. Recommended by Chefs and the Medical Faculty."
"Variety in your weekly menu is easily maintained by using Winter's NUTTON. It is a delightful flesh meat substitute made from nuts, is exceedingly tasty, and just the thing to relieve the dull mootony arising from a constant use of Beef and Mutton and Mutton and Beef."
Which proves that I was right to choose mutton for the focus of my 1911 cooking experiment. I think Nutton may have died out. It didn't get any gold medals, so sounds as if it deserved to.
Coombs' Cookery
Unrivalled Cookery for the Middle Classes
(3rd Edition)
Special Chapter on Vegetarian Cookery
Useful Hints on Gas Stove Cooking
- Edited by -
Miss H.H. Tuxford, M.C.A.
Dimlomée, Board of Education
One Shilling Nett
I was looking for a recipe for mutton stew - but more on that another day. The ads seemed worth a post of their own.
"Pure food for the family table - Reynolds' Wheatmeal Bread. Awarded 75 Gold Medals. Has stood every test for quality and now a recognised standard article. The Lancet says: "Excellent to the taste." Your baker can supply your orders - ask for Reynolds' Pure Wheatmeal Bread, and refuse substitutes. Postcards addressed to - J Reynolds and Co Ltd., 61 Albert Flour Mills, Gloucester."
Coombs' Eureka! Self-raising Flour, Sold in 3d., 6d., 1/- and 2/6 Bags. Is the Best and Absolutely Pure. 21 Gold Medals. Recommended by Chefs and the Medical Faculty."
"Variety in your weekly menu is easily maintained by using Winter's NUTTON. It is a delightful flesh meat substitute made from nuts, is exceedingly tasty, and just the thing to relieve the dull mootony arising from a constant use of Beef and Mutton and Mutton and Beef."
Which proves that I was right to choose mutton for the focus of my 1911 cooking experiment. I think Nutton may have died out. It didn't get any gold medals, so sounds as if it deserved to.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
That old census is quite interesting
Census day. A hundred years ago, many women were boycotting the census, and Emily Davison had taken it one step further, hiding out in a cupboard of the Houses of Parliament so as to claim it as her place of residence on the form. I'm mooching round at home, hoping that shows how far women's lives have come.
I was rummaging round the 1911 census site (there are two, incidentally) trying to find more information about the boycott, boycott parties, and so on, when it occurred to me to use it for its intended purpose. I looked up my name - not there. I was boycotting, it seems.
There's more information available on the 1901 census. Here are the occupations of Sophie Smiths a hundred and ten years ago:
Five Juveniles (1,7,8 and 11 and 15) - three of them living in London
One Nurse Girl, Domestic, 12
One Elementary Teacher, 12
Five Domestic Servants, 14 and up, from the general to the 'Vegetable Maid'
One Housekeeper (26) and a Domestic Cook (34)
Two Pupil Teachers, 17 and 18
A Shirt and Collar Ironer, a Draper's Assistant, a Millinary Buyer, in their 20s
Mysteriously - a Foreman Brush Works, a Pedlar Hawk
Thirteen women giving no occupation at all, mostly over 30.
Two women 'Living on Own Means.'
Not exactly a statistically valid sample but - four major differences. One, reduction in child labour; two, near disappearance of domestic servants; three, more education needed to become a teacher and four, a wider range of roles for women. For everyone, I suspect.
Right, time to look up my address... enjoy being counted, everyone...
I was rummaging round the 1911 census site (there are two, incidentally) trying to find more information about the boycott, boycott parties, and so on, when it occurred to me to use it for its intended purpose. I looked up my name - not there. I was boycotting, it seems.
There's more information available on the 1901 census. Here are the occupations of Sophie Smiths a hundred and ten years ago:
Five Juveniles (1,7,8 and 11 and 15) - three of them living in London
One Nurse Girl, Domestic, 12
One Elementary Teacher, 12
Five Domestic Servants, 14 and up, from the general to the 'Vegetable Maid'
One Housekeeper (26) and a Domestic Cook (34)
Two Pupil Teachers, 17 and 18
A Shirt and Collar Ironer, a Draper's Assistant, a Millinary Buyer, in their 20s
Mysteriously - a Foreman Brush Works, a Pedlar Hawk
Thirteen women giving no occupation at all, mostly over 30.
Two women 'Living on Own Means.'
Not exactly a statistically valid sample but - four major differences. One, reduction in child labour; two, near disappearance of domestic servants; three, more education needed to become a teacher and four, a wider range of roles for women. For everyone, I suspect.
Right, time to look up my address... enjoy being counted, everyone...
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
The 100th International Women's Day
Happy International Women's Day everyone!
The 'emancipating process has now reached the limits fixed by the physical constitution of women' said Mary Humphrey Ward in 1908. Many agreed with her. At the time, the women of the United Kingdom didn't have a vote in national elections, would have struggled to find an institution that would award them a degree, could not have been barristers, MPs, or taken up many other roles, could not have divorced their husbands for adultery unless it was coupled with 'cruelty'. They had come a long way: they were better educated than their forebears, some worked, they had some property rights and some could vote in local elections. But any further liberation, felt Mary Humphrey Ward, would cause the country to 'drift towards a momentous revolution, both social and political, before it has realised the dangers involved.'
International Women's Day started in 1911 - at a time when many women in this country felt the only way to achieve equality was through violence - and the authorities were responding with more violence. Female protesters were being jailed for smashing windows: they protested further by refusing to eat and were force-fed, metal tools holding their mouths open so tubes could be pushed down their throats and liquid food poured into their stomachs.
A hundred-odd years after Mary Humphrey Ward, her words sound ridiculous. Our norms have shifted so that the situation of women back then seems outrageous. But there is a continuity - voices still debate whether women's liberation has any further to go, and whether it needs support.
Today, all I have are questions. Last century, we did well - what is our ambition for the next one? Where would we like the norm to be in a hundred years' time? Can we eradicate gender inequality worldwide? Are any of the differences between men and women so fundamental they do, finally, cause the "emancipating process" to reach its limits?
References
Anti -Suffrage Society - Spartacus
First International Women's Day
The 'emancipating process has now reached the limits fixed by the physical constitution of women' said Mary Humphrey Ward in 1908. Many agreed with her. At the time, the women of the United Kingdom didn't have a vote in national elections, would have struggled to find an institution that would award them a degree, could not have been barristers, MPs, or taken up many other roles, could not have divorced their husbands for adultery unless it was coupled with 'cruelty'. They had come a long way: they were better educated than their forebears, some worked, they had some property rights and some could vote in local elections. But any further liberation, felt Mary Humphrey Ward, would cause the country to 'drift towards a momentous revolution, both social and political, before it has realised the dangers involved.'
International Women's Day started in 1911 - at a time when many women in this country felt the only way to achieve equality was through violence - and the authorities were responding with more violence. Female protesters were being jailed for smashing windows: they protested further by refusing to eat and were force-fed, metal tools holding their mouths open so tubes could be pushed down their throats and liquid food poured into their stomachs.
A hundred-odd years after Mary Humphrey Ward, her words sound ridiculous. Our norms have shifted so that the situation of women back then seems outrageous. But there is a continuity - voices still debate whether women's liberation has any further to go, and whether it needs support.
Today, all I have are questions. Last century, we did well - what is our ambition for the next one? Where would we like the norm to be in a hundred years' time? Can we eradicate gender inequality worldwide? Are any of the differences between men and women so fundamental they do, finally, cause the "emancipating process" to reach its limits?
References
Anti -Suffrage Society - Spartacus
First International Women's Day
Saturday, 19 February 2011
How did their hair look so pouffy yet elegant?
It seemed a good Saturday morning activity to figure out how those Edwardian ladies did their hair. I have always envied that pouffy yet elegant look.
My hair's not long enough to try it out at the moment - but the Every Women's Encyclpedia of 1910-12, published online by chestofbooks.com, has some complex suggestions: torsades, puffs, swathes. Beyond me, way beyond me.
Luckily, Caty135 has made some video demonstrations of a couple of hairstyles of the era: Gibson Girl styles, and finger waves. The 1910s were at the very end of the era of must-have long hair - when the War came, women started to cut it short, for practicality.
My hair's not long enough to try it out at the moment - but the Every Women's Encyclpedia of 1910-12, published online by chestofbooks.com, has some complex suggestions: torsades, puffs, swathes. Beyond me, way beyond me.
Luckily, Caty135 has made some video demonstrations of a couple of hairstyles of the era: Gibson Girl styles, and finger waves. The 1910s were at the very end of the era of must-have long hair - when the War came, women started to cut it short, for practicality.
Washing my hair: a real excuse
When I was at university a friend of mine went through a phase of washing her hair with egg yolk, beer, and anything that did not contain the mixture of chemicals that make up shampoo. It seemed to work (though the egg went wrong if you rinsed it in hot water) so after a while we left her to get on with it. I should ask her what she uses these days.
The link to 1911? They hadn't invented those shampoos yet. And if you wanted to wash your hair, you used soap (not good, for anyone who has tried this) or something gentler like egg yolk. What's more, washing your hair was a real palaver. For a start, your hair was waist length at least. Then, there was no shower, so you did it over the bath - and hot water wasn't necessarily on tap either.
Some instructions for washing your hair from the New York Times of 1910 explain that some specialists recommend doing so once a fortnight - though the more reasonable do it once a month or every six weeks. It's an elaborate routine: comb it out, apply tonic to the scalp, rub soap into a nail brush and apply to the hair, rinse four times. You might also want to make a special soap by boiling normal soap down to a jelly.
And then you had to dry it. Definitely a perfectly genuine excuse for turning down a date.
Sources / further info:
Random history - History of Shampoo
Lydia Joyce blog - History of C19th Hairwashing
The link to 1911? They hadn't invented those shampoos yet. And if you wanted to wash your hair, you used soap (not good, for anyone who has tried this) or something gentler like egg yolk. What's more, washing your hair was a real palaver. For a start, your hair was waist length at least. Then, there was no shower, so you did it over the bath - and hot water wasn't necessarily on tap either.
Some instructions for washing your hair from the New York Times of 1910 explain that some specialists recommend doing so once a fortnight - though the more reasonable do it once a month or every six weeks. It's an elaborate routine: comb it out, apply tonic to the scalp, rub soap into a nail brush and apply to the hair, rinse four times. You might also want to make a special soap by boiling normal soap down to a jelly.
And then you had to dry it. Definitely a perfectly genuine excuse for turning down a date.
Sources / further info:
Random history - History of Shampoo
Lydia Joyce blog - History of C19th Hairwashing
Monday, 14 February 2011
Were roses still red?
Ah, Valentine's Day. I wondered what it would have been like a century ago. I have to admit to some grumpiness: I was hoping to discover that it hadn't been invented, or that it was only celebrated in America, or perhaps even that celebrating it was considered immoral, loose, shocking.
First shock: we've been sending Valentine's cards in the UK longer than they have been sent in the US (at least according to Wikipedia). Yup, we even had Valentine's Cards factory-made in Victorian times, all covered in first real then paper lace. There is a collection of 400 Victorian Valentine's Cards in the Priest's House Museum in Dorset and more at the web-based Greetings Cards Museum. It wasn't till about 1850 that an innovative American woman, one Esther Howland, started selling them in the US - a remarkable early businesswoman, she seems to have made her fortune. Following her start, Valentines got more and more elaborate as the nineteenth century moved on, at least according to the American Antiquarian Society.
Which brings us, almost, to 1911. Scanning the internet produces Valentine's postcards from that year, mostly covered in cherubs. The messages are different from today's: - I greet thee Valentine! or,
Goodness gracious isn't it fine
To be somebody's Valentine
I quite liked the two Valentine's Cards below, the one on the right more for the Art Nouveau swirling dress than anything else. Most of the images of the cards online are from auction sites. There is something very sorrowful about a Valentine's card, sent a hundred years ago, up for sale. I can't decide if the thought makes me like Valentine's day less or more. Treasure your cards, people, and make sure they are passed on to others who will look after them too!
First shock: we've been sending Valentine's cards in the UK longer than they have been sent in the US (at least according to Wikipedia). Yup, we even had Valentine's Cards factory-made in Victorian times, all covered in first real then paper lace. There is a collection of 400 Victorian Valentine's Cards in the Priest's House Museum in Dorset and more at the web-based Greetings Cards Museum. It wasn't till about 1850 that an innovative American woman, one Esther Howland, started selling them in the US - a remarkable early businesswoman, she seems to have made her fortune. Following her start, Valentines got more and more elaborate as the nineteenth century moved on, at least according to the American Antiquarian Society.
Which brings us, almost, to 1911. Scanning the internet produces Valentine's postcards from that year, mostly covered in cherubs. The messages are different from today's: - I greet thee Valentine! or,
Goodness gracious isn't it fine
To be somebody's Valentine
I quite liked the two Valentine's Cards below, the one on the right more for the Art Nouveau swirling dress than anything else. Most of the images of the cards online are from auction sites. There is something very sorrowful about a Valentine's card, sent a hundred years ago, up for sale. I can't decide if the thought makes me like Valentine's day less or more. Treasure your cards, people, and make sure they are passed on to others who will look after them too!
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| 1911 postcard, sighted ebid 2011 (no copyright info available) |
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| c.1900-1910 US, Wikimedia (creative commons) |
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Hobble Skirts and the New Knickers
I've been looking into 1910s fashion - I want to know what I would have been wearing a hundred years ago. Actually, I thought I knew: long, modest skirts, tight corsets and dark colours. But it seemed worth checking.
Mostly, I was wrong. Point one - just because the photographs are black and white does not mean the clothes were. In fact, according to fashion-era.com, things were pretty colourful in the first half of the decade. Think ostrich plumes and orientalist styles - at least if you were better off. In 1908, something radical had happened - the waistline had got higher, sitting right below the bust, and your feet could peep out of the bottom of your skirt.
And that skirt, for those in high fashion, was a whole new shape. Hobble skirts had come in, which effectively tied your ankles together. Morticia Addams is probably the most memorable wearer of a hobble skirt - they may not have been quite as tight in the 1910s but the need to walk in tiny footsteps was entertainingly commented on.
In high society, women were changing for every occasion, five or six outfits a day. (Do they now? I suspect so.) Jayne Shrimpton's article is pretty clear that more active women (i.e. those who actually had to walk around) adapted the hobble skirt design, adding pleats so they could take a full stride. A whole extra area of expression was the blouse, from frilled to 'masculine' with a tie. On your feet were neat boots with one-inch heels. On your head, a flowery and beribboned hat. (I take great joy in the word beribonned.)
And underclothes? I was half-right about corsets: they were worn but a less restrictive version than a decade previously, starting below the bust and spreading over the hips. Hobbled we may have been, but we could breathe. Only one petticoat, rather than layers and layers of lace. Bras were invented but not generally worn - though BBs, or bust bodices, were. And knickers - here I quote Jayne Shrimpton - 'Knee-length knickers were made increasingly with a closed crotch, preferable for wear with knickerbockers and divided skirts.'
Which poses questions about what underwear was like before.
Mostly, I was wrong. Point one - just because the photographs are black and white does not mean the clothes were. In fact, according to fashion-era.com, things were pretty colourful in the first half of the decade. Think ostrich plumes and orientalist styles - at least if you were better off. In 1908, something radical had happened - the waistline had got higher, sitting right below the bust, and your feet could peep out of the bottom of your skirt.
And that skirt, for those in high fashion, was a whole new shape. Hobble skirts had come in, which effectively tied your ankles together. Morticia Addams is probably the most memorable wearer of a hobble skirt - they may not have been quite as tight in the 1910s but the need to walk in tiny footsteps was entertainingly commented on.
In high society, women were changing for every occasion, five or six outfits a day. (Do they now? I suspect so.) Jayne Shrimpton's article is pretty clear that more active women (i.e. those who actually had to walk around) adapted the hobble skirt design, adding pleats so they could take a full stride. A whole extra area of expression was the blouse, from frilled to 'masculine' with a tie. On your feet were neat boots with one-inch heels. On your head, a flowery and beribboned hat. (I take great joy in the word beribonned.)
And underclothes? I was half-right about corsets: they were worn but a less restrictive version than a decade previously, starting below the bust and spreading over the hips. Hobbled we may have been, but we could breathe. Only one petticoat, rather than layers and layers of lace. Bras were invented but not generally worn - though BBs, or bust bodices, were. And knickers - here I quote Jayne Shrimpton - 'Knee-length knickers were made increasingly with a closed crotch, preferable for wear with knickerbockers and divided skirts.'
Which poses questions about what underwear was like before.
Saturday, 22 January 2011
March of the Women
A hundred years ago this year was the first performance of March of the Women, in Pall Mall. The work of two suffrage campaigners, Ethyl Smyth (composer) and Cicely Hamilton (writer) it became an anthem for the women's suffrage movement. Here it is revived by a US choir in 2009:
March of the Women
The last verse is best, I think - you wouldn't write it the same way now, but the meaning stands. Faith and daring - laugh a defiance - friend to friend.
March of the Women
The last verse is best, I think - you wouldn't write it the same way now, but the meaning stands. Faith and daring - laugh a defiance - friend to friend.
- Life, strife -- those two are one,
- Naught can ye win but by faith and daring.
- On, on -- that ye have done
- But for the work of today preparing.
- Firm in reliance, laugh a defiance,
- (Laugh in hope, for sure is the end)
- March, march -- many as one,
- Shoulder to shoulder and friend to friend.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Slang of the 1910s
Just spent an enjoyable if frustrating morning trying to discover the slang of the 1910s. It seems to be a non-subject online. (I thought everything was out there if you looked for it, but the vocab of middle-class young ladies in the 1910s is remarkably absent.)
On the other hand, there's some great 1811 slang in Francis Grose's dictionary of the vulgar tongue. Some of it's still with us: "Leaky. Apt to blab; one who cannot keep a secret is said to be leaky." Some of it has shifted its meaning: " Frosty face. One pitted with the small pox." Some of it's gone: "Clack. A tongue, chiefly applied to women; a simile drawn from the clack of a water-mill." In Sinks of London laid open by an unknown author of the 1800s there's "Black beetles: the lower order of people." and "Box of ivory: the teeth."
There's a whole pot more stuff on slang at the BBC's h2g2. I didn't know there was a gay undercover language in the '50s and '60s that contributed masses to my everyday vocab. And knowing the origins of swearing must be useful too. (Berk is ruder than you think.)
I gave up on the internet and tried fiction. Dorothy Sayers; P.G. Wodehouse; both a bit late really, and Wodehouse, rumour has it, made up a lot of his slang. But immediately something is clear - not only do class and region define your language, but women use a slightly different vocabulary from men.
I have one genuine source of 1910s ladies' middle(ish) class slang: my collection of letters from the First World War. It's not a big collection or a representative sample. It's letters home though, not as informal as speech but closer than published prose. So it's a start. Here are some phrases I don't use much that seem to prevail: beastly cold, tremendous, a budget of letters, the stove is a perfect brute, dreadfully, she's very jolly, she's a lazy hound, topping, we are all very cheery, awfully well, feeling rotten, frightfully excited, rather a character, she's an old tadpole.
I'm going to keep on looking. And I'm going to look at my own language to see if I speak differently from men.
On the other hand, there's some great 1811 slang in Francis Grose's dictionary of the vulgar tongue. Some of it's still with us: "Leaky. Apt to blab; one who cannot keep a secret is said to be leaky." Some of it has shifted its meaning: " Frosty face. One pitted with the small pox." Some of it's gone: "Clack. A tongue, chiefly applied to women; a simile drawn from the clack of a water-mill." In Sinks of London laid open by an unknown author of the 1800s there's "Black beetles: the lower order of people." and "Box of ivory: the teeth."
There's a whole pot more stuff on slang at the BBC's h2g2. I didn't know there was a gay undercover language in the '50s and '60s that contributed masses to my everyday vocab. And knowing the origins of swearing must be useful too. (Berk is ruder than you think.)
I gave up on the internet and tried fiction. Dorothy Sayers; P.G. Wodehouse; both a bit late really, and Wodehouse, rumour has it, made up a lot of his slang. But immediately something is clear - not only do class and region define your language, but women use a slightly different vocabulary from men.
I have one genuine source of 1910s ladies' middle(ish) class slang: my collection of letters from the First World War. It's not a big collection or a representative sample. It's letters home though, not as informal as speech but closer than published prose. So it's a start. Here are some phrases I don't use much that seem to prevail: beastly cold, tremendous, a budget of letters, the stove is a perfect brute, dreadfully, she's very jolly, she's a lazy hound, topping, we are all very cheery, awfully well, feeling rotten, frightfully excited, rather a character, she's an old tadpole.
I'm going to keep on looking. And I'm going to look at my own language to see if I speak differently from men.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
New Year 1911
New Year's Day: time to review the year that's passed. But why stick to this century? I wondered what kind of a year British feminists had had in 1910.
One with its ups and downs, it turns out. In July a bill that proposed giving the vote to large numbers of women was debated at length in Parliament. The report in Hansard (July 12 1910) makes strange reading: men debating whether women need or deserve a vote, whether their lives would be changed, whether the world would change -
"I cannot help thinking that there is some instability in our political system at present. I am quite certain that from time to time there are gusts of passion which sweep over the democracy, and I ask the House whether it would be wise to add to those a new and dangerous force of incalculable moment—I mean the collective emotion of women." (Mr. S. Butcher)
"I am asking for woman suffrage as a man, from a man's point of view, because I think it will be the best and the greatest reform we have ever had. I am asking for it for the sake of the country, for the sake of the men, as well as for the sake of the women." (Mr. Walter M'Laren)
"I do not want to roam into the abstract question of the relations between the sexes, their relative capacities and capabilities. I shall not go into that further than to say that I believe that there is a proportion of women capable of exercising the Parliamentary franchise, not merely for their own satisfaction, but to the public advantage, and I believe that that proportion of women is found in every class throughout the community. I believe the State would be the gainer if they had the vote, and if, in consequence of the vote, they had what I think myself follows from that—access in the fullest sense to all positions in our public life. I feel that the line of sex disqualification is not in accordance with obvious facts. I do not think it is necessary for the security of society. On the other hand, I think the grievance is greatly exaggerated. I think the great mass of women are not in any sensible degree losers by the disability under which they lie. It cannot be proved that they suffer any disadvantage in legislation." (Mr. Churchill)
"A slur of inferiority has been cast upon members of the other sex by hon. Gentlemen who have opposed this Bill. I think there is no inferiority whatever. One cannot but realise that members of the other sex have the gentler qualities much more marked; they transcend men in those qualities. They have also various qualities which fit them for assisting in local government matters. They have qualities which are virtuous in them, but which, in the male sex, would probably not be virtuous at all." (Mr. J.M.H. Kirkwood)
"The experience of Parliament has shown that these changes and reforms which [Stuart Mill] believed could not be accomplished without woman suffrage have, almost all of them, been carried." (Mr. S.H. Butcher)
The Bill was granted a second reading, but then dropped in the run-up to elections, on 18th November. Riots ensued, that day and later, as the Suffragette groups who had held off protests while the Bill was in Parliament resumed their activity and clashed with police. There were over a hundred arrests, and one protester later died of her injuries.
Other movements in feminism had seen continuation of gradual progress: it was the voting question that had been uppermost in the media in 1910. What would 1911 hold?
(Thanks to the Women's Hour website for its handy timeline)
One with its ups and downs, it turns out. In July a bill that proposed giving the vote to large numbers of women was debated at length in Parliament. The report in Hansard (July 12 1910) makes strange reading: men debating whether women need or deserve a vote, whether their lives would be changed, whether the world would change -
"I cannot help thinking that there is some instability in our political system at present. I am quite certain that from time to time there are gusts of passion which sweep over the democracy, and I ask the House whether it would be wise to add to those a new and dangerous force of incalculable moment—I mean the collective emotion of women." (Mr. S. Butcher)
"I am asking for woman suffrage as a man, from a man's point of view, because I think it will be the best and the greatest reform we have ever had. I am asking for it for the sake of the country, for the sake of the men, as well as for the sake of the women." (Mr. Walter M'Laren)
"I do not want to roam into the abstract question of the relations between the sexes, their relative capacities and capabilities. I shall not go into that further than to say that I believe that there is a proportion of women capable of exercising the Parliamentary franchise, not merely for their own satisfaction, but to the public advantage, and I believe that that proportion of women is found in every class throughout the community. I believe the State would be the gainer if they had the vote, and if, in consequence of the vote, they had what I think myself follows from that—access in the fullest sense to all positions in our public life. I feel that the line of sex disqualification is not in accordance with obvious facts. I do not think it is necessary for the security of society. On the other hand, I think the grievance is greatly exaggerated. I think the great mass of women are not in any sensible degree losers by the disability under which they lie. It cannot be proved that they suffer any disadvantage in legislation." (Mr. Churchill)
"A slur of inferiority has been cast upon members of the other sex by hon. Gentlemen who have opposed this Bill. I think there is no inferiority whatever. One cannot but realise that members of the other sex have the gentler qualities much more marked; they transcend men in those qualities. They have also various qualities which fit them for assisting in local government matters. They have qualities which are virtuous in them, but which, in the male sex, would probably not be virtuous at all." (Mr. J.M.H. Kirkwood)
"The experience of Parliament has shown that these changes and reforms which [Stuart Mill] believed could not be accomplished without woman suffrage have, almost all of them, been carried." (Mr. S.H. Butcher)
The Bill was granted a second reading, but then dropped in the run-up to elections, on 18th November. Riots ensued, that day and later, as the Suffragette groups who had held off protests while the Bill was in Parliament resumed their activity and clashed with police. There were over a hundred arrests, and one protester later died of her injuries.
Other movements in feminism had seen continuation of gradual progress: it was the voting question that had been uppermost in the media in 1910. What would 1911 hold?
(Thanks to the Women's Hour website for its handy timeline)
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