Laura E. Nym Mayhall The Militant Suffrage Movement;

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.The general of-ficer, Brigadier General Hammersley, had recently imposed a curfew onGrantham’s female residents, ordering them to stay indoors between 7:00p.m.and 6:00 a.m.As commanding officer, Hammersley authorized the po-lice to enter houses in the area if deemed necessary to enforce the order.TheWPV were chosen to accompany the police on their raids.In her autobiog-raphy, Mary Allen recorded this use of the WPV as a triumph, recountingthat “we received the first mark of confidence—the military authorities con-ferring upon us the right to enter any house, building or land within a six-mile radius of the Army Post Office.” 125 Nina Boyle, however, was horrifiedby the use of the WPV to enforce such a blatant restriction of women’s civilliberties, and by February 1915 she was urging Damer Dawson to resign aschief of the corps.Boyle vowed the WPV would “continue its work on thelines originally laid down, i.e., for the service of women, and not to assist thepresent authorities in carrying out laws and regulations known to be unjustand improper.” 126 Pushed to a vote, the corps opted overwhelmingly in favorof remaining under the control of Damer Dawson, who immediately re-formed the group under the name of the Women Police Service, effectively133t h e m i l i ta n t s u f f r a g e m ov e m e n tending its association with the WFL.Boyle repeatedly reminded readers ofthe Vote that the WFL broke with the WPV because the organization aidedthe government in violating women’s civil rights.127 The WPV remained ac-tive in Brighton and in parts of London until 1916, continuing its rota ofthe criminal courts, patrolling public gardens and parks, and establishing amounted section devoted to the welfare of animals.128The troubled history of the WPV thus provides insight into the arenas ofstruggle in which suffragettes struggled to keep prewar principles alive dur-ing the war.Resisting the state’s curtailment of women’s civil liberties provedto be as important a site for women’s practice of citizenship, if not more so,than suffragettes’ work for their political rights during the war, for in thefinal analysis, women’s demands were not instrumental in shaping the legis-lation on enfranchisement emerging during the war.Far more important tothe government was the status of the nation’s fighting men, many of whomhad remained voteless because their military service precluded fulfillment ofthe residency requirements of the Reform Act of 1884.By August 1916, theissue of electoral reform had been handed to a special conference chairedby the Speaker of the House of Commons, James W.Lowther.The commit-tee reported in January 1917, recommending a form of female enfranchise-ment similar to that proposed by W.H.Dickinson’s 1913 bill proposing ahousehold franchise, that is, one providing for the enfranchisement of womenwho held the household qualification in their own right or were married tomen who did.129 Parliamentary enfranchisement thus would be granted towomen above the age of thirty who already possessed the local governmentvote or to those who were married to men who already had the local gov-ernment vote.130 Other significant aspects of the bill proposed by the com-mittee were its recommendations to retain only three of the many qualifi-cations of the previous act, those of residence, business occupation, anduniversity representation.It abolished all or parts of some sixty statutes treat-ing franchise and registration, creating in their place a simpler and moreuniform system.The proposed bill would add some two million men andabout six million women, more than doubling the electorate.131 Prime Min-ister Lloyd George accepted a deputation of women’s organizations on theproposed bill in March 1917, but by that time women’s electoral concernshad become marginal within the overall scheme of franchise reform.132 Thebill that became the Representation of the People Act (1918) thus granted aform of female suffrage that would have been unacceptable to suffragistsprior to the war and which was, on the whole, greeted with little enthusiasmby suffragettes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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