The Municipal Franchises naturally followed the example of the Parliamentary one, and in spite of Charter, and in spite of precedent, limited their privileges to “male persons.”
For many years these readings remained in uncontested force, not without protest on the part of women and of the friends of justice. In 1851, Lord Romilly’s Bill, otherwise called Lord Brougham’s Bill, “for shortening the language of the Acts of Parliament,” was passed. This decided that the word “man” should always include “woman” except where otherwise expressly stated. In that year the Earl of Carlisle presented a Petition drafted at a public meeting in Sheffield for the extension of the Parliamentary Suffrage to women. Sympathetic minds were stirred by the great American Convention of the subject, and in the Westminster and Foreign Quarterly, July, 1851, appears the notable article on “The Enfranchisement of Women,” by Mrs. Mill. “That women have as good a claim as men have to the suffrage and to be jury, it would be difficult for any one to deny.” “It is one axiom of English freedom that taxation and representation always go together; it is another that all persons must be tried by their peers, yet both are denied to women.” “A reason must be given why what is permitted to one person is interdicted to another.” “Far from being expedient, the division of mankind into two castes, one born to rule the other, is an unqualified mischief, a source of perversion and demoralisation both to the favoured class and to those at whose expense they are favoured, producing none of the good which it is the custom to ascribe to it, and forming a bar to any really vital improvement either in the character or the social condition of the human race.”
“It is the boast of modern Europeans and Americans that they know and do many things which their fore-fathers neither knew nor did; it is the most unquestionable point of their superiority that custom is not now the tyrant that it formerly was. Yet in this case prejudice appeals to custom and authority.” “Great thinkers from Plato to Condorcet have made emphatic protests in favour of the equality of women.” “We deny the right of any portion of the species to decide for another portion, or any individual for another individual what is and what is not their ‘proper sphere.’ The proper sphere of all human beings is the largest and highest they can attain to.”
The Bill of 1867. Again the “Representation of the people” came before the House in 1867. The word “man” was exchanged for “male persons” of the 1832 Charter. John Stuart Mill redeemed his father’s errors and moved an Amendment that it should be made expressly to include women. “We ought not to deny to them what we are conceding to everyone else, a right to be consulted; of having, what every petty trade or profession has, a few members who feel specially called on to attend to their interests, to point out how these interests are affected by law.” “The want of this protection has affected their interests vitally. The rich can make private laws unto themselves by settlements, but what of the poor?”
“Educational endowments founded for both sexes have been limited to boys. The medical profession shuts its doors when women strive to enter in. The Royal Academy shut its doors when women began to distinguish themselves. There is no meaning in the objection that women have no time to attend to politics. Do all enfranchised men take time?” “What is the meaning of political freedom? Is it anything but the control of those that make politics by those who do not?” (p. 7). His Amendment was lost. But so also was the Amendment that the phrase “male persons” of 1832 should be replaced. The Bill enacted that every man of full age, and not subject to legal incapacity, “duly qualified and registered,” should have the right to vote. During the discussion, the Hon. G. Denman, Justice of the Common Pleas, asked the following question—“Why, instead of the words ‘male person’ of the Act of 1832, the word ‘man’ had been substituted in the present Bill? In the fifth clause of the Bill he found that after saying that every ‘man’ should be entitled to be registered, it proceeds to say, ‘or a male person in any university who has passed any senior middle examination.’ In the light of Lord Romilly’s Act, if the Court of Queen’s Bench had to decide to-morrow on the construction of these clauses they would be constrained to hold that they conferred the suffrage on female persons as well as on males.” The Government did not answer the question, but it passed the Bill as it stood. This, therefore, to ordinary, as well as to logical minds, seemed to reinstate women in their ancient though neglected privileges, which the advance of education had taught them now to appreciate. Therefore, next year, 5,347 women had themselves duly registered in the town of Manchester alone, in the neighbouring town of Salford about 1,500, and large numbers in other places. Great uncertainty prevailed as to how to treat them, but most of the revising barristers threw them out. The Manchester women consolidated their claims and appealed against their decision.
The case of Chorlton v. Lings was heard before the Court of Common Pleas in Westminster, Nov. 7th and 10th, 1868, Lord Chief-Justice Bovill and Justice Willes, Keating and Byles, sitting on the Bench. The facts can be found in the Law Reports, and it is good that they should be recalled to the minds of the rising generation.
Yet they are treated in a more lively manner in the pages of The Times. Mr. Coleridge, Q.C., and Dr. Pankhurst appeared on behalf of the women, Mr. Mellish against. Miss Becker, the woman’s champion, was present, and many other ladies. Mr. Coleridge stated that there were 5,347 women duly registered in the town of Manchester, qualified except by sex to be electors. The Chief-Justice asked him if he had found any cases of women exercising political privileges before then? He said he had not![[18]] But he added that the Statute for the County Courts might have included both sexes. The Chief-Justice interpolated, “The Common Law existed before the Statute Law. There is no trace, so far as I know, of women having been admitted to the assemblies of the wise men of the land!”[[19]] (Laughter.) Mr. Coleridge gave the examples of the Countess of Westmoreland voting by attorney and Mrs. Copley signing the indenture. Justice Willes interposed, “She might have been a returning officer, which office she unquestionably might fill!”[[20]] Mr. Coleridge then quoted Luders as to the women burgesses of Lyme Regis; the Statute of Henry VI., which limited suitors to forty shilling freeholders and the citizen burgesses, as all being enacted of “chusers” or “electors” in common terms. Hallam (ch. xiii.), states that “all Householders paying Scot and Lot, and Local Rates, voted for members of Parliament.” Women could be freeholders, householders, citizens, burgesses, suitors, taxpayers, therefore they could vote. It is true that the Reform Bill of 1832 read these as only applied to “male persons,” but the Bill of 1867 used the term “man,” while Lord Romilly’s Act had decided the term “man” should include woman, unless where it was otherwise expressly stated. It was not “otherwise expressly stated” in the Statute of 1867. There was no legal restraint against women voting, and he quoted the case of Holt v. Lyle, which affirmed that a feme sole had a right to vote for a Parliament man.
[18]. See Ante to the contrary p. 64.
[19]. P. 10.
[20]. P. 70.