Historicaleigh - Votes for Women

June 12, 2017 by Carole Mulroney

With voting being a topical subject right now the Census of 1911 showed the face of Women’s Suffrage defying authority.

In the census for the home of Mrs Rose Sky, a leading local suffragette, who clearly did not intend to tell the authorities who lived in her house, not only was she absent on the census night but she wrote across the form.

No votes for women. No information from women. (Mrs) R Sky.

Mrs Sky, along with another suffragette was in trouble in 1914 for failing to pay the King’s Taxes. Her goods were seized from her residence in Westcliff and were auctioned in Leigh. A gold and diamond ring went for £4.10s.

The Women’s Tax Resistance League was from 1909 to 1918, a direct action group associated with the Women's Freedom League that used tax resistance to protest against the disenfranchisement of women during the British women’s suffrage movement. The League’s activities peaked in the years before the Great War but in 1914 and the League membership passed a resolution to temporarily suspend their tax resistance because of the War. More than 220 women, mostly middle-class, participated in tax resistance between 1906 and 1918 and many many more refused to complete the census forms in 1911.

This article is by Carole Mulroney of Leigh Lives
Website: www.leighlives.co.uk
To read all of Carole's previous articles, please click the link here