The Campaign for Women’s Suffrage in York and the 1911 Census Evasion

Abstract

This article examines the history of women’s suffrage agitation in York one hundred years after some women were able to vote for the first time in Parliamentary elections, in December 1918. It concentrates on the period leading up to the evasion of the census on 2–3 April 1911 and places developments in York in the context of national events. Actions and attitudes of the York Women’s Suffrage Society, which was formed in 1889 and affiliated to the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, are considered, as well as those of the York branch of the more militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). The WSPU was founded in 1903 and its York branch was not finally established until 1910; its leading figures were the secretary Annie Coultate and its organiser Violet Key Jones. The extent of the 1911 census evasion in York, and the location where evaders spent the night to avoid being counted, are identified for the first time. Four sisters of the Suffield family of Fulford were active suffragettes and were probably among the evaders in York and Scarborough.