The Role of Women in Electoral Politics in Yorkshire During the Eighteen-Thirties

Abstract

THEREFORMACTin 1832 for the first time in British politics assigned the franchise to 'a male person', thus formalizing the removal of women from their, admittedly peripheral, role in the political process. Although they had traditionally been excluded from politics, a few rich and privileged women had been able to use their influence and status to participate in and manipulate political events. The salons of Lady Holland and Lady Blessington and the electioneering exploits of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, in the Westminster election are well-known examples of aristocratic women finding a role for themselves in the universally male world of parliamentary politics. The exclusion of women from participation in politics was part of a larger trend in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which encouraged women back into the domestic sphere. The rise in the standard of living of the middle classes meant that there was a growing body of women who were able, and who were encouraged, to have little to do with work outside the household. There is a vast body of literature which assigns to women their role within the household and seeks to discourage independent thought or intellectual activity. Mrs Sandford, in her guide for women written in 1831,commented that 'there is something unfeminine in independence, it is contrary to nature and thus offends'. 1Women thus faced legal, economic and cultural obstacles if they wished to enjoy a public role. Both political and feminist historians have been reticent on the political activities of middle-class and aristocratic women during the period immediately following the Reform Act. 2 The political historians of the