The Feminist Movement/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
WOMEN IN PUBLIC SERVICE
The Women's Local Government Society exists to promote the election of women to all those public bodies for which they are at present eligible, and to secure their appointment as officials wherever their work would be of value to the public. It thus seeks to enlarge the class of women social workers which comes third in the classification made in the previous chapter. By educating public opinion through meetings and pamphlets, by promoting Bills in Parliament, and by watching carefully Bills promoted by others, the society seeks to justify the feminist legislation already achieved and to remove the anomalies in the law respecting the status of women in local government.
The history of the progress of women in the matter of local government is an extremely interesting part of a very complicated subject. The law is not the same for every part of the British Islands. In some respects the electoral law for Ireland is more advanced than that of either England and Wales or Scotland. In other particulars Scotland has the advantage. London government differs from them all. And so a proper understanding of the position of the local government voter, male or female, is not very easy.
Prior to the passing of the Municipal Corporation Act in 1886, the local government of the country was conducted in a haphazard way, as the circumstances and conditions of time and place determined. This Act, which deprived women of the Municipal Franchise, was amended many times subsequently, the whole force and intention of these amendments being collected and expressed in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1882, which was further amended by the Local Government Act of 1894. In the meantime, the Municipal Franchise had been granted to the women of England and Wales in 1869, to the women of Scotland in 1881, and to the women of Ireland in 1898. The English Act provides that a woman claiming to be registered as an elector must be qualified as an occupier, either as owner or tenant, must be over twenty-one years of age, must not be an alien, and must not have received poor-law relief within the preceding twelve months. Married women may not vote as joint-occupiers with their husbands for Borough Council elections, but may vote for Urban and Rural District Councils, Parish Councils, Poor Law Guardians, Metropolitan Borough Councils, and the London County Council, but not in respect of the same property. No woman is entitled to vote in any election in virtue of her ownership. Previous to the Local Government Act of 1894 a woman might vote in virtue of ownership for Poor Law Guardians, but that right has now ceased to exist.
The women of Ireland, by virtue of the Act of 1898, exercise the local government vote on exactly the same terms as men. All Parliamentary electors, and all those women who, but for their sex, would be Parliamentary electors, are Irish Local Government electors. There is no disability on married women as such, but they may not vote in respect of the same property as their husbands.
In Scotland women may vote for School Boards, Parish Councils, Town Councils, and County Councils. They are entitled to vote for County Councils if they are owners or occupiers of property of the annual value of £4 and upwards; if they are householders (any value); if they occupy dwelling-houses as servants voting on a service qualification; or as lodgers if their unfurnished rooms are of £10 yearly rental. They may vote for Borough Councils on all the foregoing qualifications, but the property they own or occupy must be heritable property of at least £10 yearly rental. It will thus be seen that Scotland and Ireland are in advance of England in this matter.
So much for the woman voter. The vote does not, however, invariably carry the right of election. The women electors of England and Wales have the right of election to Boards of Guardians and Parish, Rural, and Urban District Councils, but are disqualified by marriage from election to Town and County Councils, except in London. A Bill is before the House of Commons at the present time which seeks to amend the Municipal Corporations Act of 1882 and the County Electors Act of 1888, by providing a residential qualification for candidates, to be alternative with the present electoral qualification, and so to widen the area of selection of candidates by bringing in married women. Women may not vote nor be elected to the City of London Council. The number of women in England and Wales who, on March 1, 1912, occupied seats as elected persons of the various local governing bodies was 3 on County Councils, 17 on Town Councils, 9 on Metropolitan Borough Councils, 5 on Urban District Councils, 145 on Rural District Councils (acting also as Poor Law Guardians for the Unions in which their districts lie), 1175 Poor Law Guardians who are elected as such (1320 counting the Rural District Councillors), and a large number of Parish Councillors.
By the Qualifications of Women's Act of 1907, the right to stand for all those public bodies for which they may vote was extended to Scottish women. Previous to this Act they could only sit on Parish Councils and School Boards. Marriage is no disqualification for the woman candidate in Scotland, though she can neither vote nor qualify as a candidate on the same property as her husband.
In Ireland, women are not eligible as County Councillors, but they may stand for Rural and Urban District Councils, provided they are Local Government electors, or have lived for twelve months in the district, and will continue to do so. Ireland has 3 women Town Councillors, 44 Rural District Councillors, 4 Urban District Councillors, and 66 Poor Law Guardians. Scotland has 2 Town Councillors and 44 Parish Councillors.
The story of the struggle of women to secure places on the London County Council is interesting. The London County Councils Act was passed in 1888, and, believing themselves to be eligible for election to the newly-created governing body, three distinguished women, Lady Sandhurst, Miss Cobden, and Miss Cons, submitted themselves for election, and were successful. The candidate in Brixton whom Lady Sandhurst defeated—Mr Beresford Hope—petitioned against her return on the sole ground that she was a woman. He begged that her election should be declared null and void and that he might be declared the elected person. The case was taken before the Court of Queen's Bench and judgment was given for Mr Beresford Hope on both counts. Leave was given to appeal against the judgment, and the case was taken into the full Court of Appeal. The presiding judge was the late Lord Coleridge, with whom sat five colleagues.
The women based their case on three Acts of Parliament—Lord Brougham's Act, of 1851, which provided that in the interpretation of Acts of Parliament 'words importing the masculine gender shall be held to include the feminine unless the contrary is expressly provided'; the Municipal Corporations Act, of 1882, which contained the following clauses: Sec. 63. 'For all purposes connected with and having reference to the right to vote at Municipal Elections, words in this Act imputing the masculine gender include women.' Sec. 11. 8. 'Every person shall be qualified to be elected and to be a councillor who is at the time of election qualified to elect to the office of councillor.' In 1888, the County Councils Act incorporated these two sections of the Municipal Corporations Act.
The appeal of the women was dismissed, all the judges agreeing that the Municipal Corporations Act, by specifically stating that 'feminine' applied only in regard to the right to vote, implied that, in the matter of being voted for, women were not eligible. The Lord Brougham Act was thus contemptuously tossed aside, making it, unhappily, of non-effect for the future. It is only since the Qualifying Act of 1907 that the right to be elected to a County Council as well as to vote has been held by women.
Another curious thing happened in 1899 which was responsible for a great deal of new-born enthusiasm for woman suffrage. It was felt by many at the time to be simple folly to win powers and privileges for women when at any time, by the careless act of men in Parliament not responsible to women, one or another of those powers might be taken away. This is what happened in 1899 and again in 1902. In 1899 was passed the London Government Act, which created a number of Boroughs in London to take the place of the Vestries. Up to that time women had been doing excellent work on the London Vestries, but they were ineligible for Borough Councils at the time the new Act was passed, and thus they were automatically turned off by the operation of this Act. In 1902, by the abolition of School Boards in England, and the substitution of Education Authorities, which were to be Committees of the County or Borough Councils, women, being eligible for School Boards, but ineligible for the new Education Authorities, were put out of positions in which they, also, were confessedly making themselves exceeding useful. These matters have, of course, been put right by the Act of 1907, but they illustrate how easily a hard-won privilege may be lost when direct representation in Parliament is denied to those concerned.
Very few people of intelligence in this country to-day would deny the usefulness of the woman on public administrative bodies. The work of local governing bodies is in the nature of collective house-keeping. Children and education, health and sanitation, the provision of food and medicine, the care and control of the sick, have always been held to be within the province of the woman. These matters are all included in the work of District, Borough, and County Councils. A few words in detail about the powers and duties of the various public bodies to which women are eligible will show with distinctness the desirability of having women representatives to help in the administration of local affairs. One of the most important of a County Council's duties is the provision of lunatic asylums for pauper lunatics within their area. In 1911 there were 70,000 female lunatics controlled by the County Councils of the country. In some County Council areas there are homes for inebriate women. Obviously women councillors could be of the greatest service in looking after not only the pauper women lunatics and the poor women victims of the drink habit who come under the public care, but also the female attendants who have to look after them. Pauper lunatics are under the charge of eight paid and four unpaid Lunacy Commissioners. There is nothing in the law to prevent the appointment of a woman to the post of either paid or unpaid Commissioner, but at the present moment there is no woman on the Commission. A clever woman doctor might, with profit to the female lunatics, be appointed to such a position. It would also be a good thing if County Councils would appoint visiting committees of women, for a proper supervision of the unfortunate people who have to be controlled is better carried out for women by women.
The County Council is also the Education Authority for its area. It needs no words of eloquence and no deep wisdom to establish the case for a woman representative where the education of small children is in question. Moreover, it is an advantage to the women teachers to have an educated woman to consult on matters pertaining to the health and environment as well as the work of their charges.
In the administration of Acts of Parliament relating to foods, drugs, pure milk, and weights and measures, the County Council has most important work which is obviously quite closely related to the every-day vocation of the majority of women. The Council has likewise to carry out in part the Children's Act of 1908. Those who take charge of children under five years of age in return for money must report to the Local Authority within twenty-fours hours of so doing, and come under the control of the inspectors of the Council. The supervision of the administration of the Midwives Act is also a part of the work of the County Council; all of which duties are an extended application of the work women have been doing for ages. The looking after roads, rivers, bridges, traffic, and the like might, if it were thought necessary, be dealt with by men's committees, though even here a woman's knowledge of detail and of economical expenditure might assist in saving the rates in directions in which such saving is desirable; but from committees dealing with housing and town planning, isolation hospitals for infectious diseases, old age pensions, amusements, and public health, the absence of women is a mistake. Of course one would not suggest for a moment that every woman would be equally useful on a local governing body, nor that it is desirable that a woman should be elected because she is a woman. It is little less than a calamity when a woman is elected who is foolish and incapable; but the necessity of facing the public and explaining her views will generally operate to prevent the stupid and unintelligent woman from aspiring to public office, though it does not always have such a deterrent effect on men.
The work of Municipal Boroughs is very much like that of County Councils in many respects. The Borough Council, or County Borough Council, which differs from the Borough Council in that it controls the interests of a population of 50,000 or more inhabitants and enjoys more powers than an ordinary Municipal Council, holds and manages the property of the town, and may, with the consent of the Local Government Board, acquire fresh property. This property includes one or more of the great services, such as water, gas, electricity, street-cars, telephones, libraries, parks, schools, milk-depots, slaughter-houses, wash-houses. It controls and supplies adequate drainage, collects refuse, provides hospitals, cemeteries, crematoriums, and inspects factories. It has the power to build houses for working-people and to close insanitary dwellings. It may adopt the Notification of Births Act, 1907, a most important piece of legislation for the nation's infant life. When a Borough is large and has its own police force, a special committee—the Watch Committee—is formed to control it, under whose authority is placed the Chief Constable, who is appointed by the Council. The number of committees is determined by the size of the town, the needs of the locality, and the number of enterprises in which the Council, on behalf of the people, is engaged; but a rapid glance along the list of these common public duties bears out again the contention that a good capable woman can find plenty of suitable work to her hands on the Council as the elected representative of a town ward.
It is a thousand pities that the number of eligible women in England is so restricted. Capable married women are the very people to sit upon the Health, Education, Midwives, Lunacy, and Housing Committees of Town Councils; but because of their marriage these women are barred, except in London. This must be borne in mind when the critic of woman suffrage complains that so few women have come forward for public service in this way. Few women are qualified, and, to a very large extent, they belong to the class of wage earners who have no leisure for public service of this sort; and are elderly women whose days of activity are over; widows, and spinsters who have lived in their fathers' houses without responsibilities of a public sort until well advanced in years, and who come to their new duties as voters and their new powers as potential representatives with extreme reluctance and vague misgiving.
Parish Councils in England and Wales are usually looked upon as quite insignificant public bodies, engaged chiefly in taking care of the village pump. It is true that the Parish Coimcil area is small, and that the provision of a water-supply comes within the scope of its duties; but there are other duties of a very important character, particularly to the people affected by them. These include the appointment of overseers, who collect the rate for the poor, look after the voting registers, levy rates for education purposes, and give relief to the poor. A woman is eligible as an overseer of the poor. Under certain conditions the Parish Council has power to buy or hire land for allotments and kindred purposes. The public health, or at least the prevention of disease by the removal of nuisances, is a part of its work. The building of a village hall, and the protection of rights-of-way and village greens, as well as the repairing of foot-paths, are matters within its jurisdiction. It has power to adopt certain permissive Acts of Parliament, such as the Burial Acts, the Public Improvements Act, the Public Libraries Act, the Lighting and Watching, and Baths and Wash-houses Acts; and if these are adopted, it is the duty of the Parish Council to see that they are carried out. Parish Councils are very largely in the hands of local farmers, good and worthy men indeed, but men who customarily weigh every penny many times before they spend it, and whose natural conservatism permits them to wait until long after a public need has been felt before they begin to think of gratifying it. A business-like woman on a Parish Council would act as a spur to the activities of these worthy representatives of the rural inhabitants.
Parish Councils have the power, also, to compel neglectful higher authorities to do their duties as the Sanitary Authorities for the district in which the areas of the Parish Councils lie. Miss Jane Escombe, of the Parish Council of Penshurst, illustrates this in her own interesting experience. Through this lady's initiative the Parish Council of which she was a member took steps to compel the District Council to provide an Isolation Hospital which was very much needed. Appeals to the Council, the local Sanitary Authority, had been in vain; but the County Council found that the District Council had failed in its obvious duty, and appointed a special committee to look into the matter, with the result that the Hospital was eventually provided. Miss Escombe was also instrumental in securing a pure and untainted water-supply for her village, and was the pioneer of decent, cheap, sanitary cottages for country workpeople. In the experience of this woman councillor, women are needed on boards of administration most because of their knowledge of detail, their tendency to economy in expenditure, and their intimate acquaintance with the needs of ordinary everyday life.
Few will dispute the title of women to serve as Guardians of the Poor. It is recognised that a workhouse is simply a large household, with all the ordinary, average household's needs. Every workhouse contains young children and old people, all of whom require the tender care of efficient, sensible women. Every workhouse has sick people in it, and often imbeciles. These, when women and girls, should be in the care of women. The maternity wards are essentially the charge of the women Guardians. But the story here is the same as before and need not be repeated. A woman who has effected more for the improvement of Poor Law administration than any one man is Miss Twining. Mr and Mrs Sydney Webb would have done more if public opinion and Parliament would have supported them with sufficient enthusiasm, but their proposals for the abolition of the workhouse as at present constituted and the introduction of a new scheme for dealing with the poor were apparently too drastic, and the old order continues. But Miss Twining effected a number of reforms of great worth. It is recorded of her that she was the admiration of the matron of the workhouse controlled by her Board of Guardians, for she left nothing untended, and 'ferreted everything out.' She secured the appointment of visiting committees of ladies. She was instrumental in the formation of the Workhouse Infirmary Association; before that time, ignorant pauper women had, with deplorable results, acted as nurses to the poor patients. It was largely due to Miss Twining that the Local Government Board appointed the first woman Poor Law Inspector in 1871. Amid all her other activities she found time to write forty tracts and pamphlets for the guidance of those who would, she hoped, follow in the way she had taken, and advance the cause of the poor by serving them as their Guardians.
One of the most useful works to which women can turn their attention is education and the education system. Women in Scotland are eligible to serve on School Boards. Miss Flora Stevenson was the woman chairman of the Edinburgh School Board, and her name is affectionately remembered by her fellow-citizens for the work she accomplished. Councillor Margaret Ashton, member of the Manchester City Council, is one of the most effective and devoted members of any public body. Her chief concern is education. She is a woman of great gifts and widest sympathies, and the special interests of women and girls always command her undivided attention. She is actively interested, too, in the provision of municipal lodging-houses for women, the housing of the poor, and the payment to municipal women servants of a living wage. The concerns of the school children and the women school teachers touch her most deeply perhaps—and the severest critic of feminism would scarcely dare to risk his reputation for ordinary intelligence by saying that this sphere was not a suitable one for a woman. Lighting, ventilation, the provision of suitable apparatus, the appointment of suitable teachers, the hearing of those teachers' complaints, suggestions, and plans for their scholars; schools for defective children, higher education, syllabuses, wages and salaries—all these things make up the concern of a member of the Education Committee; and since the majority of school children are girls and the majority of elementary school teachers are women, the Education Committee of every Education Authority should never be without women members. The law, indeed, provides that a certain proportion shall be women.
A new sphere of work has been opened to women by the creation of public positions under Parliament and the local executives. Women Inspectors of Factories have been appointed by the Home Office to examine the conditions of work in the nation's workshops and factories. They are required to travel about the country and pay visits to the factories to discover if the machinery is tended with due regard to the safety of the worker, to see that the ventilation and sanitary provisions are good, that the hours of work and the holidays are in accordance with Government requirements, and that the special provisions for children and young persons are carried out. No young person (boy or girl under eighteen) may work at night, nor for more than 5512 hours a week in a textile factory. The salary for the ordinary Factory Inspector is £200, rising by annual instalments to £300. The Senior Inspectors begin with £300 and rise to £400. Travelling expenses also are allowed. There are seventeen women Factory Inspectors, of whom the distinguished head is Miss A. M. Anderson, a clever, capable woman of great tact and firmness, with the saving sense of humour and the fine knowledge of human nature so absolutely indispensable in a calling of this sort.
The Home Office has appointed a Lady Inspector of Prisons and a Lady Sub-inspector of Industrial Schools. There are also six women Probation Officers who work in connection with the Juvenile Courts in London, under the Probation of Offenders Act of 1907. Under the Education Office there are twenty-five women Inspectors of Education, their Chief being the Hon. Maude Lawrence. These Inspectors look after the education of children and the training of teachers in schools and colleges receiving Government grants.
For the inspection of infirmaries, nurseries, maternity wards, and pauper schools, six women have been appointed by the Local Government Board. Sixteen women hold posts as Relieving Officers, and it is believed that more may be appointed at an early date. It is said that the Local Government Board does not favour the appointment of women by Boards of Guardians to the post of Relieving Officer, because the duty includes the painful and disagreeable task of superintending the removal of pauper lunatics to the asylum. Poor Law Authorities have in some cases appointed women as Medical Officers.
The London County Council has appointed women to serve as Inspectors under its Education, Public Health, and Public Control Departments. Under the Education Department there are ten women Inspectors serving as assistants to Divisional and District Inspectors who are, at present, all men. Eight of these women inspect in special subjects, such as needlework and domestic science. Miss Philippa Fawcett holds a unique position under the County Council as Principal Director in the Higher Education Branch of the Education Department. Two women hold posts as Inspectors under the Midwives Act. They must be unmarried or widowed, and their maximum salary is £800. The midwives are under their charge, and are required by them to be sober, clean, and careful. Seven women Inspectors are appointed under the Infant Life Protection Act. The purpose of this Act is to secure public control of those people who make a livelihood out of the care of young children. Those who look after these children under five and keep them longer than forty-eight hours from their parents must be registered. The business of discovering those who evade registration is done by men Inspectors. The women Inspectors control those who are registered. The average number of visits which one of these women Inspectors makes in a year is 1800, and the results they gain are very encouraging. Under the Shops Act there are three women Inspectors of the London County Council. The duty of these women is to see that no young person under eighteen is employed for more than 74 hours a week, that seats are provided at the rate of one for each three assistants, that sanitation, lighting, etc., are good.
Women Sanitary Inspectors are employed in twenty-three out of the twenty-seven Metropolitan Boroughs, and a considerable number by the towns in the provinces. In the latter cases the salaries are much smaller than in London, but, fortunately, the cost of living is smaller also. A considerable impetus was given to the appointment of women to posts of this sort by the London County Council Act of 1909, which granted to Sanitary Authorities the power to appoint Health Visitors 'for the purpose of giving to persons in poor circumstances advice as to the proper nurture, care, and management of young children, and of promoting cleanliness and discharging such other duties as may be assigned to them in accordance with the provisions of this section.' In view of the pressing question of infant mortality it is gratifying to know that the number of qualified women appointed to take up this important work is increasing. There are four Health Visitors in Durham, working under the Durham County Council, six in Warwickshire, four in Worcestershire, and four in Leicestershire. It is important that the work should be extended, and that the qualifications for this important work should be maintained at such a height as to attract women of education and refinement, as well as of tact and patience.
The post of School Attendance Officer is open to women, but at present this work is done by only four women in London.
Under the recently-enacted Insurance Act, women hold positions as Insurance Commissioners at a salary of £1000 per annum. This is the only case of equal pay for equal work in any department of Government where women and men are engaged on the same work, and as these appointments are of recent date, it may perhaps be taken as a gratifying instance of the advance of educated official opinion in the direction of equity.
Women have from time to time served their country as members of Royal Commissions and Departmental Committees. These are not salaried posts; but they are offices of very high honour, to which people are appointed by the King and the Secretary of State. Women sat on the Commission of Inquiry into the condition of Education in 1867; Mrs Fawcett was appointed a member of the Royal Commission which went to South Africa to inquire into conditions in the Concentration Camps during the Boer War; Mrs Sydney Webb and Mrs Bosanquet were members of the important Poor Law Commission; Lady Frances Balfour and Mrs Tennant were members of the Royal Commission on Divorce; and Mrs Streatfeild and Miss Haldane sit at present on the Royal Commission to inquire into Civil Service appointments.