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Monday, 4 April 2011

Slightly behindhand with this

I intended to post on Saturday for the centenary of the Great Census Boycott of 1911 undertaken by suffragettes as an act of protest. There was a piece in the Guardian on Friday, and on the Saturday there was a guided walk of Kensington under the auspices of the Women's Library.

My own impression has been that it was largely an action of the Women's Freedom League in line with their policy of non-violent (but nonetheless significantly disruptive) protests, but it does seem to have extended well beyond that particular organisation.

There is a nice story by Laurence Housman, the male suffragist, playwright and sex reformer, about leaving his own residence for census night so that an interdeterminate number of women suffragists could stay there. They had departed by the time he returned, but left him a cooked breakfast.

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