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Birth of Anna Haslam, Campaigner for Women’s Rights

Anna Maria Haslam (née Fisher), a suffragist and a major figure in the 19th and early 20th century women’s movement in Ireland, is born in Youghal, County Cork, on April 6, 1829.

Fisher is the sixteenth of seventeen children to Jane and Abraham Fisher. The Fishers are a Quaker family with a business in Youghal. They are noted for their charitable works, especially during the Great Famine.

Fisher helps in soup kitchens and becomes involved in setting up cottage industries for local girls in lace-making, crocheting and knitting. She is brought up believing in equality for men and women and also supporting the campaign against slavery and for temperance and pacifism. She attends Quaker boarding schools, Newtown School in County Waterford and Castlegate School in York, England, which later becomes The Mount School, York. She then becomes a teaching assistant in Ackworth School, Yorkshire. She meets Thomas Haslam who is teaching there and who is from Mountmellick, County Laois. He is born into a Quaker family in 1825. He is a feminist theorist and from 1868 he write about many topics concerning female rights and issues such as prostitution, birth control and women’s suffrage.

Fisher and Haslam marry on March 20, 1854, in Cork Registry Office. Their marriage is mainly celibate as a result of them not wanting to have children. In later writings Thomas argues in favour of chastity for men. The couple shares a belief in equality for men and women and he supports her campaigns.

Both of the Haslams are expelled from the Society of Friends due to their interests in social reform but both maintain links with the community. Thomas is said to have been disowned for harbouring ideas contrary to Quaker teachings. In 1868, he publishes a pamphlet called “The Marriage Problem,” in which he raises and supports the idea of family limitation and outlines a number of contraceptive methods including the safe period. He dies on January 30, 1917, in his ninety-second year.

Haslam is best remembered today for her work for votes for women. She is a pioneer in every 19th century Irish feminist campaign and fights for votes for women from the year 1866. In 1872, she organises the “General Meeting of the members and friends of the Irish Society for Women’s Suffrage” in Blackrock, Dublin, which is chaired by George Owens and attended by MPs Maurice Brooks (a Home Ruler) and William Johnston (a northern Orangeman) and by the future Liberal Unionist Party MP Thomas Spring Rice, 2nd Baron Monteagle of Brandon. The Haslams are founding members of the Dublin Women’s Suffrage Association (DWSA) in 1876. This marks the start of a remarkable campaign in Dublin for votes for women. Haslam, along with the writing of her husband, continues the campaign and in 1896 women in Ireland win the right to be elected as Poor Law Guardians, members of the official bodies which administer the Poor Law. Ireland’s early women’s rights activists have a close relationship with their English correlatives and share the same discrimination in education, employment, sexual freedom and political participation. The DWSA organises the introduction of a private member’s bill to remove disqualification “by sex or marriage” for election or serving as a poor law guardian. The bill passes in 1896 and the association immediately writes to the newspapers and publishes leaflets explaining the process on how to register to vote and stand for election and encouraged qualified women to go forward as candidate.

By 1900, there are nearly 100 women guardians. Haslam then leads a campaign to encourage qualified women to stand for election in 1898. Women win eligibility to vote in local government elections, and to stand for elections as rural and urban district councillors. In 1913, she steps down as secretary of the Association and is elected life-president.

One of Haslam’s longest campaigns, working alongside the Belfast suffragist Isabella Tod, is for repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864. The acts allow for state regulation of prostitutes in areas in which the army is stationed. The act permits compulsory internment of women for up to three months, which is later extended to one year. Medical treatment is also enforced on the women. The act seeks only to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among the military. She opposes the act as she feels it legitimises prostitution, commoditises women and undermines family life. It is finally repealed following eighteen years of campaigning.

Haslam is involved in the 1866 petition and gathers 1,499 signatures to extend suffrage to women as well as men. In 1867, male suffrage is extended but it is not until 1911 that the Suffrage movement achieves the significant victory of securing the right of women to stand for election as local councillors.

In 1918, a woman of almost ninety, Haslam goes to the polls “surrounded by flowers and flags,” with women who unite in her honour to celebrate the victory of the vote. This display of unity by activist women from all shades of political opinion acknowledge her role in the fight for the right to vote. The same year in which she dies, in 1922, the Irish Free State extends the vote to all men and women over the age of 21.

Haslam dies on November 28, 1922, at her home in Carlton Terrace, Dublin, of “cardiac dropsy” at the age of 93. She is buried next to her husband in the Quaker burying ground at the Friends Burial Ground in Temple Hill, Blackrock, Dublin.

A memorial seat to Anna and Thomas Haslam is erected in 1923 in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, with the inscription “in honour of their long years of public service chiefly devoted to the enfranchisement of women.” 

Haslam’s name and picture, as well as those of 58 other women’s suffrage supporters, are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018.


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Founding of the Dublin Women’s Suffrage Association

The Dublin Women’s Suffrage Association (DSWA), later the Irish Women’s Suffrage and Local Government Association (IWSLGA), a women’s suffrage organisation based in Dublin from 1876 to 1919, is founded on January 26, 1876. The organization also campaigns for a greater role for women in local government and public affairs.

The association grows from a committee established by Anna Haslam and her husband, Thomas Haslam, after a meeting on 21 February 21, 1872, chaired by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Sir George Bolster Owens, and addressed by Belfast suffragist Isabella Tod.

The DSWA is formally founded at a meeting on January 26, 1876, in the Exhibition Palace, Earlsfort Terrace (now the National Concert Hall). After the Poor Law Guardians (Ireland) (Women) Act 1896 allows women to be elected to the boards of guardians of poor law unions, it renames itself the Dublin Women’s Suffrage and Poor Law Guardians’ Association. After the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 allows women to serve on local councils, it becomes the Dublin Women’s Suffrage and Local Government Association. It establishes branches outside Dublin in the 1890s and becomes the IWSLGA in 1901.

In 1919, after the Representation of the People Act 1918 provides full franchise at local elections and partial franchise at parliamentary elections, the IWSLGA merges with the Irish Women’s Association of Citizenship to become the Irish Women Citizens’ and Local Government Association, later renamed the Irish Women’s Citizens Association, which in 1949 merges into the Irish Housewives Association.

The association confines itself to constitutional, nonsectarian and peaceful methods, and attracts support from both unionist and nationalist suffragists. Its tactics include making friends in parliament, hosting meetings with important speakers, and issuing pamphlets and periodicals. Its first secretaries are Anna Haslam and Miss McDowell. Haslam serves as secretary until 1913. In regards to membership, Haslam suggests an annual subscription of one shilling per annum as membership in the association. Other goals include appointing women to positions “such as rate collectors and sanitary inspectors, while always pursuing the association’s main objective of the parliamentary vote.” Prominent members of the association in the 20th century are Lady Margaret Dockrell, Mary Hayden, and Bridget Dudley Edwards (mother of Robert Dudley Edwards). Prominent supporters include Charles Cameron, Sir Andrew Reed, Willie Redmond MP, and William Field MP. Following the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, Lady Dockrell is one of the first women appointed Justice of the Peace.

(Pictured: Anna Haslam, co-founder of the DWSA along with her husband, Thomas)


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Death of Isabella Tod, Women’s Rights Activist

Isabella Maria Susan Tod, Irish women’s rights activist, dies at her home at 71 Botanic Avenue in Belfast on December 8, 1896. She is a formidable lady who uses her political skills to great advantage in order to further many causes.

Tod is born on May 18, 1836, in Edinburgh into a well-known Irish Presbyterian family, her uncle being the Rev. Hope Masterton Waddell, one of the earliest Irish Presbyterian missionaries who served with the Scottish Missionary Society in Jamaica and whose great grandfather is the Rev. Charles Masterton, one of the most distinguished minsters of the General Synod of Ulster who ministers at Connor and Rosemary Street, Belfast. She is very proud of her Presbyterian heritage and of her Scottish ancestry.

The daughter of James Banks Tod, an Edinburgh merchant, Tod spends her early years in Edinburgh. She is educated at home by her mother, Maria Isabella Waddell, who comes from County Monaghan. The family moves to Belfast in the 1850s following the death of her father. She and her mother join Elmwood Presbyterian Church. Her Presbyterian background no doubt contributes to her radical views on social issues and women’s rights. She earns her living from writing and journalism, contributing, for example, to the Dublin University Magazine, an independent literary, cultural and political magazine, and to the Banner of Ulster, a Presbyterian newspaper.

Tod becomes one of the leading pioneers in the fight to improve the position of women. She is the only woman called to give evidence to a Select Committee of Enquiry on the reform of the married women’s property law in 1868 and serves on the executive of the Married Women’s Property Committee in London from 1873 to 1874. She successfully campaigns for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869 which enacted that a woman suspected of being a prostitute could be arrested and forced to undergo medical examination for venereal disease. She sees this legislation as an infringement of a woman’s civil liberties.

Tod is also a strong supporter of the temperance movement and, along with her friend Margaret Byers, forms the Belfast Women’s Temperance Association in 1874. Perhaps she is best known for her tireless campaign to extend the educational provision for middle-class women. For example, in 1878 she organises a delegation to London to put pressure on the Government to include girls in the Intermediate Education Act of 1878. The Ladies’ Collegiate School in Belfast, Alexandra College in Dublin and the Belfast Ladies Institute owe their existence largely to her. She writes a paper entitled “An Advanced Education for Girls in the Upper and Middle Classes” which is presented in 1867 at a meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science and is among the pamphlets held in the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland library.

Tod is also an active campaigner for women’s right to vote, embarking on her first campaign in 1872 and addressing meetings in Belfast, Carrickfergus, Coleraine and Londonderry. Following a meeting in Dublin a suffrage committee is established that later becomes the Dublin Women’s Suffrage Society and in 1873 she forms the North of Ireland Women’s Suffrage Society. She extends her meetings to London, Glasgow and Edinburgh and is a frequent visitor to London to lobby politicians during the parliamentary session.

Tod is very much a staunch opponent of Home Rule, establishing a branch of the London-based Women’s Liberal Federation in Belfast and the Liberal Women’s Unionist Association. She sees unionism as the way to progress. “I knew that all the social work in which I had taken so prominent a part for 20 years was in danger and most of it could not exist a day under a petty legislature of the character which would be inevitable,” she says. “What we dread is the complete dislocation of all society, especially in regard to commercial affairs and organised freedom of action.”

Tod suffers from ill-health in her later days and dies in Belfast of pulmonary illness on December 8, 1896. She is buried in Balmoral Cemetery in South Belfast.


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Enactment of the Intermediate Education Act

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The Intermediate Education Act, enacted on August 16, 1878, grants female students the right to participate in public competitive examinations, take university degrees and to enter into careers and professions.

From the early 1870s there had been a growing demand in Ireland for a competitive examinations system which would allow Catholics in particular to enter for the newly created jobs in the Civil Service and for careers in the professions. In response to this pressure, the Irish Intermediate Education Bill is introduced to parliament in 1878. It provides an Examining Board with an annual sum of £32,500 per annum which would cover money prizes for pupils and results fees for schools. Students with the highest marks can gain valuable exhibitions worth up to £50. However, these provisions only apply to boys.

The Bill is in its final stages in parliament, when Isabella Tod of the North of Ireland Women’s Suffrage Society, arrives with a small delegation of women backed by a handful of Irish MPs, to demand that girls should also be included in the provisions of the Bill. Fortunately, attitudes among a majority of English MPs are favourable to the inclusion of girls in the Bill. The most influential of these MPs is William Ewart Gladstone, the leader of the Liberal Party, who believes the proposal to admit women to the benefits of the Bill is reasonable and fair. Although not in favour of giving women the vote, he is prepared to admit that “we have on the whole done rather less than justice to women as compared to men” when it comes to education.

Charles Henry Meldon, MP for Kildare, strongly objects to what he calls “the victory” which the inclusion of girls would give to the advocates of women’s rights, “whose object was not that there should be a limited measure dealing specially with the education of women, but that the same education should be given to girls as given to men.”

Richard O’Shaughnessy, the only Home Rule MP on Isabella Tod’s delegation, assures Meldon that the question at stake is not one of women’s rights but simply of their education and that the object of the amendment “was nothing more nor less than to educate the women of Ireland that they may be better able to discharge their duties as daughters, wives and mothers.”

So, despite the strong objections of most Irish Home Rule MPs, girls are included in the Intermediate Examination Act. Isabella Tod at a meeting in Dublin to promote the extension of the franchise to women thanks O’Shaughnessy and James Stansfield for their support but declares, “We could not help feeling how easy our task would have been if each of these members had owed some votes to women and felt a distinct responsibility to them.”

There is unease felt about public competitive examinations for girls in Ireland. Some believe that the competitive idea should be carefully excluded from the examinations for women. The ladies present at the suffrage meeting are also urged to press the government to avoid publishing the names of girls in order of merit.

This attitude helps explain why it is felt that girls are not ready to compete on an equal basis with boys. In December 1878, the Intermediate Board decides that girls will compete among themselves for the money prizes. A money prize is offered for every ten pupils who pass. These prizes are, therefore, allocated proportionately according to the numbers of boys and of girls who enter for the examinations. During the first twenty years of the Intermediate examinations, three quarters of the entrants are boys and only one quarter are girls. Girls’ schools, especially convent schools, are particularly handicapped because they have few teachers who know Latin or Greek and extra marks are allotted for other traditional boys’ subjects such as mathematics.

The Intermediate examinations have three levels: Junior, Middle and Senior Grades with strict age limits of under 16, 17 and 18 years of age respectively. This represents a problem for girls’ schools since many girls come late to second level schools, being often 14 or 15 years of age.

The fact that public opinion in Ireland is at first generally against such examinations for girls and that many girls have neither the opportunity nor the means to take immediate advantage of the Act, does not alter its crucial importance as a catalyst for changing the role of women in Irish society.

(Pictured: Isabella Tod, Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland, content from Discovering Women in Irish History, http://womeninhistory.scoilnet.ie)