Women members of the Legislative Council: Ex officio and appointed members.

Before 1919 the Legislative Council was composed entirely of officers – effectively being the  Council sat for legislative business. Although membership varied over the centuries, the key feature is that these were officers who sat ex officio – that is, by virtue of their administrative or judicial role in the government of the Isle of Man.

In 1919 the composition of the Legislative Council was transformed, with an impact still to be seen today. A number of the officers lost their seats in council, leaving:

• The Lieutenant-Governor, the head of Manx government.
• The First and Second Deemsters, the key judicial officers of the Isle of Man.
• The Attorney General, the principal legal officer of the Isle of Man.

They were joined in the new Legislative Council by two new classes of member. Two members, described as “appointed members”, were to be appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor; while four council members, described as “elected members” were to be elected by the Keys “from their own members or otherwise” (Isle of Man Constitution Amendment Act 1919 s. 7(a)(2)).

Over time, the ex officio and appointed members were removed, to be replaced by elected members. So the Second Deemster was removed in 1965 (an elected member having already been added in 1961); the First Deemster in 1975 (being replaced with an elected member); and the Lieutenant-Governor in 1980 (being replaced with a President of the Legislative Council elected from their members, then in 1990 with a President of Tynwald elected  by the members of Tynwald from among their number). The two appointed members were also replaced with elected members in 1969.

Because there have been so many different routes into the Legislative Council, there is not a regular moment, equivalent to a General Election, where we can look at the membership. Instead, I have looked at the membership of the Legislative Council at the last sitting of the Council of each year: typically, but not invariably, the December sitting. I will be discussing the elected members and the President in a later blog. Here, I will be focussing on the ex officio and appointed members.

In relation to gender, the breakdown is simple. No woman was ever appointed to the Legislative Council – neither by virtue of holding a Crown appointment, nor through being appointed to the Legislative Council by the Lieutenant-Governor. To break this down by post:

Attorney General, 1919-2021.	103 years of the office held by a man.
Lord Bishop of Sodor and Man, 1919-2021	101 years of the office held by a man, 2 years without a sitting or acting Bishop.
First Deemster, 1919-1980	62 years of the office held by a man.
Second Deemster, 1919-1964	46 years of the office held by a man.
Appointed member 1, 1919-1968	50 years of the seat held by a man.
Appointed member 2, 1919-1968.	50 years of the seat held by a man.

Because these were appointed posts, rather than elected ones, the public record does not show whether a woman was ever considered for any of these posts, although it may be that for the earlier part of the period some confidential official correspondence may cast light on the appointment process. For much of the period, however, a number of these posts were legally reserved for men.

It was not until 2015 that a woman could lawfully be appointed as Lord Bishop. Perhaps more strikingly, given the ecclesiastical context of the Lord Bishop’s seat, for the overwhelming majority of the period in which the Lieutenant-Governor appointed two members, women were excluded by law from these posts. The 1919 Act provided by s.13: “A person to be qualified as an appointed member must be a male of not less than twenty-one years of age …”. So in the same year that Tynwald changed the qualifications for would-be MHKs to allow women to stand, it created new posts in Tynwald which were legally reserved for men. These were not opened to women until 1961; I would note that the same legislation substantially curtailed the power of the Legislative Council by removing their veto over legislation (Isle of Man Constitution Act 1961). [I will discuss the similar limitations on elected members before 1961 in a later blog].

This leaves us with our three legal officers, the two Deemsters and the Attorney General. In all three cases, the predominant supply chain for these posts was through the Manx Bar, which was even later to admit women than bars elsewhere in our archipeligo. The first woman advocate was Clare Faulds, who was called in 1973.

So, not only did no woman ever join Tynwald through these ex officio and appointed routes; but for much of the post 1919 period, three of the six posts were legally reserved for men. It was not until 2015 that all seats in Legislative Council were open to women.

This blog is authored by Peter Edge, as part of a series on Women in Manx Politics, a larger project funded by Culture Vannin. Click on the icon to go to the project page.