[This is a cross-post from the Women in Manx Politics blog]
1919 was a hugely important year for the internal Manx constitution – that is, the rules which define and allocate legal power within the Isle of Man, as opposed to between the Isle of Man and non-Manx bodies. This blog explores one facet of 1919, changes to the membership of Tynwald. In particular, two changes to the Manx constitution in 1919 seem in tension with each other – the opening up of membership in the House of Keys to women by the House of Keys Election Act 1919 s.15; and the creation of indirectly elected and appointed members of the Legislative Council, such new members being limited to men, under the Isle of Man Constitution Amendment Act 1919 s.12.
Although these provisions were passed in the same year, they have a very different background.
The Constitution Act can be traced to a 1907 petition of the House of Keys seeking a range of constitutional reforms, which led to an important report by the UK Government. In 1913, the Lieutenant-Governor informed the Keys that he intended to introduce a Constitution Bill into the Keys in the first instance (HK 2 December 1913). The Bill introduced at the Lieutenant-Governor’s request was a comprehensive document addressing a range of reforms proposed by the government report. The introducing MHK, Mr Crennell, noted that a better way to proceed would be to divide it into separate Bills, and Part I of the original Bill, which dealt with the composition of the Council, was read for the first time in January 1914 (HK 6 January 1914). He was given leave to introduce the other parts as separate Bills (HK 20 January 1914).
The discussion of this truncated Bill in the Keys was protracted (HK 20 January 1914; HK 17 February 1914; HK 3 March 1914), but focussed on two issues: which ex offio members of the Legislative Council to lose, and whether the “elected” members should be elected by the Keys, or by direct election. Of interest is the proposal that the Keys should elect MLCs, but that they should elect two persons representing farming, and two the towns and villages – reminiscent of later developments in the Irish Free State (HK 17 February 1914); or that MHKs for different sheadings should be the electors for an MLC representing their sheading – reminiscent of later developments in Pakistan. There was limited discussion of what became section 12, but entirely focussed on whether clergy should (as with elections to the Keys) be excluded (HK 25 February 1914). The limit of the clause to “male” was not a topic for discussion at all.
The 1914 Bill was passed by the Keys, and then proceeded to the Legislative Council where it failed on second reading (LC 17 April 1914). The Attorney General moved for rejection of the Bill, on the basis that an entire constitutional reform scheme had been put forward, and that the entire scheme needed to be considered in order to create “a new system of a fairly balanced character”. The Keys protested at this rejection (HK 21 April 1914, LC 15 May 1914), and later in the year the UK government intervened, advising the Lieutenant-Governor to proceed with seven Bills introduced separately (HK 26 May 1914). All seven Bills were read for the first time in Legislative Council in the summer of 1914 (LC 12 June 1914), but the commencement of the Great War lead to the Bills not being proceeded with (LC 25 May 1915).
The Constitution Bills were returned to in 1919, with the Keys petitioning the UK Prime Minister in relation to the reforms flowing from the 1907 petition (HK 7 January 1919). The Constitution Bill dealing with the composition of Legislative Council was introduced into the Legislative Council in April 1919 (LC 29 April 1919). As Deemster Moore noted, this was a Bill which had first come before the Legislative Council in June 1914, when he had been one of only two members of the Council to support it. There was brief discussion of gender in relation to what became s.12 in the Legislative Council. The Vicar General queried whether the limitation of MLCs to males had been before the Keys, and thought that they had changed their view on the topic. The Vicar General, speaking I think on behalf of the Archdeacon who had “strong views about women being elected to positions of this kind”, suggested that the word “male” (and so the exclusion of women MLCs) “ought to go out”, but later concluded that “it would be desirable to leave it to themselves [the Keys] to alter their own views”. The Attorney General was content with the limit: “We might advance slowly – festina lente. In England the elective principle came before the universal suffrage”. The Bill was passed by Legislative Council with the “male” limit intact.
In the Keys, it is clear that the 1919 Bill was simply seen as a continuation of the 1914 Bill (HK 3 June 1919). The introducing MHK, Mr Quine, noted (slightly inaccurately) that it was identical to the Bill passed by the Keys – and rejected by the Council – in 1914. The only significant difference was a provision excluding clergymen from the Council, which the Legislative Council had removed. What became section 12 passed with very little discussion, and none on gender. The Bill passed in the Keys in June 1919, and received Royal Assent.
So the Act which ended up excluding women from the new seats in the Legislative Council was, fundamentally, a Bill which the Keys discussed at length in January-March 1914. The substantive decisions were taken in early 1914, and not revisited in 1919. The possibility of women MLCs was not raised in 1914 and – apart from a query raised but not pursued by ecclesiastical members of the Council – not discussed in 1919.
Generally, the House of Keys Act can also be traced back to before the Great War, and the efforts of Mr Crennell to introduce adult suffrage into the elections of the Keys (HK 19 November 1912, HK 18 February 1913, HK November 1916). The Bill was passed by the House of Keys in 1918 (HK 30 April 1918), but when it passed to the Legislative Council they voted to postpone consideration of the Bill because of new legislation in England. This decision was made in November 1918 (LC 5 November 1918), and this must be a reference to the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918, which received Royal Assent on 21 November 1918. Section 1 of this UK Act provided “A woman shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage for being elected to or sitting or voting as a Member of the Commons House of Parliament”. After a nudge from the Keys (HK 28 January 1919), the Legislative Council returned to the Bill in February 1919.
In discussing the Bill, the Attorney General raised the issue of whether the Legislative Council should follow the House of Keys, or “follow the lead of England and make women eligible for membership of the other House” (LC 18 February 1919). A new clause was agreed in Council that provided “A woman shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage for being elected to or sitting or voting as a member of the House of Keys”. The closeness to the 1918 Act of Parliament shows which way the Legislative Council answered the Attorney-General’s question. The Council also proposed changes to the qualification requirements of women voters, again drawing more strongly on English models than the Keys version.
The Key’s consideration of the proposed amendments principally focussed on the rights of women voters, but there was some discussion of the new clause giving women the right to stand for the Keys (HK 11 March 1919). Mr Teare felt the new clause should be rejected: “The Council, in a further amendment, have provided that women shall be eligible to sit in the House of Keys at 21 years of age; they are to have the privilege of legislating, but not of voting, or that of owning their own goods, if they are married … She can contract debts, but she is not legally liable to pay them. It seems remarkable that ladies are to have the privilege of sitting in the House, and yet not have the right to pay election expenses. or to engage in contracts which are necessary to secure election. The reasons why this amendment has been introduced are not strong or conclusive, and the mere adaptation of the English measure is quite contrary to the spirit of the Adult Suffrage Bill introduced by my predecessor.” Mr Southward objected to women as young as 18 being elected, but stressed: “Not that I object to ladies sitting in the House of Keys; they may possible add a charm to our meeting which hitherto it has not possessed, and they might possibly reduce the long speeches which we sometimes have to listen to”. Others felt this was an issue for the electorate. Mr J Qualtrough noted, in this context, “They will not only be an addition but an extra quality to the composition of the House in the coming time, and I hope when we get Council reform it will be possible for a lady to sit even there”. This is the only comment in 1913-1919 about the difference.
Clause 15 as sent down by the Legislative Council was passed by the Keys. The Bill was made subject of a conference with the Legislative Council, which resulted in the Council “withdrawing their amendments on the subject of the qualification of women” – women MHKs, having already been accepted by the Keys, was not a topic (LC 8 April 1919).
To summarise this legislative history. The 1919 exclusion of women MLCs was debated in 1914, and not revisited in 1919. The 1919 inclusion of women as MHKs was introduced very late in the legislative process, by the Legislative Council rather than the Keys, influenced strongly by the UKs passing of the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918. The two measures are thus separated by the Great War, and the changes brought about by that collective experience.
This legislative history is singularly short of discussion of principles that might underpin the right of women to sit as members of Tynwald, and which might therefore be used to justify the distinction between women MHKs and women MLCs. My sense from the debates is that the position of women in Tynwald was, if considered at all, seen as peripheral to the constitutional reforms in both measures. The Constitution Act was primarily about introducing some sort of democratic element into the previously purely ex officio Legislative Council, the House of Keys Act was primarily about changing voting qualifications to introduce universal suffrage. The change to the Keys, introduced at the last minute in the legislative process, was driven by the Legislative Council’s favouring of a recent UK model; and accepted by the Keys with limited opposition but little enthusiasm. No such model existed for MLCs, and the principles of the Constitution Act were in any case not reopened in 1919.
The above may be read as an argument that the difference between women MHKs and women MLCs was almost an accident. Given the same legislators were considering both sets of legislation in 1919, and that the difference survived until 1961, this would be too simplistic. I think two principles, beyond the pragmatism I suggest in the previous paragraph, may underpin the willingness of the Tynwald of 1919 to accept this difference.
Firstly, the 1919 reforms to the Council were the result of decades of constitutional pressure, and while seen as a hugely significant constitutional reform, were not seen as an end point by reform minded MHKs. Securing elected membership on the Council may have been seen as a sufficient first step, with the possibility of opening the Legislative Council up to women as a separate task. As the Attorney General said, “We might advance slowly”. Against this, the origin of the right of women to sit in the Keys originating in the Council may suggest that the Keys of 1919 were not committed to women’s right to join Tynwald.
Secondly, the reformed Legislative Council was in many ways seen as closer to the UK House of Lords than was the case in later decades. As I have discussed elsewhere, for decades there was an assumption that the right person to be appointed by the Keys to the Council was an MHK or former MHK. Given the overwhelmingly male makeup of the Keys, and the impossibility of any woman MHK having a long period of service starting before 1919, a woman “elder statesman” may have struck members of Tynwald in 1919 as a contradiction in terms. I do not want to put too much weight on a single word from a single MHK, but it will be recalled that the only MHK to see a link between women MHKs and women MLCs, Mr John Qualtrough said “I hope when we get Council reform it will be possible for a lady to sit even there”. He was speaking in March 1919, and the Council reform Bill was discussed in June 1919. Mr Qualtrough may have been anticipating a six month delay, rather than more than 40 years. But “even” is interesting to me, and may suggest that barriers to women MLCs might be seen as greater than for women MHKs.
These, and assumptions about the place of women in public life we see much more clearly discussed in relation to the place of women in Manx juries, may have underpinned the outcome of 1919. Having gone through the debates, however, my view is that the different times of the two provisions formulation – 1913 and 1919 – were at least as important.
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