No Vote No Census1
The date of the Census was Sunday 2nd April 1911. In the weeks before the census date more than 4,000 census enumerators distributed the census form to every home. Suffrage groups called on women to avoid the census as a protest against their exclusion from the parliamentary franchise. They felt that they counted as citizens regarding matters of taxation and enumeration for census but were denied citizenship when it came to voting. They felt that when it came to voting they were classed as a political nonentity alongside infants, criminals and lunatics.
From 1891 women could become enumerators in Britain. Unlike Britain where civilian staff was recruited for the posts, Ireland’s enumerators were taken from the Royal Irish Constabulary. In Dublin this was supplemented by 160 members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police2. The argument for this being that the police were underemployed, had local knowledge and were adept at filling out reports.
Hanna Sheehy Skeffington was one of the leaders having founded the Irish Women’s Franchise League (IWFL) in 1908. Women involved in suffrage movements were from largely middle class backgrounds and wished to avail of the same opportunities as men. The census provided an occasion for them to register their protest in a non-violent manner. Refusing to fill out the census was a protest they felt was ladylike. In many instances “voteless” or “unenfranchised” was entered into the column headed “Infirmity”. The 1911 census form asked a number of new questions focused on marriage and children to accumulate data on fertility and infant mortality rates between classes, which some women regarding as invasive3. It would also have been embarrassing to outline these to a Dublin Metropolitan Policeman. Some women refused to fill out the form and their details were estimated by the Enumerator, others completed the form but registered their occupation as Suffragists. A head of the family who did not fill out the form could be liable for prosecution or fined £54.
One of those that did have a census return was Katherina Oldham, President of the IWFL whose husband Professor Charles Herbert Oldham, (President of the Statistical and Social Society of Ireland and chair of economics at the National University of Ireland), later produced a paper on Reform of the Irish Census of Population5.
Census 1911 Address: 55, Terenure Road (Rathmines & Rathgar West, Dublin)6
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai000147729/
With the revival of Irish nationalism and interest in the Irish language some of the women made out their census returns in Irish such as Mary MacSwiney and Rose McNamara.
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai001896413/
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai000133850/
Sources:
1. Doctor William Murphy article “Voteless Alas: Suffragist protest and the census of Ireland in 1911” Voteless Alas": suffragist protest and the Census of Ireland in 1911' in Diarmaid Ferriter and Susannah Riordan (eds), Years of Turbulence (UCD Press, 1st November 2015).
2. http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/exhibition/dublin/census_day.html. Census Day, 2 April 1911
3. Integrated Census Microdata (I-CEM) Guide. Edward Higgs, Christine Jones, Kevin Schurer and Amanda Wilkinson. University of Essex Department of History. September 2013 pg17
4. Doctor William Murphy article “Voteless Alas: Suffragist protest and the census of Ireland in 1911” Voteless Alas": suffragist protest and the census of Ireland in 1911' in Diarmaid Ferriter and Susannah Riordan (eds), Years of Turbulence (UCD Press, 1st November 2015).
5. Charles Herbert Oldham: Tara Trinity College Dublin http://www.tara.tcd.ie/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2262/4357/jssisiVolXiv197_212.pdf?sequence=1
6. http://www.Census.nationalarchives.ie
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