173. Liberal progress slowed. And another suffragist first
A History of England17 Joulu 2023

173. Liberal progress slowed. And another suffragist first

The 1906 general election had given the Liberals a colossal majority in the House of Commons. In the Lords, however, the Unionist opposition still held an unassailable majority against them. This meant that they could block Liberal legislation as they wished.

Some significant measures were lost as a result. On the other hand, some passed, including, strangely enough, some measures backing working-class rights, hardly the kind of initiative you’d expect Conservatives to back. However, they have felt they could win votes that way, as a higher number of working-class voters seemed to support them than might have been expected, and the Conservatives might well be able to take advantage of the fact that in some cases, there were even internal divisions within the Liberals on such issues.

Meanwhile, the new Liberal, and newly appointed Under Secretary for the Colonies, Winston Churchill, agreed with the former Boer general Jan Smuts steps towards giving the Boers equal rights with the British in South Africa. Black South Africans were denied any say in their government. It’s clear that possession of a white skin was a route to privilege even under British rule and long before apartheid.

Finally, the suffragists, as opposed to the more militant suffragettes, gained another success in a new breakthrough achieved by England’s first female doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, when she became England’s first femal town mayor.


Illustration: In 1901, during hte Boer War: surrounded by other Boer guerrillas, General Jan Smuts, once Churchill’s captor, later his lifelong friend. Public domain.

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.


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