The Women’s Suffrage Campaign in Hampstead Garden Suburb

The building of the Suburb began in 1907. By this time, the campaign for women’s suffrage had been running for many years, but the lack of progress had led more and more women to become involved and a variety of campaigning organisations had sprung up. The decade leading up to the outbreak of World War 1 saw a considerable amount of activity in pursuit of the extension of the franchise to women and there was considerable activity in Hampstead Garden Suburb.

Although arson attacks, notably on the Free Church, as well as the existence of different groups were known about, the stimulus to research and bring together more information about the Votes for Women campaign in the early days of the Suburb came with the publication of the 1911 Census returns. As well as being the first census after the foundation of the Suburb, it was also the first where householders were asked to record information about their households themselves. This was too good an opportunity for civil disobedience to be missed by some suffragists and a campaign to boycott the Census was taken up by two of the major suffrage organisations, The Women’s Freedom League and the Women’s Social and Political Union. This was a campaign which was initiated by a suffragette, Edith How Martyn, who lived in HGS and was taken up by several other residents who withheld their details and, in some cases, wrote slogans supporting the “Votes for Women” campaign on their forms.

Suffragettes
Edith How Martyn
Henrietta Barnet
Doris Mary Bartrum
Alison Neilans