Women’s Tax Resistance League Foils a Tax Auction

The Vote

From the issue of The Vote:

Tax Resistance.

An interesting sequel to the seizure of Mrs. Tollemache’s goods last week, and the ejection of the bailiff from her residence, Batheaston Villa, Bath, was the sale held , at the White Hart Hotel. To cover a tax of only £15 and costs, goods were seized to the value of about £80, and it was at once decided by the Women’s Tax Resistance League and Mrs. Tollemache’s friends that such conduct on the part of the authorities must be circumvented and exposed. The goods were on view the morning of the sale, and as there was much valuable old china, silver, and furniture, the dealers were early on the spot, and buzzing like flies around the articles they greatly desired to possess. The first two pieces put up were, fortunately, quite inviting; £19 being bid for a chest of drawers worth about 50s. and £3 for an ordinary leather-top table, the requisite amount was realised, and the auctioneer was obliged to withdraw the remaining lots much to the disgust of the assembled dealers. Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, in her speech at the protest meeting, which followed the sale, explained to these irate gentlemen that women never took such steps unless compelled to do so, and that if the tax collector had seized a legitimate amount of goods to satisfy his claim, Mrs. Tollemache would willingly have allowed them to go.

Another note in the same issue mentioned that “the quarterly meeting of the Scottish Council of the Women’s Freedom League… expressed high appreciation of the splendid stand made by Miss [Janet Legate] Bunten, hon. treasurer of the Glasgow Branch, in defence of the principle that ‘taxation without representation is tyranny.’ Miss Bunten intimated her determination to continue this fight.”


The Vote

From the issue of The Vote:

No Vote, No Tax.

On Dr. [Winifred] Patch made her third appearance in the Bankruptcy Court at the instance of the Inland Revenue Department for refusal to pay income tax while unenfranchised. She gave the court a statement that she had no creditors, and filed a document with certain particulars which seemed suitable to her. To secure any document at all filled the court with great contentment, and we now anticipate that the proceedings will be annulled.

a meeting was held in the Minerva Café, when Dr. Clark expressed his warm approval of the protest made by Dr. Patch. He considered that similar protests would be increasingly necessary if the parliamentary vote was long denied to women.…