Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → women’s suffrage movements → British women’s suffrage movement → Adela & Stanton Coit

The Women’s Tax Resistance League is featured in the book We Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader.

Today’s tax resistance history lesson:

MISS HARRADEN HIT IN EYE.
She Accuses London Police of Standing By While Roughs Assailed Her.
By Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph to The New York Times.

LONDON, .— Beatrice Haraden, the novelist, who recently returned from America, has made a serious charge against the London police.

Miss Harraden is a suffragist, and, as recently stated in The New York Times, she allowed her property to be distrained rather than pay the income tax, this being her protest to the Government’s refusal of suffrage.

The sale of Miss Harraden’s property, consisting of silver articles, took place on , when the property of several other women members of the Resistance League was auctioned in the Public Rooms.

According to reports in the English papers the tax resisters present were “booed” by the crowd, but Miss Harraden says that roughs not only jeered but also threw stones and refuse; she herself receiving a missile in the eye, necessitating treatment by a doctor.

Worse than this, according to Miss Harraden, was the fact that the crowd of about 300 persons calmly looked on while the women were attacked by the roughs, and that two constables made no effort to interfere.

“I cannot say that the police organized the attack,” said Miss Harraden, “but certainly they permitted it. I do not care for my own injury, but it is right that people should know of this injustice and brutality. The English press refers to such disorder as an expression of public opinion.”

Referring to the Tax Resistance League, Miss Harraden said:

“The least any woman can do is to refuse to pay taxes, especially the tax on actually earned income. This is certainly the most logical phase of the fight for suffrage. It is a culmination of the Government’s injustice and stupidity to ask that we pay an income tax on income earned by brains, when they are refusing to consider us eligible to vote.

“The league was formed three years ago with the slogan: ‘No vote, no tax.’ It is non-partisan—an association of constitutional and militant suffragists, recruited from various suffrage societies for the purpose of resisting taxes.…”

Another author who has refused to pay taxes is Flora Annie Steele. A silver cup, belonging to the Duchess of Bedford, was auctioned on under distraint and was bought in by friends. The Duchess was not present at the sale at which resolutions of protest were presented by an American, Dr. Stanton Coit, a member of the men’s branch of the Tax Resistance League, who in a speech referred to his ancestors of Boston participating in the “Boston Tea Party” and asserted that the same belief animated them as suffragists—namely, that taxation without representation was tyranny.

This impelled him now, he said, to refuse to pay his wife’s income tax until she was allowed to vote, notwithstanding that an income tax officer had sent him the last notice to pay within seven days or take the consequences. He asserted that he was anxiously waiting till the seven days elapsed.

The Vote

From the issue of The Vote:

Tax and Census Resistance.

An Unusual Procedure.

The hon. treasurer of our Brighton branch (Mrs. Jones-Williams) is the first person in Brighton to refuse to pay taxes as a protest against the unenfranchised condition of women. The local authorities, apparently not knowing the usual procedure, took the unusual course of sending a bailiff to take possession. Thanks to the activity of some members of the men’s league, the authorities consented to the man being in “walking possession.”

Once before this course has been taken, when a bailiff was put in possession at Mrs. Rose Hyland’s in Manchester. Not even this unnecessary piece of annoyance will make us pause in our efforts to refuse our consent to taxation without representation.

Sale on .

We congratulate the Brighton branch and Mrs. Jones-Williams on the firm stand they have made in the matter, and urge all Suffragists in the town to rally to the protest meeting . Mrs. [Edith] How-Martyn will be one of the speakers.

Another Passive Resister,

and a member of the N.E.C., Mrs. Francis, the hon. secretary of the branch, writes:— “ ‘With this ring I thee wed’ — that’s sorcery; ‘with my body I thee worship’ — that’s idolatry; and ‘with my worldly goods I thee endow’ — that’s a lie,” says old Sir J. Bowring.

“Wishing to test the validity or otherwise of the vow which, according to the forms of the Established Church, my husband made at the altar at the time of our marriage, and also with an ever-increasing sense that tax-resistance is not only morally justifiable, but morally imperative, I have refused consent, as joint controller of our mutual finances, to the payment of my half of the year’s taxes. My husband has therefore retained this amount while paying his own share, and explaining the reasons for taking this action. An entreating letter has followed from the tax-collector, but the threat of distraint has not yet been received.

“We hope that if and when these protests have to be pushed to extremity our friends will do their utmost to help make them widely known and effective.”

Also from the same issue:

Tax Resisters’ Protest.

Notwithstanding the mud and odoriferous atmosphere of the back streets off Drury-lane, quite a large number of members of the Tax Resisters’ League, the Women’s Freedom League, and the Women’s Social and Political Union, met outside Bulloch’s Sale Rooms shortly after to protest against the sale of Miss Bertha Brewster’s goods, which had been seized because of her refusal to pay her Imperial taxes. Before the sale took place, Mrs. Gatty, as chairman, explained to at least a hundred people the reasons of Miss Brewster’s refusal to pay her taxes and the importance of the constitutional principle that taxation without representation is tyranny, which this refusal stood for. Miss Leonora Tyson proposed the resolution protesting against the injustice of this sale, and it was seconded by Miss F[lorence]. A. Underwood, and supported by Miss Brackenbury. The resolution was carried with only two dissentients, and these dissentients were women!

Also from the same issue:

Women’s Tax Resistance League.

On , a drawing-room meeting was held at 30, Hyde Park Gate, by kind permission of Mrs. [Adela] Stanton Coit. Mrs. [Edith] Zangwill was in the chair, and gave an opening address which was full of charm and subtle truth. Her delightful personality always serves to emphasise the depth of thought contained in her remarks. Miss [Alice] Abadam was the principal speaker, and her address was a masterpiece of oratory directed to emphasise the grave responsibility of the taxpaying women of this country towards the moral, spiritual and political emancipation of woman. Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes gave a short account of the work of the society, formed to put into practice the principles of tax resistance, which was followed by a good discussion, opened by Dr. Stanton Coit. The secretary of the league also addressed a crowded audience in the Public Hall, Croydon, on the subject of tax resistance, , and the chair was taken by Miss Green, treasurer for the local branch of the W.S.P.U.