Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → women’s suffrage movements → British women’s suffrage movement → Flora Annie Steele

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 Resistance.

More Barricades.

Mrs. [Kate] Harvey’s house at Brackenhill, Bromley, is barricaded again and decorated with posters declaring “No Vote — No Tax!”

Miss Mary Anderson, of Woldingham, has repeated her resistance of last year, and the only result of the receipt of the final demand for payment has been a determined barricade of her house. We honour these valiant resisters.

What One Man Did at Hastings: No Arrests.

The Women’s Tax Resistance League desire to make known a few facts in connection with the hooliganism that took place at St. Leonards on when a demonstration had been organised to protest against the sale of tax resisters’ goods.

“It is useless,” says the secretary, “to dwell upon the brutality of the mob, for these details have been given ad nauseam in the daily papers. The point which should be made known is that the opposition was organised by one man who had the whole of the unemployed at his command, supplemented by boys and youths on their half-holiday, and it did not in any sense represent the public opinion of the town. The police were absolutely unequal to the occasion, as only a few men were sent out instead of an adequate force, and in spite of the heathenish brutality no arrests were made.”

It is surely a grave reflection upon any town, and upon its Mayor, Chief Constable and Justices of the Peace, when they have to acknowledge themselves unable to cope with their own rowdy element, and to afford protection to a few women who have been ratepayers for many years. If this kind of treatment is meted out to a perfectly constitutional society when it attempts to hold a meeting and protest in a constitutional way, it is hardly to be wondered that women should be driven to employ other methods of protest.

Mrs. F.A. Steel’s MS Sold.

The first chapter of “On the Face of the Waters” in MS. was sold at Aberdovy on , under distraint for Mrs. Flora Annie Steel’s income tax. It was bought for £6 by a London publisher.


The Vote

From the issue of The Vote:

Questioned on the Mark Wilks case in Parliament, the Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted the ridiculous condition of the law, but was prepared to enforce it again in the same fashion to enrich his Treasury. In the House of Lords, with even greater cynicism and dishonesty, Lord Ashby St. Ledgers denounced Mr. Wilks’s action as “in the nature of a political demonstration,” and said that “this imprisonment was intended to be a deterrent, a result to a great extent achieved, as other husbands were not likely to put themselves to the same sort of inconvenience.” He admitted “illogicality” and “a certain substratum of hardship,” and “something especially out of date,” in a husband being imprisoned for failure to pay his wife’s taxes. The Lord Chancellor agreed that the laws were full of anomalies, but appeared to think change even more dangerous, and involved himself in the following luminous remark:— “They would have to be very careful lest in making changes they stumbled into the temptation to take advantage of provisions which belonged to a past state of law, while at the same time taking advantage of changes which had been made in quite another direction.”

Also from the same issue:

Tax Resistance.

Dr. Elizabeth Knight, hon. treasurer of the W.F.L., was “hauled up” before the Justices of the Peace for non-payment of dog license at the Hampstead Petty Sessions, Rosslyn-hill. Writing this in time to go to press, we do not know the result; but if our treasurer is penalised for this time-honoured protest against the upkeep of an unrepresentative Government, the W.F.L. members, we are certain, will rally strongly to a great demonstration in support of her action.

Mrs. Fyffe’s protest was a great success, a procession marching from Roxborough-mansions, Kensington, to the auction rooms at Westbourne-grove. Miss Constance Andrews carried the W.F.L. banner and moved the following resolution:—

That this meeting protests against the seizure and sale of Mrs. Fyffe’s goods, and is of opinion that the tax-paying women of this country are justified in refusing to pay all imperial taxes until they are allowed a voice in deciding how these large sums of money shall be spent.

The John Hampden banner and other colours were carried, and speeches were made from a carriage decorated in the brown and black of the W.T.R.L. by Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson, Miss [Constance] Andrews, Mrs. [Caroline] Louis Fagan, and the Rev. Charles Baumgarten.

Also in the same issue:

Women Writers’ Suffrage League.

…An extraordinary general meeting was held on … Mrs. Rentoul Esler in the chair.

Business: To confirm the election of Mrs. Flora Annie Steel as president of the society (vice Miss Elizabeth Robins, resigned). On the agenda: “Whether the W.W.S.L. should, as a society, resist the new insurance tax and refuse to insure their secretary, with her full consent to their so doing?”

A brief report from the Stamford Hill branch noted that “Mr. Mark Wilks’ reception was well attended by our Branch, and the crowded meeting testified to the high appreciation we all feel of his and Dr. Elizabeth Wilks’ plucky protest against the vagaries of Income-tax Law.”


The Vote

From the issue of The Vote:

An Echo of Tax Resistance.

Tax Resistance, which was initiated by the Women’s Freedom League in pre-suffrage days as a protest against the violation of one of the principles of our Constitution, that taxation and representation should go together, finds an echo in the obituary notices of Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, the great novelist of India, who died on , at Springfield, Minchinhampton, at the age of eighty-two. In , the first manuscript chapter of “On the Face of the Waters,” a tale of the Mutiny and the Siege of Delhi, was sold under distraint for Income Tax, which she refused to pay “as a protest that, while she was acknowledged to have produced a monument to British heroism and done work for the Empire, she was not capable of putting a mark on a piece of paper in voting.”


Agnes Edith Metcalf’s Woman’s Effort: a chronicle of British women’s fifty years’ struggle for citizenship also has sections of note on the Housman imprisonment and on the tax resistance front in general:

The Women’s Tax Resistance League

Special mention must be made of one of the many Suffrage Societies which sprang into existence during the decade before the outbreak of war. With the Freedom League originated the idea that in view of the dictum that taxation and representation must go together, a logical protest on the part of voteless women would be to decline to pay Imperial taxes until they should have a share in electing Members of the Imperial Parliament. From onwards, Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard had adopted this form of protest, with notable results. In the following year, some of her goods were seized, but difficulties occurred, as one auctioneer after another refused to have anything to do with selling them. When one was finally found, the sale was attended by a large number of Mrs. Despard’s followers, who succeeded in holding up the proceedings until requested by her to desist. When her piece of plate was at last put up for sale, the bidding was very brisk, and the article was eventually knocked down to a certain Mr. Luxembourg for double its estimated value. This gentleman insisted on returning it to Mrs. Despard, who accepted it on behalf of the Women’s Freedom League, among whose archives, suitably inscribed in memory of the occasion, it holds an honoured place.

In subsequent years, various devices were adopted with the object of compelling Mrs. Despard’s submission. Thus she, for whom prison had no terrors, was threatened with imprisonment in default of payment; she was summoned before the High Court, when, in her absence, judgment was pronounced against her. On only two other occasions, however, was distraint levied.

, a separate society, with the above title, was formed, with Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes as secretary, for experience showed that a special knowledge of the technicalities of the law was necessary, and special machinery had to be set up. Those who addressed themselves to this business were rewarded by the discovery of curious anomalies and irregularities of the law where women were concerned. Thus, for instance, it was revealed that whereas married women are not personally liable to taxation (the Income Tax Act of never having been brought into line with the Married Women’s Property Acts), nevertheless payment of taxes was illegally exacted of them whenever possible. With the assistance of the expert advice of Mrs. [Ethel] Ayres Purdie and others, many cases of injustice and overcharges were exposed and circumvented, Somerset House officials being mercilessly worried.

Imprisonments for Non-Payment of Taxes

It was in , that the first imprisonments in connection with this particular form of protest took place. Miss [Constance] Andrews of Ipswich was sent to prison for a week for refusing to pay her dog’s tax, and about the same time, Mrs. [Emma] Sproson of Wolverhampton served a similar sentence for the same offence. The latter was, however, rearrested, and sentenced this time to five weeks’ imprisonment, being placed in the Third Division in Stafford Gaol. She thereupon entered on the hunger strike, and on the personal responsibility of the Governor, without instructions from the Home Office, she was transferred to the First Division, where she completed her sentence.

Imprisonments in various parts of the country thereafter took place with some frequency, but whenever possible this extreme course appears to have been avoided, and resisters’ goods were seized and sold by public auction, the officials reserving the right of adopting whichever course they deemed most suitable. By this means, auctioneers’ sale rooms, country market-places, corners of busy thoroughfares, and all manner of unlikely spots, became the scene of protests and demonstrations.

Miss Housman’s Imprisonment

The case which excited the most interest was that of Miss Clemence Housman, sister of the well-known author, who, having stoutly declined to pay the trifling sum of 4s. 6d. (which by dint of writs, High Court Procedure, etc., in due course mounted up to over £6), and not having goods which could be seized, was arrested by the Sheriff’s Officer, and conveyed to Holloway, there to be detained until she paid. A storm of protest arose, meetings being held at Mr. Housman’s residence in Kensington, outside Holloway Gaol, and in Hyde Park on . After a week’s incarceration, Miss Housman, who had been singularly well treated in the First Division, was unconditionally released, and on inquiring of the Solicitor of Inland Revenue how she stood in the matter, she was informed that it was closed by her arrest and subsequent release.

By way of celebrating victories such as these, the League held a John Hampden dinner at the Hotel Cecil in , when some 250 guests assembled and listened to speeches from prominent Suffragists of both sexes, when we may be sure that the moral of the story of John Hampden was duly pointed, and many a modern parallel was quoted. A novel feature of the evening’s proceedings was the appearance of a toast mistress, in the person of Mrs. Arncliffe Sennett.

Mr. Mark Wilks’ Imprisonment

In an incident occurred which illustrated both the anomalous position which married women occupy under the law and also the impossibility of enforcing the law where consent is withheld. Dr. Elisabeth Wilks, being one of those who held with the Liberal dictum that taxation and representation should go together, had for some years past refused to pay her Imperial taxes, and on two occasions a distraint had been executed on her goods, and they had been sold by public auction. Then it struck her that her “privileged” position under the law would afford her protection from further annoyance of this kind, and being a married woman, she referred the officials to her husband. When application was made to the latter for his wife’s income tax return, he told the harassed officials that he did not possess the required information, nor did he know how to procure it. After some delays and negotiations, the Treasury kindly undertook to make the assessment itself, charging Mr. Wilks at the unearned rate, though Mrs. Wilks was well known to be a medical woman, whose income was derived from her practice. After over two years of correspondence and threats of imprisonment, since Mr. Wilks sturdily refused to produce the sum demanded, he was arrested on and conveyed to Brixton Gaol, there to be detained until he paid. Still he remained obdurate, while friends outside busied themselves on his behalf. Protests poured into the Treasury offices, Members of Parliament were inundated with the like, deputations waited on everybody concerned, and public meetings on the subject were held in great number. The result was that, at the end of a fortnight, Mr. Wilks was once more a free man.

Other Tax-Resisters

Legislators had recently provided women with additional reasons for refusing to pay taxes. In the National Insurance Act became the law of the land, and defects in that Act as far as it concerned women, which were pointed out at the time, have become more and more apparent every year that the Act has been in force. Some few modifications were made in their favour, but they had no effective means of expressing their views. Again, by means of a Resolution, which occupied a few hours of discussion on , Members of Parliament voted themselves a salary of £400 a year, and only one member, Mr. Walter McLaren, raised his voice to protest against the fresh injustice which this proposal inflicted on women, who were not only subject to legislation in the framing of which they had no voice, but were further called upon to pay those who thus legislated for them…

The Revenue authorities did not repeat the experiment of arresting any women resisters on whom it was not possible to levy distraint, with the result that the Women’s Tax-Resistance League claimed to have a growing list of members who paid no taxes, and who, in spite of repeated threats of imprisonment, were still at large.

Distraint for non-payment was, however, frequent, with the result that up and down the country, and as far north as Arbroath, the gospel of tax-resistance was carried, and secured many adherents, including members of the enfranchised portion of the community, some of whom, in their official capacities, gave public support to the rebels. Many auctioneers of the better class refused to sell the goods of tax-resisters, and it is on record that one who had done so sent his fee as a donation to the League.

Two members of the League, Mrs. [Isabella] Darent Harrison of St. Leonard’s and Mrs. [Kate] Harvey of Bromley, barricaded themselves in their houses, and succeeded in keeping the officials who came to make the distraint at bay, the former for a period of several weeks, and the latter for a period of no less than eight months. In both cases, an entry was eventually made by force, but much public sympathy was evinced in both cases, and crowded meetings of protest were held in the largest local halls available.

It is interesting to record that on , a statue was unveiled in the market-place of Aylesbury to the memory of John Hampden, who in the time of Charles Ⅰ. had refused the ship money which that monarch had illegally levied on his subjects. The sum involved was the trifling one of 20s., but, rather than pay it, John Hampden suffered himself to be imprisoned. He was subsequently released without a stain upon his character, and a statue to this rebel stands in no less hallowed a spot than the House of Commons, of which assembly he was a Member.

An application on the part of the Women’s Tax-Resistance League of the twentieth century to be officially represented at the unveiling by Lord Rothschild of the statue erected to his memory in Aylesbury was met with a refusal. That the spirit which animated this seventeenth-century fighter was not, however, dead was evident when, at the conclusion of the official ceremony, a little procession of tax-resisters, supported by men sympathizers, approached the statue and silently laid a wreath at its foot…

Tax Resistance

Throughout tax resisters continued to defy the revenue officials, with varying results. Among those who resisted paying their taxes for the first time may be mentioned [Mary Russell] the Duchess of Bedford, Miss Beatrice Harraden, Mrs. Flora Annie Steele, and Miss [Ethel] Sargant, the last-named of whom presided over a section of the British Association later in the year, being the first woman to fill such a position.

Mrs. Harvey successfully withstood another siege in connection with her inhabited house duty, and her goods, when eventually seized, failed to realize the sum required by some £8, for the uproar created in the auction-room by sympathizers was so great that the auctioneer abandoned his task. Mrs. Harvey also refused to take out a licence for her gardener (by name Asquith), or to stamp his Insurance card. For these two offences she was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment, in default of a fine, but was released at the end of one month, in a very weak condition of health, which was in no way attributable to her own “misconduct.”

There were many other cases of resistance to the Insurance Act, it being an open secret that the Freedom League did not insure its employees.

Captain Gonne, who refused to pay his taxes as a protest against the treatment to which women were being subjected, was also arrested, but was released within a few hours, the reason being, so it was claimed, that in arresting him the revenue officials had been guilty of a serious technical blunder.

Several other resisters besides Mrs. Harvey barricaded their houses against the tax collector, and at Hastings the demonstration arranged in connection with the sale of Mrs. Darent Harrison’s goods led to an organized riot, the result being that the local Suffrage Club brought an action against the Corporation for damage done, which they won. Undeterred by warnings that it would be impossible to hold a public meeting in Hastings in support of tax resistance, the League nevertheless determined to do so, and, as a matter of fact, everything passed off in a quiet and orderly manner, Lady Brassey being in the chair. In subsequent years, this policy of open and constitutional rebellion on tax resistance lines has been maintained by Mrs. Darent Harrison.