THE CENSUS 1911

The 1911 count was the occasion for unprecedented levels of excitement, because radicals plotted to sabotage the exercise.

The campaign for votes for women had been heating up in 1911 with both ‘militant’ and ‘constitutional’ groups battling for public attention and influence over the Government.

Now both wings of the suffrage campaign were prepared to protest at the lack of representation for women by disrupting the census. There were two types of protest: evaders who hid from the enumerators, and resisters who filled in the form with expressions of defiance.

Women wrote their anger at being denied civic rights across the page

Women wrote their anger at being denied