Na h-Eileanan an Iar

[finsobruce]

Jul 19, 2020 14:26:43 GMT @europeanlefty said:

However, during research for a play about "Hebridean suffrage", a playwright discovered four St Kildan women on the electoral roll for 1918, although it is not known if they actually travelled to Lewis to vote - possible, given their obvious engagement, although unlikely given that making the journey in December was almost impossible.

What was the play?

Here is a 60s BBC drama set there

[owainsutton]

Jul 19, 2020 14:26:43 GMT @europeanlefty said:

However, during research for a play about "Hebridean suffrage", a playwright discovered four St Kildan women on the electoral roll for 1918, although it is not known if they actually travelled to Lewis to vote - possible, given their obvious engagement, although unlikely given that making the journey in December was almost impossible.

I'm now all the more intrigued. I wonder what research has been done about other island communities, here and elsewhere (Shetland in particular) and how their engagement with the electoral process has evolved.

[J.G.Harston]

Jul 19, 2020 14:20:14 GMT finsobruce said:

Jul 19, 2020 13:54:33 GMT owainsutton said:

Ballots back then were basically candidate names only, anyway, I think?

If anyone knows what form postal ballots and accompanying instructions etc. took back in the 1930s or earlier, I'd love to know.

As far as I can tell the only people allowed postal ballots before 1948 were those serving in the Armed Forces, and even this was only introduced in 1918.

Before 1928 the franchise was less open than today, would the Kilderians even have qualified as electors?

[Deleted]

Jul 19, 2020 19:40:34 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Jul 19, 2020 14:20:14 GMT finsobruce said:

As far as I can tell the only people allowed postal ballots before 1948 were those serving in the Armed Forces, and even this was only introduced in 1918.

Before 1928 the franchise was less open than today, would the Kilderians even have qualified as electors?

As several of them appeared on the electoral roll, I would say so. Is there any reason why they wouldn't have?

[finsobruce]

Jul 19, 2020 19:40:34 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Jul 19, 2020 14:20:14 GMT finsobruce said:

As far as I can tell the only people allowed postal ballots before 1948 were those serving in the Armed Forces, and even this was only introduced in 1918.

Before 1928 the franchise was less open than today, would the Kilderians even have qualified as electors?

The Glasgow Herald of Monday 27th September 1886 has an interesting article on St Kilda, but unfortunately no mention of politics or elections (although it does accuse them of dabbling with a form of socialism, and ruining their fishing fleet!).

In 1898 the Aberdeen Press and Journal reported that the locals were failing to pay rates, but even the designated collector argued against enforcement as the expenditure in going there would certainly exceed any revenue he might have collected. (The 'local'authority was Inverness-shire county council).

[J.G.Harston]

Jul 19, 2020 19:49:57 GMT @europeanlefty said:

Jul 19, 2020 19:40:34 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Before 1928 the franchise was less open than today, would the Kilderians even have qualified as electors?

As several of them appeared on the electoral roll, I would say so. Is there any reason why they wouldn't have?

My initial thought was the household/ratepayer's franchise. Would they be freeholders, or would their Laird have the landlord vote? I have several female relatives who had the municipal vote before 1918 as they were freehold householders, many towns and cities had freehold movements to held people gain a freehold to gain the associated vote.

[YL]

I'm sure I read somewhere that the St Kildans never voted. But that could have been wrong, especially in the light of the discovery that some of them appeared on the 1918 register.

[finsobruce]

Jul 19, 2020 20:03:35 GMT YL said:

I'm sure I read somewhere that the St Kildans never voted. But that could have been wrong, especially in the light of the discovery that some of them appeared on the 1918 register.

I've now found an article from 1895, in , of all papers, The Clonmel Chronicle which reports that there are thirty electors "but they have never voted in any election and are not likely to vote" and goes on to say that any result would have been declared before the ballot boxes returned to the mainland, or possibly before they had even got there.

I will continue the search. But don't get your hopes up.

[Deleted]

Jul 19, 2020 20:03:35 GMT YL said:

I'm sure I read somewhere that the St Kildans never voted. But that could have been wrong, especially in the light of the discovery that some of them appeared on the 1918 register.

According to the article I read, the nearest polling station was on Lewis, which was difficult to reach in spring and summer and almost impossible to get to in autumn and winter, so it's possible that they had a right to vote but weren't physically able to do so. It could also be that their isolation and their own robust democracy meant they never felt the need to vote.

[finsobruce]

Jul 19, 2020 20:14:35 GMT @europeanlefty said:

Jul 19, 2020 20:03:35 GMT YL said:

I'm sure I read somewhere that the St Kildans never voted. But that could have been wrong, especially in the light of the discovery that some of them appeared on the 1918 register.

According to the article I read, the nearest polling station was on Lewis, which was difficult to reach in spring and summer and almost impossible to get to in autumn and winter, so it's possible that they had a right to vote but weren't physically able to do so. It could also be that their isolation and their own robust democracy meant they never felt the need to vote.

All very likely I agree. But we can dream can't we?

[owainsutton]

Here's an article about the 1918 register - if anyone has access behind the paywall? www.thetimes.co.uk/article/st-kilda-sisterhood-among-first-to-take-up-right-to-vote-62kbzcplg

[The Bishop]

Jul 18, 2020 12:30:34 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Jul 18, 2020 11:24:30 GMT owainsutton said:

All I can add: the constituency includes Rockall.

I can sell you a polling district map:

Perhaps apppropriately, this appears to be blank.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

St Kilda sisterhood among first to take up right to vote
Research for play about Hebridean suffragists finds island housewives were among those who registered in 1918
Julia Horton, Sunday January 21 2018, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

They were — arguably unfairly — derided as primitive islanders disconnected from British politics. In fact, the Scottish archipelago of St Kilda, in the Outer Hebrides, was considered so remote that, in 1913, at the height of the women’s suffrage movement, critics suggested that jailed suffragettes on hunger strike should be banished there.

It has emerged, however, that several housewives on St Kilda registered for the 1918 election, when women in Britain were allowed to vote for the first time.

The discovery by playwright Toria Banks during research for a new play that tells the forgotten story of Hebridean suffrage, suggests St Kildans were more politically engaged than previously thought. While sifting through electoral records, Banks found that two widows and two others thought to be wives of island men, were listed to vote in 1918.

It is not clear if any braved the potentially perilous sea voyage to the nearest polling station — about 50 miles away on the Isle of Harris — but it does suggest that, contrary to popular belief, St Kildans were political, and women on the island supported the efforts of the suffragettes.

“Five years before the 1918 vote it was suggested in parliament that hunger-striking suffragette prisoners be exiled to St Kilda, where they could do no harm. So, when I found a page of women from St Kilda who were registered to vote it was extraordinary,” said Banks.

Her play premieres next month in Lewis, on the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which extended voting rights to millions of women in Britain.

Records of who voted in 1918 are not kept, as ballots are secret, but Banks believes it is “quite possible” that the islanders took part in the historic election.

Rising infant deaths from tetanus, which was wrongly blamed on an island custom of daubing newborn’s umbilical cords in seabird oil, plus better transport connections after St Kilda became a First World War naval signal station made such journeys more common.

Banks also thinks the women may have gone to “quite extraordinary lengths” to vote, as life on St Kilda became increasingly unsustainable.

The Highland Archive Centre in Inverness confirmed that it has the electoral register for 1918-19, listing four St Kildan women.

Dr Alison Rosie, registrar of the National Register of Archives for Scotland, said the Highland electoral document was a “fascinating” find.

She questioned whether the women would have actually voted, however, as the election took place in December when the sea was commonly too rough to cross. She was also unaware of any newspaper articles from the time recording what would have been seen as a momentous event.

Banks’s play, directed by Muriel Ann Macleod of Rural Nations, a Hebridean production company, focuses on the long-forgotten Stornoway Women’s Suffrage Society on Lewis — the most westerly such group in Britain.

It was founded in 1911 after a visit to Lewis by Mancunian suffragist Alice Crompton, who reported that nowhere on her Hebridean tour had women shown more enthusiasm for suffrage.

The society’s secretary, Bella Mackinnon, had come to Lewis from New Zealand, where Kate Sheppard, who also had Hebridean links, led the fight that saw New Zealand women become the first in the world to get the vote, in 1893.

The play also features Lewis trainee medic, Helen MacDougall, who joined Edinburgh doctor Elsie Inglis’s Scottish Women’s Hospital in Serbia in 1914, and militant herring girl Christine Morrison, who threatened strike action over pay.

Deeds Not Words is at An Lanntair arts centre in Stornoway from February 15-17

[Chris from Brum]

Jul 18, 2020 20:59:28 GMT @europeanlefty said:

*A note on language terminology: there is a tendency to treat the names “Irish” and “Gaelic” as though they are interchangeable. They are not. Both belong to the Celtic branch of Indo-European languages, and both developed from Old Irish in the early Middle Ages. However, they diverged into two distinct languages, both members of the Goidelic or Gaelic branch of Celtic. The language spoken in Ireland is known as Irish and never Gaelic, while the language of Scotland can be known as Gaelic, or as Scottish Gaelic to differentiate it from the Gaelic language family, which also includes Irish and Manx.

Maybe not interchangeable, but the two languages are reasonably mutually intelligible.  I used to drink in a pub in the Digbeth area of Birmingham, run by an Irish couple.  Jim spoke no Irish, but it was the language Mary grew up with.  Among the customers were lorry drivers who used to park up in a lorry park around the corner; one whose runs regularly took him that way was a Scot from the islands - when in his cups, he would occasionally utter Gaelic profanities - Mary, of course, understood every word and would give him a dressing down for it, after which he would mind his language.

[Robert Waller]

2011 Census

Age 65+ 21.6% 73/650
Owner-occupied 72.9% 129/650
Private rented 6.8% 646/650
Social rented 17.6% 277/650
White 99.1% 3/650
Black 0.1% 646/650
Asian 0.5% 632/650
Managerial & professional 27.7%
Routine & Semi-routine 32.0%
Degree level 26.4% 299/650
No qualifications 30.0% 95/650
Students 5.0% 640/650



General Election 2019: Na h-Eileanan an Iar

Party Candidate Votes % ±%

SNP Angus MacNeil 6,531 45.1 +4.5
Labour Alison McCorquodale 4,093 28.3 -5.5
Conservative Jennifer Ross 3,216 22.2 +5.7
Liberal Democrats Neil Mitchison 637 4.4 +2.7

SNP Majority 2,438 16.8 +10.0

Turnout 14,447 68.6 −0.9

SNP hold
Swing 5.0 Lab to SNP