In 1911 British women were still fighting for many of the rights that today we take for granted. One of these was the right to vote. It wasn't until 1918 that women over the age of 30 were allowed to vote. It was another ten years before the age was lowered to 21, the same as men.
As an act of civil disobedience the suffragettes organised a boycott of the 1911 Census. Their argument was that if the government was not prepared to grant them full rights of citizenship, then women would not fulfill the duties of a citizen. It took courage. Protesters expected to be fined or even imprisoned. This didn't actually happen, perhaps because of the number of people involved, but the protesters didn't know that when they took part. Women's rights were a contentious issue and there was outrage expressed about the boycott. A letter to the Times described it as a 'crime against science'.
Some women complied with the census but refused to provide the information required or wrote comments on the form. Many put 'suffragette' in the occupation column or used the infirmity column to make their point. For example, four women in one household put 'voteless, therefore classed with idiots and children'. Rhoda Anstey, the Principal of Anstey College of Physical Education in Birmingham, did not answer the questions but wrote across the form 'No Vote No Census! I protest against the injustice done to women rate-payers by the continued refusal of the government to give them the vote, and hereby refuse to fill in the census forms for my household.’
Other women protested by spending the night of the census away from home. They walked outside, hid, or gathered at the home of a census resister.
In London, some suffragettes spent midnight walking around Trafalgar Square, a large group gathered at the Aldwych Skating Rink and others spent the night in horse-drawn caravans on Wimbledon Common.
Emily Wilding Davison (who died two years later after stepping in front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby) hid in a cupboard in the crypt chapel at the Houses of Parliament, so that on the census form she could legitimately give her place of residence that night as the 'House of Commons'. She was discovered and the 1911 Census counts her once at home and once as Emily Wilding Davidson, with her address as 'Found Hiding in Crypt of Westminster Hall Westminster'.
There were overnight events in Cardiff, Bristol, Liverpool, Ipswich, Cheltenham, Reading and Maidstone. Women met in Edinburgh cafes, walked on the Yorkshire moors, and hid in 'barns and hay lofts'. One woman put on her fur coat and spent the night in a cycle shed behind her house.
In Manchester, a large house packed with census evaders was renamed 'Census Lodge', and women in Portsmouth attended a reading of an Ibsen play. In Ipswich about thirty campaigners spent the night in an office at the Old Museum Rooms to avoid filling in the forms. Their slogan was 'If I am intelligent enough to fill in this form, I can surely put an X on a ballot paper'.
About a hundred women spent the night in a house in Birkenhead, 'packed like sardines' according to a Miss Davies. This Miss Davies filled out the house’s census return in the name of a manservant on the premises and added: 'No other persons, but many women'.
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