STRANGERS IN PARLIAMENT
Theoretically speaking, Parliament is averse to the presence of
strangers; in practice both Houses are as hospitably inclined as is
compatible with the limited space at their disposal.
One of the chief duties of the Sergeant-at-Arms originally consisted
in "taking into custody such strangers who presume to come into the
House of Commons."[412] This duty has however, long been neglected,
and a modern Sergeant-at-Arms who sought to accomplish such a task
would find his hands full.
[412] House of Commons "Journals," vol. x. 291.
In the early days of Parliament, the most drastic measures were taken
to maintain the secrecy of debate, and the intrusion of a stranger was
looked upon as a cause for grave alarm. In 1584, a man named Robinson
succeeded in obtaining admission to the Commons, and sat in the House
unnoticed for two hours. When at last his presence was discovered, Mr.
Robinson was roughly handled by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and, before he
had time to utter his own name, was "stript to the shirt" and
searched.[413] Nothing of an incriminating nature being found beneath
the intruder's clothing, he was brought to the bar, sworn to secrecy
and compelled to take the Oath of Supremacy before being finally
released with a severe reprimand. A hundred years later two
inoffensive but ignorant strangers walked into the House and sat
quietly down beside the Sergeant-at-Arms. Here they remained for some
time, much impressed by the hospitality of the Commons, until a
division happened to be called. Their presence was not observed until
the lobby doors had been finally locked, and they had to be hurried
out of the way by a side staircase to the Distinguished Strangers'
Gallery. Here they remained until the division was over, and were
subsequently dismissed with a caution. In 1771, a stranger who had
accidentally mingled with the members in the lobbies was actually
counted in a division.
[413] D'Ewes' "Journal," p. 334.
As time went on Parliament grew more and more tolerant of the presence
of strangers, and, though the order forbidding their admission
remained upon the order book of the House of Commons, it soon came to
be universally disregarded.
In the old House members would sometimes be accompanied by their sons,
quite little boys, whom they would carry to their seats beside them,
and strangers could always obtain a seat in the gallery by means of a
written order given them by a member, or by the simple method of
slipping half-a-crown into the hand of the attendant at the door. When
C. F. Moritz, the German traveller, visited the House in 1782, he
sought admission to the gallery, but, being unprovided with a pass,
was turned away. As he was sadly withdrawing he heard the attendant
murmur something of an apparently irrelevant nature concerning a
bottle of rum, but not until he reached home did it occur to him that
the remark might possibly have some bearing upon the situation. The
next day, having been enlightened as to the general custom in vogue
among those who wished to be present during a debate, he returned to
the gallery. He had taken the wise precaution of providing himself
with a small sum of money. This he had no difficulty in pressing upon
the door-keeper, who at once showed him into a front seat.[414] No
doubt Edmund Burke, who in his youth spent so much time listening to
the debates and gaining that Parliamentary experience which was
afterwards destined to stand him in such good stead, unlocked the
gallery door with the same golden key.
[414] Pinkerton's "Voyages," vol. ii. p. 506.
Up to the year 1833 the doorkeepers and messengers of the House of
Commons were paid principally in fees and gratuities. Members were
called upon to contribute about £9 per session towards a fund raised
on their behalf, and they received a small nominal salary of less than
£13. The doorkeepers earned farther payment by delivering the Orders
and Acts of the House to members, as well as various fees from
parliamentary agents, and were likewise entitled to a quarter of the
strangers' fees. In 1832 the two chief doorkeepers were making between
£800 and £900 a year, and the chief messenger nearly £600. The man
whose duty it was to look after the room above the ventilator to which
ladies were admitted was not so successful as his colleagues, and
complained that he only received about £10 a year in tips from the
more economical sex.[415]
[415] "Report of the Select Committee on the Establishment of the
House of Commons" (1833), pp. 84-5. (To-day the messengers and
doorkeepers, of whom there are about a score, earn regular salaries
ranging from £120 to £300. Except for a share in the fund for
messengers and police to which members may or may not contribute, no
gratuities of any description are allowed to them.)
Pearson, for over thirty years doorkeeper in the old House of Commons,
was one of the most familiar figures in and about St Stephen's Chapel
during the latter part of the eighteenth century. In his box near the
gallery he sat--
"Like a pagod in his niche;
The Gom-gom Pearson, whose sonorous lungs,
With 'Silence! Room there!' drown an hundred tongues."
Long service had given him a position of authority of which he took
every advantage. If a member were negligent in the matter of paying
the door-keeper his fee, or treated that official in a manner which he
considered derogatory to his dignity, Pearson revenged himself by
sending the offender to the House of Lords or the Court of Requests in
search of imaginary friends. By such means he generally reduced the
irritated member to submission, and could extract a handsome present
and a promise of future politeness. Pearson had his own importance so
much at heart, as we read in his biography, that he spurned a member's
money unless he had previously humbled the man. Long experience had
enabled him to time the length of a debate or even of an individual
speech with extraordinary accuracy. Members wishing to be informed as
to the probable hour of adjournment would ask him at what time the
Speaker had ordered his carriage. "The Speaker has ordered his coach
at eight," Pearson would reply, "but I'll be d----d if you get away
before twelve!"[416]
[416] The familiar way in which Pearson addressed members seems to
have been generally condoned on account of his long service. Once when
General Grant, who had boasted that he would march victoriously
through America with three thousand men, asked the door-keeper how
long a certain member would speak, Pearson replied, "As long, General,
if he was allowed, as you would be in marching through and conquering
America!" Pearson's "Political Dictionary," p. 10.
Pearson's treatment of strangers was no less autocratic. He could not
always be corrupted into finding room for them in the galleries unless
he happened to take a fancy to the appearance of the visitors. "If a
face or a manner did not please him," says his biographer, "gold could
not bribe him into civility, much less to the favour of admission. One
stranger might be modest and ingratiating; Pearson, like Thurlow,
would only give him a silent contemptuous stare; another would be
rude; Pearson would laugh at his rudeness, tell him the orator of the
moment, and, perhaps, shove him in, although he had before refused
dozens who were known to him."[417]
[417] Ibid., p. 6.
In the first year of Queen Victoria's reign a suggestion was made that
the public should be admitted without orders of any kind. This idea
was successfully opposed by Lord John Russell, who expressed a fear
that in such circumstances the galleries would be filled with
pickpockets and other objectionable persons.
Prior to 1867 strangers sometimes hired substitutes to keep places for
them in the crowd which thronged St. Stephen's Hall on the morning of
a big debate. These representatives would arrive as early as 2.30
a.m., and, like the messenger boys in the _queue_ outside a modern
theatre, wait patiently until the door was opened in the afternoon.
In 1867 the system of balloting for seats in the Strangers' Gallery
was first instituted. Members had long been in the habit of giving
orders "to bearer," written on the backs of envelopes or any scraps of
paper, which were freely forged and transferred from one visitor to
another. Strangers who were armed with these gallery passes were now
compelled to ballot for precedence, and though on important nights the
number of disappointed applicants was great, visitors gained the
advantage of not being kept waiting for hours on the chance of
obtaining a seat.
This system continued to obtain until the time of the Fenian scares,
in 1885, when, owing to the fact that two strangers admitted to the
Gallery on August 4th proved to be well-known dynamiters, the police
became alarmed for the safety of the House. To prevent the recurrence
of such an unwelcome visit it was ordered that all applications for
admission should be made in writing to the Speaker's secretary. The
signatures of the strangers applying for places could thus be verified
by comparison with their signatures in the Gallery book.
The deliberations of Parliament are supposed to be secret, and, though
the practice of avoiding publicity has long fallen into disuse, it is
still always possible for strangers to be excluded should the occasion
demand it. They were not welcomed with effusion in either House, a
century or two ago. In 1740 Lord Chancellor Hardwicke declared to the
Lords that "another thing doth diminish the dignity of the House;
admitting all kinds of auditors to your debates. This makes them be
what they ought not to be, and gives occasion to saying things which
else would not be said."[418] Thirty years later, as we have already
seen, during a speech of the Duke of Manchester's on the state of the
nation, Lord Gower rose and desired that the House of Lords should be
cleared of all who were not peers. The Duke of Richmond strongly
objected, considering this an insult to the members of Parliament and
others who were present. Chatham tried in vain to address the House,
and finally, as a dignified protest, he and a score of other peers
left the Chamber.
[418] "Life of Lord Hardwicke," vol. i. p. 489.
Somewhat similar scenes have occurred in the Lower House. On one
occasion, indeed, the members of the popular assembly so far forgot
themselves as to hurl epithets of abuse at a distinguished stranger
who was in their midst. On February 22, 1837, Sheil made a violent
attack in the House of Commons upon ex-Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, the
Irish Municipal Bill being under discussion at the time. Lyndhurst had
been accused of saying that three-quarters of the people of Ireland
were aliens in blood and only awaited a favourable opportunity to cast
off the government of England as the yoke of a tyrannical oppressor,
and this had roused the Irish to fury. The ex-Chancellor happened to
stroll into the House of Commons while Sheil was speaking, and took
his seat below the bar. Immediately the Irish members turned upon him,
and for about ten minutes shouted insults at the venerable statesman,
who remained apparently unmoved by the clamour.[419]
[419] Greville, "Memoirs," vol. iii. p. 389.
Up to within the last forty years it was quite sufficient for a member
of Parliament to inform the Speaker that he "espied strangers" for the
galleries to be instantly cleared. On April 27, 1875, however, the
cantankerous and obstructive Mr. Biggar brought this rule into
disrepute by calling the Speaker's attention to the Strangers' Gallery
at a time when its occupants included the Prince of Wales and the
German Ambassador. In accordance with the regulations of the House,
these distinguished visitors were compelled to leave forthwith. This
quite gratuitous act of discourtesy on the part of an extremely
unpopular member was little to the taste of the House. The sentiments
of the majority were aptly voiced by Disraeli when he begged Mr.
Biggar to bear in mind that the House was above all things "an
assembly of gentlemen." On the Prime Minister's motion, carried by a
unanimous vote, the Standing Order relative to the exclusion of
strangers was temporarily suspended, and the galleries reopened. A
resolution of Disraeli's was eventually adopted whereby strangers
could only be compelled to withdraw on a division in favour of their
exclusion, no debate or amendment being permitted; though it was still
left to the discretion of the Speaker or Chairman to order their
withdrawal at any time and from any part of the House, if necessary.
Visitors to the House of Commons enter by St Stephen's porch, where,
until recently, they were interrogated by the police constable on
duty. If their answers proved satisfactory, they were admitted to the
Central Hall, whence they dispatched printed cards inscribed with
their names, addresses, and the object of their visit, to such members
as they desired to see. The duty of ministering to the needs of
friends who were anxious to listen to the debates was one of the minor
discomforts of membership. There is a story of a member of Parliament
receiving a letter from a constituent asking for a pass to the
Speaker's Gallery or, if that were impossible, six tickets to the
Zoological Gardens. The natural inference to be gathered from this
request must be that the House of Commons, which Lord Brougham once
likened to a menagerie, is capable of affording six times as much
entertainment as the monkey-house in Regent's Park.
Until the last session of 1908 members could obtain two daily orders
of admission for strangers from the Speaker's secretary or the
Sergeant-at-Arms, the Speaker's and Strangers' Galleries (which were
amalgamated in 1888) providing accommodation for about one hundred and
sixty visitors. In the autumn of 1908, however, a man who wished to
advertise the cause of Female Suffrage--and incidentally
himself--threw a number of pamphlets down from the gallery on to the
floor of the House, and was summarily ejected. This resulted in an
order issued by the Speaker that for the remainder of the session no
strangers should be admitted. The Strangers' Galleries were reopened
in May of the following year, and new regulations were framed to
prevent the recurrence of such a scene. Visitors are now permitted to
apply at a special bureau in St. Stephen's Hall, at any time after
4.15 p.m. and, if there is room, are at once admitted to the gallery
without the formality of searching for a member. Each stranger signs a
declaration undertaking to abstain from making any interruption or
disturbance, and to obey the rules for the maintenance of order in the
galleries.
Applause, or the expression of any feeling, is strictly prohibited in
the Strangers' Gallery, and the attendants on duty there have
instructions to expel offenders without waiting for any explanation of
their conduct. In the commencement of the last century a stranger once
shouted, "You're a liar!" while O'Connell was speaking, and was
arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms and compelled to apologise the next
day.[420] Since that time, until recently, visitors have behaved with
commendable decorum.
[420] Boyd's "Reminiscences," p. 49.
The instances of strangers causing a commotion in Parliament by
extraordinary or improper behaviour are few in number. The
assassination of Spencer Perceval, the Prime Minister, by a visitor in
1812 is undoubtedly the most tragic event that has ever taken place
within the precincts of the House of Commons, the murderer being a mad
Liverpool merchant, named Bellingham, who had a grievance against the
Government. The recollection of this outrage almost gave rise to a
panic some years later when a wild-eyed, haggard man rushed into the
House while Sir Robert Peel was speaking, and walked boldly up to the
Minister. Stopping within a few feet of the speaker, this alarming
stranger made a low bow. "I beg your pardon," he remarked suavely,
"but I am an unfortunate man who has just been poisoned by Earl Grey!"
He was at once removed to the nearest lunatic asylum.[421]
[421] Doyle's "Recollections," p. 174.
Other strangers have from time to time created a mild consternation or
amusement by some eccentricity of dress or deportment. In 1833 a young
Scotsman crossed the bar of the Commons and sat deliberately down on a
bench among the members, where he remained undiscovered for some time.
In the same year a compatriot, garbed in full Highland costume,
unwittingly entered the side gallery reserved for members, and
prepared to listen to the debate from this comfortable quarter. On
being informed of his mistake, this hardy Northman was so overcome
with terror at the contemplation of his crime and the consequences
that would probably ensue--nothing short of death could, he imagined,
be the punishment appropriate to such an offence--that he took to his
heels and ran like a hare, never pausing for breath until he reached
Somerset House, a mile and a half away.[422] Sir Wilfrid Lawson in
1894 was shown a man in the Lobby who had been turned out of the
gallery for being drunk. On asking what crime the stranger had
committed, he was told that he had said "Bosh!" to some of the
speeches. This, as Sir Wilfrid remarked, was not conclusive evidence
of drunkenness.[423]
[422] Grant's "Recollections," p. 16.
[423] G. W. E. Russell's "Sir Wilfrid Lawson," p. 227.
A strange Irishman provided the peers with some amusement in 1908 by
appearing in the House of Lords attired in a saffron-coloured kilt and
toga which he claimed to be his national costume, and which had
doubtless been so ever since the days of Darwin's missing link. He
turned out to be harmless enough, and, though momentarily disturbing
to Black Rod's peace of mind, did nothing more alarming than to
provide another example of the well-known fact that it is possible to
be a Celt and at the same time to lack a sense of humour.
Strangers of the male sex who visit the Upper House may be
accommodated in the large Strangers' Gallery facing the throne, or, if
members of Parliament, in the special House of Commons' gallery, or at
the bar. Privy councillors and the eldest sons of peers are allowed to
sit or stand upon the steps of the Throne, and there are special
galleries set apart for the use of the _corps diplomatique_ and the
Press.
[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF LORDS IN 1910]
The question of allowing women to attend the debates has long
presented difficulties to the parliamentary mind, though at one time
it was not unusual to see lady visitors actually sitting in the
Chamber itself side by side with their husbands and friends. "Ought
females to be admitted?" asked Jeremy Bentham, many years ago,
unhesitatingly answering his own question in the negative a moment
later. To remove them from an assembly where tranquil reason ought
alone to reign was, as he explained, to avow their influence, and
should not therefore be wounding to their pride. "The seductions of
eloquence and ridicule are most dangerous instruments in a political
assembly," he says. "Admit females--you add new force to these
seductions." In the presence of the gentler sex, Bentham suggests,
everything must necessarily take an exalted tone, brilliant and
tragical--"excitement and tropes would be scattered everywhere." All
would be sacrificed to vanity and the display of wit, to please the
ladies in the audience.[424] If the serious business of debate were to
be sacrificed to "tropes," no doubt the British Constitution would be
considerably endangered; but experience has taught us that the
presence of ladies has not affected the debates detrimentally, and the
excitement caused in the breasts of our legislators by the sight of a
contingent of the fair sex is not of a kind to prove alarming.
[424] "Works," vol. ii. 327.
Women have taken a strong interest in political matters in England
from very early days.[425] We even find them giving occasional
expression to their views upon some Government measure with a violence
which did not at all commend itself to the authorities. In the
Journals of the House for March 5, 1606, is the following entry: "A
Clamour of Women against Sir Robert Johnson, for speaking against a
Bill touching Wherry-men; upon complaint of which the Commons ordered,
that Notice should be given to the Justices of the Peace, to prevent
and suppress such disorders."[426] What steps the Justices of the
Peace took to quell this feminine clamour history does not relate. In
1675 some confusion was caused by the Speaker observing ladies in the
gallery, and though a member suggested that they were not ladies at
all, but merely men in fine clothes, the Speaker insisted that he had
caught sight of petticoats.
[425] Ladies of rank often attended the Saxon Witenagemots, and in the
reigns of Henry III., Edward I., and Edward III. certain abbesses were
summoned to send proxies to Parliament. (See G. B. Smith's "History,"
vol. i p. 11.) In the sixteenth century the right to elect a member
for the rotten borough of Gatton was in the hands of a woman. See
Porritt' s "Unreformed House of Commons," vol. i. p. 97.
[426] "Observations, Rules, etc.," p. 162.
In the time of Queen Anne ladies were strongly infected with the
spirit of party. Addison declares that even the patches they wore on
their faces were so situated that the political views of the wearer
could be recognised at a glance. Friends might be distinguished from
foes in this delightful fashion, Tory ladies wearing their patches on
the left, Whigs on the right side of the face. An old number of the
"Spectator"[427] contains the sad story of one Rosalinda, a famous
Whig partisan who suffered much annoyance on this account. The fact
that Rosalinda had a beautiful mole on the Tory part of her forehead
gave her enemies the chance of misrepresenting her face as having
revolted against the Whig interest--an accusation which naturally
depressed the poor lady considerably.
[427] No. 812, June 2, 1711.
The House of Lords has always been more hospitable than the Commons in
its treatment of women. The two side galleries are reserved for
peeresses--though a certain portion is kept for members of the _corps
diplomatique_, and for the Commons--and there is a large box on the
floor of the House where the wives of peers' eldest sons sit, and a
number of seats below the bar to which Black Rod may introduce ladies.
The peers have not, however, been exempt from the occasional
inconveniences attaching to the presence of women. Lord Shaftesbury,
during the term of his Lord Chancellorship, complained bitterly of the
"droves of ladies that attended all causes," and said that things had
reached such a pass that men "borrowed or hired of their friends,
handsome sisters or daughters to deliver their petitions."[428] And in
1739, the fair Kitty, Duchess of Queensberry, headed a storming party
and successfully besieged a gallery in the House of Lords from which
ladies had been excluded in order to make room for members of the
Commons.[429] Grenville declares that the steps of the Throne were
inconveniently thronged with women in 1829. "Every fool in London
thinks it necessary to be there," he says. "They fill the whole space,
and put themselves in front, with their large bonnets, without either
fear or shame."[430]
[428] Townsend's "Memoirs," vol. ii. p. 461.
[429] "Letters and Works of Lady M. W. Montagu," vol. ii. p. 37. (I
have described this incident at length in "A Group of Scottish Women,"
pp. 137-8.)
[430] "Memoirs," 4 April, 1829.
In 1775, women were allowed to be present in Parliament to listen to
election petitions, and continued to be admitted to the body of the
House of Commons until 1778.[431] In this year a member named Captain
Johnstone insisted that strangers should withdraw, and the female
section of the audience absolutely declined to do so. Threats,
entreaties, all were useless. With the charming obstinacy of their
sex, the fair visitors clung to their seats, and refused to budge an
inch. Among the ladies who led this revolt was the Duchess of
Devonshire, and a celebrated beauty of the name of Musters. They were
assisted by a certain number of male admirers, and, so successful were
their efforts, that two long hours elapsed before the galleries could
be cleared. This incident caused the Speaker to forbid the future
admittance of women, and until after the fire of 1834, ladies could
only listen to debates clandestinely, and in a manner which entailed
the maximum of personal discomfort. Their absence does not seem to
have had any effect upon the length of the debates. "I was in hopes
that long speeches would have been knocked on the head when the ladies
were excluded from the galleries," said the doorkeeper; "they often
used to keep the members up."[432]
[431] See A. Young's "Autobiography," p. 17. (Election Petitions were
tried before the whole House, and thus resolved themselves into mere
party struggles. In 1770, Grenville moved that they be referred to
small committees.)
[432] Pearson's "Political Dictionary," p. 34.
When the Commons sat in the old St Stephen's Chapel, that chamber was
divided into two parts by a false roof. The upper half consisted of a
big empty room like a barn, with unglazed windows. In the centre of
the floor of this apartment was the ventilating shaft of the House, a
rough casement with eight small openings, situated exactly above the
chandelier in the ceiling of the chamber below. To this room were
conducted the lady friends of members desirous of catching a glimpse
of the Commons at work. The door was locked upon them, and they were
permitted to sit on a circular bench which surrounded the ventilator,
and peer down through the openings, while every now and then their
imprisonment would be lightened by a visit from some kindly attendant,
who would tell them the name of the member addressing the House. The
only light was provided by a farthing dip stuck in a tin candlestick,
and the room was gloomy and depressing. It is an ill wind, however,
that blows nobody any good, and once when O'Connell went up there
expecting to find his wife, he kissed the Dowager Duchess of Richmond
by mistake.[433]
[433] Grantley Berkeley's "Recollections," vol. i. p. 369.
Maria Edgeworth has left a description of a visit she paid to this
melancholy spot in 1822. "In the middle of the garret," she says, "is
what seemed like a sentry box of deal boards, and old chairs placed
round it; on these we got, and stood and peeped over the top of the
boards."[434] From this vantage-point she could see the chandelier
blazing just beneath her, and below it again the Table, with the mace
resting upon it, and the Speaker's polished boots--nothing more.
[434] "Life and Letters," vol. ii. p. 66.
The twenty-five tickets issued nightly by the Sergeant-at-Arms for
admission to this dungeon were much sought after, a fact which
testifies eloquently to the political enthusiasm of our
great-grandmothers.
In spite of the Speaker's order, ladies still continued occasionally
to find their way into more comfortable parts of the House. Wraxall
declares that he saw the famous Duchess of Gordon sitting in the
Strangers' Gallery dressed as a man.[435] And in 1834, a sister of
some member entered one of the side galleries, and sat there
undisturbed for a long time, the gallantry of the officials forbidding
them to turn her out.[436]
[435] "Posthumous Memoirs."
[436] Grant's "Recollections," p. 17.
When the new Houses of Parliament were built, slightly better
accommodation was provided for the fair sex. It was at first proposed
that they should be seated in the open galleries of the Commons, but
this suggestion met with little support. Miss Harriet Martineau,
writing somewhere about 1876, prophesied pessimistically that if such
a proposition were carried out, the galleries would be occupied by
giddy and frivolous women, lovers of sensation, with plenty of time
upon their hands; "a nuisance to the Legislature and a serious
disadvantage to the wiser of their own sex."[437] This idea seems to
have been the popular one, and it was resolved to keep the ladies who
attended debates as much in the background as possible.
[437] "History of the Peace," vol. iii. p. 375.
The present gallery has many disadvantages. Its occupants are enclosed
in a cage which prevents them from obtaining a good view of the
proceedings, and altogether conceals them from the gaze of the
members. Repeated attempts have been made to secure better
accommodation, notably by Mr. Grantley Berkeley, to whom a number of
ladies in 1841 presented a piece of plate in recognition of his
services on their behalf. The House is determined, however, that its
deliberations shall not be affected by the presence of any disturbing
element, agreeing apparently with that member who assured the Speaker
that if ladies were permitted to sit undisguised in the gallery, "the
feelings of the gallant old soldiers and gentlemen would be so excited
and turned from political affairs, that they would not be able to do
their duty to their country."[438]
[438] Berkeley's "Recollections," vol. i. p. 359.
The suggestion has often been made that the grille should be taken
away from the front of the Ladies' Gallery, but it is doubtful whether
the removal of this screen would commend itself to the visitors. Its
retention bestows one undoubted benefit upon them; it allows ladies to
steal away unnoticed during the speech of some bore, with whom they
may be personally acquainted, or whose feelings they would not like to
hurt. This is an advantage which cannot be esteemed too highly.
The Ladies' Gallery, which, as has often been said, might be called,
but for its occupants, a veritable "chamber of horrors," is not
considered to be within the House. Consequently, when strangers are
forced to withdraw, ladies may still remain. They are even allowed to
be present during prayers. The feminine privilege of not being
excluded with other strangers is shared by the peers, who, since 1698,
have always (with the exception of a few years) had a gallery reserved
for them.
Up to a short time ago members of the House of Commons were allowed to
introduce ladies to the inner lobby, whence they could obtain a
fragmentary glimpse of the proceedings through a small window. This
privilege was withdrawn in 1908, when a lady who was the guest of a
member sought to make some return for his hospitality by rushing on to
the floor of the House and shouting, "Votes for Women!" Shortly before
this two other ladies in the gallery, also the guests of members, had
attempted to prove the fitness of their sex for the franchise by
chaining themselves to the grille and screaming. This was the first
instance of unruly behaviour in the Ladies' Gallery since June of the
year 1888, when some women applauded a speech, much to the indignation
of Speaker Peel. It resulted in the closing of the gallery, and the
exclusion of all but the Speaker's own personal guests, on whose sense
of honour and decency he could rely. In 1909, however, the Ladies'
Gallery was once more thrown open to members of the fair sex, tickets
of admission being confined to the relatives of members, who balloted
for them a week in advance. The ladies were required to sign an
undertaking to behave decorously while they occupied seats in the
gallery, and their exact relationship to members was not inquired into
too closely.