Public and Political: Documents of
the Woman’s Suffrage Campaign in
British Columbia, 1871 - 1917:
The View from Victoria
MICHAEL H. CRAMER

In 1871, the English colony of British Columbia entered the four year old Dominion of
Canada. This event culminated the political unification of British territory in continental
North America. In October of the same year, a less spectacular, but certainly no less
interesting event occurred in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. Susan Anthony,
the American suffragist, spoke at the Alhambra Hall to an enthusiastic audience - the
newspapers do not say whether it was predominantly female or male - on the subject of
woman’s suffrage. It probably was not the first time that the people of Victoria had
heard of the suffrage issue because they gave her quite a good reception, despite her
strong words. In her lecture Miss Anthony had said, “The present condition of women is
similar to that of slavery before the War”.1 Not everyone, however, was pleased by her
presence or her statements on the right of women to vote. One woman wrote a letter to
the local newspaper, The Daily Colonist, in which she informed Miss Anthony that a
“woman’s true sphere is in submitting herself to her husband and religiously fulfilling the
marriage vows the wise organizers of society have prescribed.”2 Thus the newspaper
recorded the opening arguments in a debate that was to cover almost a half century of
the new province’s history. Only eight months later the same newspaper reported that
woman’s suffrage had gone beyond the Alhambra Hall into the provincial legislature
where a bill for woman’s suffrage had received the support of only two members. 3 For
the next fifty years, women, agitating for an improvement in their legal and political
status, became public and political figures as they make history through reports,
newspapers, petitions, government bills, speaking engagements, and, finally, a
referendum.
Starting in the 1880’s there are frequent reports of the struggle for woman’s
suffrage and woman’s rights in general, but the earliest instance recorded of women
taking part in municipal elections is a result of an 1873 bill which gave women property
holders the vote.4 As a result of that right, Silvestria Theodora Smith, widow of Philip
Smith, and her two women friends, voted for Mayor.5 It is obvious that women did not
exercise that right in large numbers. The Colonist reported that the “contest [was]
robbed of its fairest feature”.6
In 1882, a group was organized that would have a profound influence on the
woman’s suffrage movement in British Columbia. The women of Victoria persuaded
Frances Willard, head of the American Women’s Christian Temperance Union, to visit
their city and she helped them found the provincial W.C.T.U. on July 3, 1882.7 Mrs.
Cecilia Spofford, one of the sponsors of the visit, was to be involved in the women’s
cause until her death in 1938.8 The W.C.T.U. thought that women who had the vote

would support their temperance crusade and other moral reforms. In 1883, women in
Victoria presented the Premier with what may have been the first suffrage petition.9
In 1884, women failed to secure provincial suffrage after Mr. Drake’s amendment
to the franchise bill was defeated. In 1885, the W.C.T.U. presented the first of many of
its petitions to the Legislature for woman’s suffrage.10 Again Drake presented a bill to
admit women to the suffrage, and it was rejected by a vote of 14 to 9. The Daily British
Colonist expressed its disappointment that women did not receive the franchise by
pointing out “that politics will [n]ever become a thoroughly respectable and honourable
profession until females are permitted to have a voice in the selection of members of the
house.”11
According to Elsie MacGill, author of My Mother, The Judge, there were at least
ten or eleven attempts to have a suffrage bill adopted by private members before the
turn of the century.12 In 1891, M.L.A. Brown presented a suffrage petition from the
women of Victoria and introduced a Bill for Female Suffrage in the Legislature (Bill 74).
The petition had a thousand signatures, but this did not prevent the bill from being
defeated on its second reading by a vote of 17 to 10.13
In 1894, Lady Aberdeen, on a visit to British Columbia, founded Local Councils of
Women in Victoria and Vancouver. Two of the sponsors and most active members
were Mrs. Cecilia Spofford and Mrs. Maria Gordon Grant.14 The Local Council was
another organization whose history and membership would become entwined with that
of woman’s suffrage. For instance, Maria Grant was the first woman in Victoria to be
elected to the school board. She first won election in March of 1895 and was returned
again in 1899. She was jointly nominated as a result of cooperation between the
Victoria Local Council of Women and the W.C.T.U.15 After her first victory she
expressed the hope that she would do her job so well that at least two more women
would join her on the board in the next election.16
A typical year around the turn of the century for woman’s suffrage was 1897.
First of all, an amendment to the Incorporation of Towns Bill, by Mr. Helmcken, was
defeated in the Legislature.17 Secondly, the W.C.T.U. was busy circulating a petition.18
Finally, the temperance theme which would keep occurring in suffrage arguments was
the substance of a letter written to The Daily Colonist by “Onward”. “Onward” said that
“any person would be compelled to wish for the vote of responsible women to balance
the vote of irresponsible men, who are so often led by the saloon owners and who have
not one noble idea or high interest in life.”19 In 1898, the by now annual petition
contained the signatures of 2500 people, 1200 of whom were voters.20
In 1899 women almost received the vote. Ralph Smith, member for Nanaimo,
moved the second reading of a bill to extend the franchise to women. He said he had
checked the proceedings of the Legislature where he discovered that the question of
woman’s suffrage had come up three or four times in the past (this seems to be a low
figure), but never before with this seriousness. The vote for a second reading was 15
“for” to 17 “against”. Mr. Hall, who had wanted to vote for the bill, said he had
mistakenly cast his vote against it. If he had voted as he wished, the speaker would
have cast his vote for woman’s suffrage.21 In connection with the attempt to pas this
bill, a letter from “British Columbian” said that 25,000 women signed a petition asking for
the right to vote, a figure which was very high considering that later petitions never

approached that figure.22 As the 19th century drew to a close, the Legislature, during
the last decade alone, had voted five times on the questions of suffrage.23
Pausing at the turn of the century, it is important to point out that the struggle for
woman’s suffrage involved the right to vote in several types of elections, the women
received the suffrage for each of them on separate occasions. First, there was the vote
for school trustees, which women received after they had lost their previous right to vote
in municipal elections. Then there was the municipal franchise which women would fight
for all through the first decade of the twentieth century. Finally, there were the
provincial and dominion franchises which they would win during and right after the First
World War. In speeches and reports it sometimes is unclear which franchise is being
discussed. Suffragists might be going to the Legislature to fight for their provincial rights
or since the Legislature made the election laws for the municipalities they might be
trying to get or protect their local voting rights. It must be kept in mind that the municipal
franchise was the right of tax and rate payers only. Universal suffrage was not
accepted by property owners.
In 1902, the Legislature was again petitioned for woman’s suffrage. It was
refused but The Daily Colonist in an editorial said, “It is a pity that while the Legislature
was at it, it did not extend the suffrage to women.”24 In 1906, J.H. Hawthornthwaite,
member for Nanaimo, introduced a bill entitled An Act to Extend the Franchise to
Women. It was again defeated. This is the first example of the McBride Government
rejecting a suffrage bill. Hawthornthwaite noted the Liberal party’s attitude toward
woman’s suffrage while speaking on behalf of his bill. He said, “Wherever [sic] brought
up in the House the Liberals had given it careful attention and in most instances
supported it.”25 In 1909, Hawthornthwaite made another of his attempts which resulted
once again in a defeat for woman’s suffrage.26 However, during this period women did
receive, then lose, the vote in municipal elections due to a mistake in drafting an
amendment to the Election Laws.
In 1906, the Legislature amended the Municipal Election Act to read:
Householders shall mean and include any person of the full
age of twenty-one who occupies a dwelling, tenement, hotel
or boarding house, and who shall, unless exempt by statute
or municipal by-law, have paid directly to the municipality
rates, taxes or fees of not less than two dollars for the
current year.27
The clause starting “unless exempt” opened up a loophole in the law that
enabled any woman, not just a property owner, to register on the voting list in Victoria.
A woman could pay the tax on the family’s dog and be able to vote, or she could make
the claim that since she was exempt by statute she was eligible to vote without paying
any taxes.28 As a result of this loophole 150 women were on the voters list in 1906.29
Mrs. Spofford, who was then the provincial organizer for the W.C.T.U., was “one of the
leaders of the ladies in their attempts to retain the suffrage”.30 In a speech on March 24,
1907, Mrs. Spofford said that the laws “needed the refining influence of the woman
before they could be perfect….Then too, the influence of women in the government
would be a purifying one.”31 Nevertheless, women lost the right to vote in municipal
elections which they had gained through the improper wording of the amendment. The
Legislature amended the clause and took away their exemption.32 One of the reasons

given for disenfranchising women was that women who owned houses of prostitution
would be able to vote in municipal elections and this could not be allowed!33
The loss of the municipal franchise prompted Mrs. Spofford to write, “We have
been presuming that the present is an age of most wonderful progression. Are we
mistaken?”34 A disgruntled Conservative shared the letter section for that day with her.
He wrote, “If Mr. McBride and Mr. Bowser see fit to line up their forces on the side of the
Property Owners’ Association and the saloon as against the homes and moral wellbeing of our city, in this matter, they will have only themselves to blame if they find all
the respectable men in the Conservative party getting out of it.”35
While the first seven years of the twentieth century appeared to be disastrous for
the cause of woman’s suffrage in the province, some hopeful movements were stirring
among women’s organizations. The Victoria Local Council of Women first passed a
provincial Woman’s Suffrage resolution in 1908.36 On a national level, in 1910, the
Council of Women officially supported suffrage and established a Standing Committee
on Suffrage and Rights of Citizenship.
Helen MacGill claimed that, “From 1905 to 1910, inclusive, was a heyday of
social and public welfare organizing in Vancouver.”37 The same was true for Victoria.
Women’s organizations were involved in hospital auxiliaries, nursing, charitable
societies and a host of other good causes. However, the one subject which women in
all organizations were happy to study was the law relating to the status of women in
British Columbia. From pamphlets, prepared by Cecilia Spofford, Florence Hall and
Helen Gregory MacGill on the status of women in British Columbia, one can read that a
wife could be completely disinherited by her husband, that a child was the sole
responsibility of the father, and that a girl of twelve could be given away in marriage by
her father without the mother’s consent.38 Women had the dual frustration, therefore, of
not being able to affect legislation that would change their legal rights and those of their
children, and not being able to secure and suffrage in order that they might, by their
votes, influence the Legislature politically. From 1900 to 1910 they had experienced the
frustration of failing to influence the Legislature. Since they knew from experience they
would need the vote to change inequitable legislation, it is no coincidence that the first
organization in British Columbia dedicated primarily to woman’s suffrage was founded in
conjunction with the Local Council of Women, in Victoria in December, 1910, with an
initial membership of sixty.39
The invitation for people to help found the Political Equality League was from
Maria Gordon Grant, the Chairman of the Citizenship Committee of the Victoria and
Vancouver Island Council of Women. It stated the aim of the League to be:
to secure the removal in British Columbia of the
disabilities which rest on woman as a voter and citizen
and to secure her political enfranchisement. The
invitation includes both men and women, inasmuch as
it is only by working side by side that we can build
most effectively and successfully in the interests of our
children, our homes and our Province.40
Maria Grant was elected first President of the League. The purpose of the League was
set forth in the first issue of The Champion, the monthly magazine of the new
organization. It said, “We stand to emphasize the fact that causes of individual cases of

injustice can only be satisfactorily and finally dealt with by legislation in which women
have a direct share.”41 The women who founded the Political Equality League and The
Champion were concerned with the vote as a means to an end, not an end in itself.
They had found themselves powerless to affect changes in the law that would have
improved the legal position of women in society; therefore, they concluded that, until
they had the vote, they would not see reform legislation adopted.
The following year, May 1911, the first Suffrage Convention was held in British
Columbia. The two main speakers were Mayor Taylor of Vancouver, who supported the
women of the province, and promised that “anything he could do through the columns of
the newspaper he represented to help on the propaganda work he was ready and
willing to do”,42 and Senator Cottrell from Washington State, who reported on the victory
of woman’s suffrage in his own state.
Before turning to the last triumphant years of struggle for woman’s suffrage one
must ask the question, why now? After a fifty year struggle, involving dozens of
petitions, hundreds of meetings, and endless delegations why did the final six years
lead to success? Some speakers credited the woman’s war effort; contemporary
writers suggested that the change in woman’s relationship to the home led to her
wanting the vote. A writer for The Champion said:
Most of the domestic activities which made home
tolerable for women of an earlier day are now done
far more efficiently and speedily outside the home:
the making of clothes, the stocking of the cupboard,
baking, cooking, even the mild domestic excitements
of mending and knitting, the making of unnecessary
tablecovers, cushions, anti-macassars, and the
thousand and one other things with which women
formerly occupied their fingers and saved themselves
from thinking have disappeared.43
Castell Hopkins in The Canadian Annual Review (1912) points to the rise of an
industrial society. He said:
The pressure of enormous economic changes, the
vast modern movements of population, the revolution
in the social life and position of women, the elimination
of the old-time religious code of manners and
customs, the practice of equality in sex-relationships
and the influx of women into myriad occupations and
competitive lines of business were bound to have an
influence in the new nations as well as in the old.44
However, the fundamental reason was that the state had become involved in the
regulation of many activities that women conceived of as their proper sphere so they felt
the need to influence, in their turn, the decisions of the government on matters that so
directly affected their interests. The women who wrote for The Champion made it clear
that they understood this. They said:
As a matter of indisputable fact…politics have
invaded the home, and women, if they would defend
and safeguard their homes, must invade

politics…Working Women need the ballot to regulate
conditions under which they work…Housekeepers
need the ballot to regulate the sanitary conditions
under which they and their families must live.45
Turning from the specific grievances of the women in British Columbia, one soon
learns that the methods used to gain woman’s suffrage here were not unusual. Women
repeated here the non-militant methods that had been tried and tested in other parts of
the world. However, it is interesting to see the methods of persuasion that the Political
Equality League used to spread the idea of woman’s suffrage to women and men in
British Columbia. First of all, they published their own newspaper, The Champion,
which put B.C. suffragists in touch with women’s rights around the world. Constant
reference was made to the successful experiments in woman’s suffrage in Australia and
New Zealand. Writers pointed out repeatedly that the rate of infant mortality in new
Zealand had gone down dramatically after women received the vote. News of the
struggle in England always found a place in the columns of The Champion. Articles
from the English magazine Votes for Women were reprinted while Christabel Pankhurst
and Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence provided articles and interviews. Of course, the English
suffragettes were no strangers to Victoria: Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst lectured during
December, 1911, in Victoria,46 and Miss Miller and Barbara Wylie also spoke in
Victoria.47
The columns of The Champion provide us with valuable information on how
women undertook social change publicly at the grass-roots level. The cover of the
magazine had one suggestion for propaganda. It said, “Read and pass on to a friend”;
of course the hope was that every woman would bring her friends into the movement.
Periodic subscription drives were held with prizes for the person who sold the most
subscriptions.48 The editors of The Champion, Dorothy Davis and Maria Grant,
persuaded the C.P.R. to take on commission 650 copies of the magazine to sell on the
trains in the province.49
On a more personal level, the Political Equality League supported Dorothy Davis
(later Mrs. Dorothy Bishop) as the organizer for the province.50 She set out in
September 1912, to tour the whole province. She stopped at more than twenty towns,
sometimes organizing her own meetings while at other times speaking before socialist
or W.C.T.U. meetings. From the number of branches formed in the towns she visited,
obviously she had good success and met with receptive audiences.51 The League also
supported Florence S. Hall (Mrs. Lashley Hall) as a provincial organizer.52 Thus the
League had two women to make the necessary personal contacts to organize the less
settled areas of the province.
Another method of advertising for suffrage was a booth at the local Fall fairs. A
report of the Victoria Fair and Exhibition explained that “a staff of willing workers was
kept busy all day distributing literature from the stalls, and, in other tents, selling The
Champion, distributing badges, holding long arguments and short, and dispensing tea
and coffee and cakes at a low charge to crowds of interested or hungry people.”53
Another tactic was the sponsoring of a float in the 1913 Citizen’s Carnival of Victoria
carrying the League’s colours.

On the float stood six young women in white, each at
the door or her home, representing Australia, New
Zealand, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Canton where women are citizens. At the back of the float
were eleven beautiful girls, forming a chain of the
States where women had been made citizens, each
one triumphantly carrying her country’s flag. On a
pedestal stood Liberty, holding in her hands a wreath
of laurel similar to those worn by the woman citizens.
This she was waiting to place on the brow of British
Columbia, who knelt at her feet, praying for
freedom.54
A motion picture called “Votes for Women” was touring the province in 1912.
The Champion recommended that local branches obtain it for September, the crusade
month of the League.55 The movie was “a sociological study, a suffrage speech and
drama.” Dr. Anna Shaw and Jane Addams played themselves together with a cast of
professional actors. The play was followed by pictures of the 1912 New York Suffrage
Parade. The motion picture house was used in at least one local branch to show
advertisements for its meetings.56
In 1912, the women of British Columbia made their annual pilgrimage to the
Legislature to ask Premier McBride to extend the suffrage to women “as it is at present
enjoyed by the men”. Maria Grant wrote to McBride “on behalf of the deputation of
ladies representing ninety organizations” who wanted to know what the Government
had decided to do. McBride’s reply was that the issue had “again been considered by
the Executive Council” and it would not be made a party issue.57 The excuse for not
adopting woman’s suffrage was that not enough women in the province had
demonstrated a desire for it. In response, the League carried out a provincial drive for
signatures.58 The first issue of The Champion in August, 1912, carried a notice that the
suffrage petitions were available at the League’s offices. In addition, it was suggested
that a suffrage leaflet and invitation to join the League be left at every home visited. A
notice to circulate the petition in the November issue indicates that someone in the
Government had left he representatives of the suffrage organization with the impression
that a petition campaign would be enough to get the women what they wanted. The
Champion wrote:
It is the intention of the women to prove to the
Government that the people of British Columbia are
very much in earnest in their request and it is
confidently asserted by some of the leaders in this
movement that the Government are sufficiently broad
minded to grant the vote to women as soon as they
show that a large number demand it.59
Someone had aroused expectations that were not fulfilled in 1913. This may help to
explain why active women supported the Liberal Party in the next provincial election.
In February of 1913 the women of British Columbia returned to the office of
Premier McBride. They submitted a petition with ten thousand signatures to the
Premier on February 14, in the late afternoon, so that women from Vancouver would

have the time to get to Victoria for the meeting.60 The Premier was noncommittal at the
meeting but on February 20 in the Legislature he turned down the women’s request for
a government measure on their behalf, although he said he had no objections to a
private member introducing such a bill. “When one of the Socialists introduced a private
member’s bill calling for female suffrage, it was defeated despite the fact that seven
conservatives had voted for it.”61 In the McBride papers there is correspondence
advocating woman’s suffrage from the local branches of the League Dorothy Davis
submitted a report, printed in The Champion, of the resolution adopted almost
unanimously at all her organizing meetings. The resolution read:
That this meeting realizes the urgent need that the
Woman’s point of view should be directly represented
in the control of Legislation and all affairs of the
Nation, and deplores the injustice to herself and the
loss to the State involved in her present political
position; and preferring that British Columbia should
lead the other provinces of Canada in all matters of
Progressive Reform, rather than follow, it calls upon
the Provincial Government to introduce and carry,
during the coming Session, a Bill giving the Vote to
Women on the same terms as it is or may be given to
Men.62
The Liberal Party put woman’s suffrage in their party platform in 1913.63 The
party adopted woman’s suffrage in their convention at Revelstoke on May 30. A
delegation of women addressed the convention on the issue. This was scarcely a mere
election ploy for the reform vote. Many of the former M.L.A.’s of the party had voted for
woman’s suffrage bills when they sat in the house previous to the Conservative
landslide. Secondly, some of the active suffragists were the wives of future members of
the Government. Mary Ellen Smith and Evlyn Farris were the most prominent in this
respect. Mr. Farris, soon to be Attorney General, had spoken at a public debate in 1908
in support of women having the vote.64
Despite being turned down the year before, the women were back at the
Legislature again in 1914. The women of Victoria were led by Miss Susan Crease in a
visit to the Legislature during January.65 Their plea for the suffrage was supported by
several dozen hectographed resolutions which had been filled in by local meetings. The
blank read:
At a meeting of approximately
of
held
at
on
the following resolution was
passed: It is resolved that it is in the best interests of
the people of British Columbia that the parliamentary
franchise be extended to women at the next session
on the same terms as it has been or may be granted
to men.66
The blank petitions had for the most part been filled in by meetings of the various
locals of labour unions in Vancouver. Helena Gutteridge, a socialist and feminist in
Vancouver, was responsible for many fo these petitions being submitted.67

Women’s suffrage was also supported by the Methodist Church at their Annual
Confernece. In a letter to Premier McBride, Reverend Lashley Hall, the president of the
Methodist Conference, reported their resolution that
We are of the opinion that further extension of the
franchise so as to permit women to vote in all
elections on the same terms as men, would not only
be just and right, but it could be speedily obtained, it
would greatly aid in the moral uplift of social and
political affairs for which we are all working.68
In Victoria, on January 15, 1914, a referendum at the civic elections on the
question of woman’s suffrage had been carried by large majority.69 Support for the
women’s cause was broadly based by 1914.
In 1915, women seemed to have been resting their forces in preparation for the
next provincial elections. No woman’s suffrage bill was presented in the Legislature that
year.
The final campaign in 1916 for the woman’s right to vote took place in the
Legislature, in public opinion, and finally at the ballot box. Premier Bowser, who had
succeeded McBride, tried to win back the support the Conservative Party had lost by
their opposition to suffrage. For reasons that are not known, he refused to make
woman’s suffrage a Government measure, preferring to submit the matter in a
referendum to the voters. Perhaps he hoped to gain favour from both sides of the
question by posing as the man who had given “everyman” the chance to express his
opinion on this issue. More likely, he did not want the re-election of the Conservatives
to hinge upon suffrage sentiments. On March 17, 1916, John Place, member for
Nanaimo, gave notice to the Legislature that he would introduce a bill entitled An Act to
Extend the Franchise to Women.70 On April 13, Premier Bowser told the Legislature
that he would bring down an Amendment to the Provincial Elections Act and submit the
matter as a referendum to the electors at the forthcoming general elections” which if
approved, would make effective on January 1, next, the amendment to the Elections
Act”.71 A deputation of women, who interviewed the Premier on April 26, asked him to
make the suffrage a matter of Government policy since women would not be able to
vote in the general election on the question of their enfranchisement. Maria Grant
pointed out that a Government bill would not “draw away the women from the work they
were doing for the Red Cross and other patriotic purposes and [would not] compel them
to go out and work for a referendum.”72 However, this appeal did not sway Bowser and
the Place bill was defeated on its second reading, May 17.73
The Liberal Party, the suffrage referendum, and the prohibition referendum were
successful on September 14, 1916. The success of all three in the province (the
soldier’s vote later reversed the results of the prohibition pool) has been attributed to the
reform spirit of the times while another common view is that the supporters of the
Liberals, woman’s suffrage and prohibition were often the same people. As Elsie
MacGill said,
The suffragists turned out in force for the Liberals.
They did clerical work, organized telephone
campaigns and although none took to the public
platform, they conducted drawing room meetings at

which they arraigned the referendum as an antisuffrage gesture, and cited the government’s years of
refusal of the vote as indicative of its true attitude.74
It is not difficult to show that the Liberal party supported woman’s suffrage. It is
more difficult, if not impossible, to show that the same people voted for the Liberals and
for the suffrage referendum. An indication of the Liberals’ support for woman’s suffrage
is clear in the fact that as the government they did not wait for the official results of the
referendum. Due to slowness in the reporting of the soldiers’ vote it might not have
become effective until 1918, but the Government [passed a bill in the Legislature which
gave women both the vote and the right to run for office.75 Women officially received
the right to vote in British Columbia on April 5, 1917. another indication that the Liberals
would be responsive to the demands of women was that they had passed an Equal
Guardianship Bill “giving mothers equal right with fathers to the guardianship of their
children” two weeks before the suffrage bill.
While it is almost self-evident that Liberal legislators were strongly in favour of
woman’s suffrage, an analysis of the referendum results shows that there is little
correlation between the successes of the Liberal party and the suffrage referendum
despite the fact that both won decisive victories in the province. The suffrage
referendum passed in every riding and the Liberal Party almost reversed the thirty-five
to four majority which the Conservatives had enjoyed earlier. When the returns of the
civilian votes on a riding by riding basis are compared with the civilian returns on the
suffrage referendum there is only a slight relationship discernible between the
percentage of the two different votes in each riding. Using either the Spearman Rank
Correlation Test or the Kruskall-Wallace One Way Analysis of Variance Test the results
showed no correlation between the rank of Liberal vote percentages by riding and a
similar list for the Woman’s Suffrage vote.76 The top third of the ridings in terms of
percentages of votes in favour of the suffrage varied from fifth to thirty-fifty in
percentage of Liberal votes.
The interesting point is that there appears to be a lack of relationship between
women’s efforts on their own behalf and the results of the referendum. In those areas
where women had worked longest and hardest to influence public opinion they did not
do well, relatively speaking. In the city of Vancouver the referendum received only
sixty-seven per cent (67%) of the vote and in Victoria, the birthplace of the movement,
the referendum received only fifty-seven per cent (57%) of the vote while it did just as
poorly in the areas surrounding Victoria such as Esquimalt and Saanich. In other
ridings which contained towns of over twenty-five hundred (2500) people - with several
significant exceptions - the suffrage referendum did poorly. The point is that rural
ridings were more favourable to the question.77 Lack of strong support in the major
cities of the province where the Political Equality Leagues were strongest suggests that
the suffrage advertising was totally ineffectual, or that a process of oversaturation
worked against a strong positive vote or that the women’s hard work saved the cities
from rejecting the referendum altogether.
The lack of correlation between the referendum and Liberal votes does not mean
that suffrage would have become an issue without the effort made by women, nor does
it deny the fact that over the span of fifty years the work of women had changed the
moral and intellectual values of men with regard to the female franchise. However, the

evidence of the referendum strongly implies that the final campaign in 1916 for woman’s
suffrage did little to change anyone’s ideas in an empirically measurable way.
The involvement of women in politics did not end with their successful
achievement of the vote. The legal disabilities from which they had suffered and their
belief in the purifying influence of women in politics spurred them on to further action. In
November, 1916, women were considering how to use the vote in their best interests.
As Helen MacGill said, “Many women felt they should organize to avail themselves of
their new won power in order to obtain better laws for women and children.”78 In
Vancouver, they organized the Women’s New Era League. Child welfare, education,
recreation and care of the juvenile delinquent were concerns of the new League, whose
first president, Susie Lang (Mrs. J.A. Clark), had been a member of the Political Equality
League and the Mount Pleasant Suffrage League. In the thirties she was still public and
political, working through the New Era League and the Vancouver Local Council of
Women.
Debates arose over how to make the best use of the women’s vote. Should
women join existing political parties or create their own? The Local Council of Women
in Victoria had a meeting in February, 1917, to discuss
whether women in possession of the franchise could
best wield their power to secure legislation that
should represent the ideals for which the women of
the country had long and energetically laboured by
joining existing organizations representing the two
political forces, or whether or not greater service
would be rendered to the state by a separate
woman’s organization as a third party.79
Mrs. Grant revealed at this meeting the depth of her commitment to the woman’s
cause. “She believed that the woman’s vote and a party aloof from either faction was
the thin end of the wedge that would crack the skull of party government.”80 For a long
time, the rhetoric of supporters of woman’s suffrage had emphasized the purifying of
government by the woman’s vote and it is evident that many women accepted this view
of themselves, making it their reason for future involvement in politics.
Footnotes
1

Daily Colonist, October 26, 1871, p. 3.
Ibid., October 27, 1871, p. 3
3
Ibid., June 23, 1872, p. 2
4
Ibid., March 28, 1875, p. 3
5
Elizabeth Forbes, Wild Roses at Their Feet (Victoria, B.C., 1971), p. 7.
6
Daily Colonist, January 14, 1874, p. 3.
7
Helen Gregory MacGill, The Story of Vancouver Social Service, 1943, p. 1.
8
Victoria Daily Times, February 18, 1938, p. 6.
9
Elsie Gregory MacGill, My Mother, The Judge: A Biography of Judge Helen Gregory MacGill (Toronto,
1955), p. 124
10
H. MacGill, op. cit., p. 56.
11
Daily Colonist, February 18, 1885, p. 2.
12
E. MacGill, op. cit., p. 124.
13
H. MacGill, op. cit., p. 56.
2

14

Woman’s Life and Work in the Province of British Columbia (Victoria 1909), p. 80.
Linda Hale, “The British Columbia Woman’s Suffrage Movement, 1890 - 1917”, unpublished M.A.
thesis, U.B.C., 1977, p. 20
16
Daily Colonist, March 12, 1895, p. 6; December 30, 1898, p. 5; March 31, 1937, p. 3.
17
Ibid., March 6, 1897, p. 6.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid,. March 21, 1897, p. 7.
20
Ibid., March 23, 1898, p. 5.
21
Ibid,. February 25, 1899, p. 6
22
Ibid., March 4, 1899, p. 8.
23
The roll call votes are found in Journals of the Legislative Assembly (British Columbia), 1891, p. 132;
1893, p. 16; 1897, p. 147; 1898, p. 128; 1899, p. 22.
24
Ida Husted Harper, History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. 6, 1900 - 1920 (New York, 1969), p. 756. Daily
Colonist, June 15, 1902, p. 4.
25
Journals of the Legislative Assembly (1906), p. 34. Daily Colonist, February 2, 1906, p. 1 Victoria Daily
Times, February 2, 1906, p. 3.
26
Daily Colonist, March 12, 1909, p. 1. Journals of the Legislative Assembly (1909), pp. 128 - 129.
27
Daily Colonist, January 8, 1908, p. 3.
28
Ibid., October 27, 1907, p. 3; December 22, 1906, p. 7.
29
Ibid., December 22, 1906, p. 3
30
Ibid., March 17, 1907, p. 7; Victoria Daily Times, October 30, 1906, p. 2; Daily Colonist, March 21,
1907, p. 11.
31
Daily Colonist, march 24, 1907, p. 2.
32
Harper, op. cit. p. 756.
33
Victoria Daily Times, February 15, 1908, p. 14.
34
Ibid., February 24, 1908, p. 4.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid., December 16, 1908. It was the first local council in Canada to do so.
37
H. MacGill, op. cit., p. 6.
38
Helen Gregory MacGill, Daughters, Wives and Mothers in British Columbia, Some Laws Regarding
Them (Vancouver, 1914), pp. 7 - 13.
39
Cleverdon, Woman’s Suffrage in Canada, P. 89. J. Castell Hopkins, ed., The Canadian Annual Review
of Public Affairs, 1910 (Toronto, 1911), p. 313. Hereafter referred to as C.A.R.) The Champion, April,
1913, p. 5
40
Original invitation in the files of the Provincial Archives of British Columbia.
41
The Champion, August 1912, p. 6.
42
Legal Status of Women, p. 16.
43
The Champion, November 1913, p. 8.
44
C.A.R., 1912, p. 304.
45
The Champion, February 1914, p. 7, 10, 11.
46
C.A.R., 1911, p. 370
47
C.A.R., 1910, p. 313. Susanne L. Jeune, The Domestic side of World War 1, The War Period as Seen
by the Women of Victoria, p. 6.
48
The Champion, September 1912, p. 12.
49
Ibid, June 1913, p. 4.
50
Ibid., September 1912, p. 17.
51
Ibid., October 1912, p. 6; November 1912, p. 12; January 1913, pp. 5 - 12; February 1913, p. 15.
52
The Champion, January 1913. p. 14. Official correspondence of McBride. No. 77, February 16, 1914.
53
The Champion, September 1913, p. 4; August 1913, p. 4.
54
Ibid., August 1913, p. 4
55
Ibid., August 1912, p. 15; September 1912, p. 20
56
Ibid., January 1913, p. 7.
57
Official Correspondence of McBride. No. 272, Letter from Maria Gordon Grant, February 29, 1912.
Reply March 5, 1912.
15

58

Legal Status of Women, p. 2. (From the edition published in Vancouver in the City Archives of
Vancouver.)
59
The Champion, November 1912, p. 5.
60
Official Correspondence of McBride. No. 97, Letter from Winnifred Bromley-Jubb, January 21, 1913.
61
Journals of the Legislative Assembly (B.C.) (1913), p. 115. Brian Smith, Sir Richard McBride, A Study
in the Conservative Party of British Columbia, M.A. Thesis, 1959, p. 227
62
Official Correspondence of McBride, No. 97, Copy of Resolution and list of the Meetings at which it was
adopted.
63
Victoria Daily Times, May 30, 1913, pp. 1, 17. The Champion, July 1913, pp. 5, 7.
64
Vancouver Daily Province, November 25, 1908, p. 2.
65
E. MacGill, op. cit., p. 147. Journals of the Legislative Assembly (1914), p. 83.
66
Official Correspondence of McBride, No. 97, Several dozen hectographed forms.
67
Ibid., Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees of America, Div. 101, Minute Book, 1913,
9, December, 3 and 4.
68
Official Correspondence of McBride, No. 77. Letter from Methodist Church, British Columbia
Conference, February 16, 1914.
69
The Champion, February 1914, p. 4.
70
Daily Colonist, April 14, 1916, p. 2
71
Ibid., April 14, 1916, p. 2
72
Ibid., April 27, 19196, p. 2. Victoria Daily Times, April 26, 1916, p. 11.
73
Daily Colonist, May 18, 1916, p. 1. Journals of the Legislative Assembly (1916), p. 139.
74
E. MacGill, op. cit., p. 150. See also The Champion, April 1914, p. 5.
75
Victoria Daily Times, March 30, 1917, p. 7. Ibid., April 5, 1917, p. 7. H. MacGill, Social Service in
Vancouver, p. 58.
76
The voting figures are in the Victoria Daily Times, October 19, 1916, p. 16, and the Canadian
Parliamentary Guide, 1917, pp. 433-436. Taking the percentage of Liberal votes to all votes or just to
itself and the Conservative votes, the Spearman test gave values of -.0399 and .1027 and the KruskallWallace tests gave values of .341 and 3.363. None of these values approach the .05 level of
significance.
77
For military/civilian correlations and Presbyterian/Anglican/Methodist correlations see Michael Cramer
“An Analysis of the Results of the Woman’s Suffrage Referendum in British Columbia “(1975).
78
H. MacGill, Social Service in Vancouver, p. 54.
79
Victoria Daily Times, February 21, 1917, p. 7
80
Ibid.

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