On this day … 2 November 1878

The Preston Chronicle carried a report of a meeting that perfectly illustrates the subordinate position of women in Victorian Preston. It was a meeting at which women should have been centre stage. The reality was so different, and surprising, given the way the report opened:

‘A ladies’ drawing-room Temperance Conference, under the auspices of the British Women’s Temperance Association, was held in the Council Chamber … in connection with the same … There were about seventy ladies present.’

To start with, the meeting was chaired by a man, the Rev H. J. Martyn, and the reporter then devoted nearly six hundred words to the Rev Martyn’s opening address, before a woman got a look in. She was Mrs. Margaret Parker, of Dundee, President of the Woman’s International Christian Temperance Union, and ex-President of the British Women’s Temperance Association, who had come to Preston to drum up support for the association.

No local women were named until, very briefly, more than half way through the lengthy report, and when Mrs Parker asked for information about the work being done by Preston women, it was a Mr Walmsley who replied on their behalf, explaining that an association had been operating in the town for some twelve months.

He thought ‘the Ladies’ Association might consider the propriety of affiliating with that reported by Mrs. Parker at their next meeting’. And the Rev. S. MacNaughton felt ‘they might form a branch that afternoon, and let the Ladies’ Association decide afterwards whether or not they would join it’.

Finally, two women got three brief lines. A Miss Edelston moved, and a Mrs. Walmsley seconded, that the local association be affiliated to the British Women’s Association. The motion was carried unanimously.

Then it was back to the men. A Mr Bradley paid tribute to the chairman, ‘as a strong supporter of the temperance movement’. His tribute was seconded by a Mr Walmsley. Then a Mr T. H. Myres thanked Mrs. Parker, adding: ‘At the same time, however, he must say that he enjoyed a glass of beer himself’.

That evening:

‘… a public meeting was held in the Guild Hall to further the same object. R. Benson, Esq., was in the chair, and there were also on the platform the Rev. H. J. Martyn, the Rev. S. MacNaughton, Captain Graves, Mr. Jesper, Mr. Walmsley, Mr. Duthie, and a number of ladies.’

After Mr Benson had delivered the chairman’s opening address, Mrs Parker addressed the meeting and was followed by a ‘Madame Woyka (a German lady)’ who had travelled to Preston to encourage the Preston women. Madame Woyka defended her right as a woman to address the meeting:

‘Proceeding to remark upon women appearing on public platforms, she denied that it was a new custom, and quoted two Biblical instances of women speaking publicly, instances upon which she founded her reasons for addressing audiences in various parts of the country.’

The Rev. MacNaughton then thanked the two women, the choir, the Mayor for the use of the room for the afternoon meeting, and the chairman for presiding. Captain Greaves, of the 20th Hussars, then urged that ‘before temperance efforts were conducted in an organised manner the women of England should begin in their own houses. Drink was the great curse of the country and the curse of the army, and it behoved them to exert themselves to their utmost to free the nation from the terrible vice’.

Later that week, when the first meeting of the Preston branch of the British Women’s Temperance Association was held, it was a man, a Mr Jesper, who ‘occupied the chair’. The reporter made a note of the people present, who included Mrs Parker and Madame Woytsa, several men, who included ‘Messrs. Bradley, Duthie, Toulmin, &c.’ and finally, ‘a number of ladies’, who were nameless.

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Sources
If you have a Lancashire County Library card, you can read the full reports here (they’re on page two):
https://go.gale.com/ps/navigateToIssue?volume=&loadFormat=page&issueNumber=3430&userGroupName=lancs&inPS=true&mCode=1ZUJ&prodId=BNCN&issueDate=118781102
Mrs Parker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Eleanor_Parker