Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/151

 1832 was passed. By the wording of that Act statutory disability was first placed upon women through the insertion of the words 'male person.' Before 1832 women were not prevented by any definite statement of an Act of Parliament from taking part in an election, if properly qualified. There is considerable doubt as to whether any woman did actually vote as a matter of right before this period. In the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century the number of male electors was very small, and the difficulties of an election, carried out openly and without the protection the Ballot Act has since afforded, was enough to disconcert all but the very boldest, and make them timid about using their privilege as electors.

In the year 1850 an Act of Parliament known as Lord Brougham's Act was passed, which provided that in all Acts of Parliament 'words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed to include the feminine unless the contrary is expressly provided.' When a further extension of the franchise took place in 1867, the word 'man' was employed in the Act, instead of the words 'male person' used in the wording of the Act of 1832. This gave heart to the woman suffragists, who interpreted the new Reform Act in the light of Lord Brougham's liberal measure. Thousands of women all over the country, but notably