This article from Dr Kathryn Rix, Assistant Editor of our House of Commons, 1832-1945 section, looks at the provision made for women to witness debates in the temporary chamber used by the Commons between 1835 and 1852.

In the chamber used by the House of Commons before the catastrophic fire of October 1834, women – officially barred from the chamber itself since February 1778 – had been able to listen to debates through the ‘ventilator’ in the attic above St Stephen’s Chapel. In this cramped and uncomfortable space, a small number of women could look down into the chamber and listen to debates. An account in 1832 described

a circular shed of sixteen sides or panels … a small oblong square aperture in every panel serves to admit the heads of sixteen anxious females who creep, unseen and unheard, to see and hear. … Green baize benches surround the shed, and afford repose to the wearied forms of dowagers and damsels.

After the fire, many of the old chamber’s features were reproduced when MPs moved into their temporary home in the former House of Lords at the beginning of 1835. It was obvious, though, that the unusual means by which women had accessed debates would not be directly replicated in the temporary Commons, and initially, no provision was made for female spectators. However, MPs realised that their temporary relocation offered an opportunity for experimenting with new features, which resulted in changes such as a dedicated reporters’ gallery and the construction of a second division lobby.

In keeping with this, on 16 July 1835, George Grantley Berkeley, Whig MP for Gloucestershire West, successfully moved for a select committee to consider adapting part of the strangers’ gallery in the temporary Commons for the use of ladies and making similar provision in the new House of Commons. He dismissed the ‘erroneous opinion’ that there was ‘too great interference of ladies already in the political world’ and asked whether anyone would ‘assert that the female portion of the population does not contain a vast share of the better intellect of the country’. He noted women’s access to debates in the pre-fire Commons and urged that they be given ‘a less lofty but more comfortable accommodation’ in the temporary chamber. He also suggested that it would be beneficial if, as some predicted, women’s presence prompted ‘the language of the House’ to ‘assume a softer, a more poetical, and a more civil style’.

The committee’s report less than two weeks later recommended that not more than a quarter of the strangers’ gallery should be partitioned off before the start of the next session to accommodate 24 ladies. It also stipulated that future provision should be made for 40 ladies in the new House of Commons. Berkeley’s motion in early August 1835 that the Commons agree to the committee’s report was narrowly rejected, by 83 votes to 86. Undaunted, in May 1836 he moved that the plan for a ladies’ gallery drawn up by the architect Sir Robert Smirke should be carried out ‘as speedily as possible … at such hours as may not interfere with the business of the House’. MPs who supported Berkeley’s motion dismissed concerns that there was anything ‘improper’ about ladies listening to Commons debates. The Radical MP for Wigan, Richard Potter, noted that

during the Session of 1833 and 1834, he had repeatedly observed hon. Members take their wives and daughters into the ventilator, particularly when subjects of importance were under discussion, and he felt convinced they would not have done so had they supposed the least injurious consequences to have followed.

Among these wives and daughters was Harriet Grote, wife of the MP for London, who recorded that ‘one hears very well, but seeing is difficult, being distant from the members, and the apertures in the ventilator being small and grated’.

Less convinced about the need to provide for the ladies was the Wolverhampton MP Charles Villiers, who questioned whether there was any demand for it, as he was unaware of any petitions on the subject. He also queried how the limited number of places would be allocated. Berkeley’s motion passed by 132 votes to 90, but further progress was scuppered when the Commons voted in August 1836 against granting £400 to fund the work. Although only 70 MPs were present, 42 of whom opposed the grant, this occasion saw the fullest debate on the matter. Members of the Melbourne ministry spoke on either side of the question, with the future prime minister Viscount Palmerston among those backing Berkeley, on the grounds that ‘the ladies … took very considerable interest’ in Commons proceedings.

His ministerial colleague Sir John Hobhouse was among the opponents of a ladies’ gallery, considering it ‘a very bad joke’. Not only might ‘the peace and comfort of men’s homes’ be disturbed by women wishing to discuss the issues debated in the Commons, but women’s presence in the House would be ‘most indecent’, as ‘in the course of a debate it was impossible to prevent allusions from being made which no man could wish his mother, sister, wife, or daughter to hear’.

Such objections were ridiculed by the Sheffield MP James Silk Buckingham, for whom they confirmed the oft-repeated accusation that the Commons ‘was at least half a century behind the rest of the community’. He protested that after hearing Hobhouse’s speech,

one would think, first, that the women of England were at present wholly ignorant, and wholly indifferent to, the public affairs of their country; and next, that by the simple act of admitting some twenty or thirty ladies, chiefly, perhaps, the relatives of Members of that House, occasionally to hear the debates – the whole of the females would be converted into mere politicians – would cease to become good wives and good mothers – and be so many firebrands casting nothing but discord into every circle of society.

Berkeley tried a different approach the following year, moving for an address asking the king to give directions to carry out the select committee’s recommendations. His motion was seconded by William Chetwynd, who rebuffed the idea that ‘the presence of the ladies would lengthen the debate, and induce Members to enlarge on subjects, and cause considerable delay’, arguing that ‘hon. Members would be less likely to talk nonsense in the presence of ladies’. However, they were defeated by 92 votes to 116.

No further debates on the ladies’ gallery have been traced in Hansard, but there were evidently behind the scenes negotiations to enable its construction, and in March 1842, Berkeley was rewarded for his perseverance in securing their gallery with the presentation ‘by ladies’ of a piece of silver. The gallery appears to have been built during the parliamentary recess of October 1841 to February 1842. In late February 1842, the Court Journal recorded the ‘little known’ fact that ‘a small enclosure behind the strangers’ gallery has been erected … for the accommodation of political ladies desirous of hearing the debates’. Rather than the 24 spaces for women recommended by the 1835 committee, it had ‘not room for more than 12 or 13 of the fairer sex’, who could ‘peep totally unobserved’ through ‘a space about the breadth of a hand’. Access was controlled by written ‘orders’ signed by the serjeant-at-arms. After a seven year absence, women again had a space from which they could witness the proceedings of the Commons.

Among this gallery’s earliest occupants were the wives of one future Conservative prime minister and three future Liberal prime ministers: Lady Stanley (later Countess of Derby), Catherine Gladstone, Viscountess Palmerston and Lady Frances Russell. They attended to hear the debate on the corn laws on 14 February 1842, in which Lord John Russell and William Gladstone spoke. Catherine’s account suggested that conditions were as confined and awkward as those in the ventilator had been, recording that ‘I found myself nearly upon Lady John Russell’s lap!!’ Frances Russell told her that her heart was beating in anticipation of Russell’s speech, and ‘she was all attention’ when Russell began. The ladies’ gallery does, however, appear to have had satisfactory acoustics, as Catherine recorded that when Gladstone spoke, ‘we heard him very well – he was very rapid – without the smallest hesitation throughout’.

A later visitor to the ladies’ gallery in the temporary chamber was Charlotte Brontë, whose publisher George Smith took her there in June 1850. He recollected in his autobiography that ‘the Ladies’ Gallery of those days was behind the Strangers’ Gallery, and from it one could see the eyes of the ladies above, nothing more’. Brontë evidently found her visit to the Commons interesting, as when Smith went to find her, thinking she had indicated that she wanted to leave, she told him that ‘I made no signal. I did not wish to come away’.

Just as they had been in the ventilator, women were permitted to access debates, but kept out of sight of Members of Parliament. The grudging and uncomfortable way in which they were accommodated was encapsulated by the Birmingham Journal’s description of the ladies’ gallery of the temporary chamber as ‘the sweltering little stewpan assigned females by the gallantry of the British House of Commons’, not what Berkeley had anticipated when he lobbied for their inclusion. The nickname given to the ladies’ gallery in the new House of Commons – ‘the cage’ – showed that matters improved little after 1852.

Further reading

Sarah Richardson, ‘Parliament as Viewed Through a Woman’s Eyes: Gender and Space in the 19th-Century Commons’, Parliamentary History 38:1 (2019), 119-34

Sarah Richardson, The Political Worlds of Women: Gender and Politics in Nineteenth Century Britain (2013)

I am very grateful to Dr Mari Takayanagi for drawing to my attention the subtle differences between Catherine Gladstone’s account of her visit to the Ladies’ Gallery as published in Mary Drew, Catherine Gladstone (1919) and her original entry in her diary, held at Gladstone’s Library, GLA/GGA/4/9/1/10, and have revised this article thanks to her help.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on the Victorian Commons website on 8 March 2024, written by Dr Kathryn Rix.