Conversations with Parliament: Women and the Politics of Pressure in 19th‐Century England

In the long 19th century, women seized new opportunities offered by parliament and played a growing role in public politics long before well‐known campaigns for the right to vote. As parliamentary politics grew more restrictive and formalised, women utilised older forms of interaction with the state and occupied spaces that were not explicitly barred to them. By looking at women's appearances before royal commissions and select committees, or women's participation in petitioning, this essay argues that women successfully pressured parliament and won their place in the blue books of government long before their names appeared on the electoral registers or in the columns of Hansard .