ABSTRACT
Nowhere are the ambiguities of female political culture in Britain more pronounced than in women’s relationship with Parliament in the nineteenth century. For some historians the concealment of women visiting the House of Commons ‘emphasised how Parliament before 1918 was an exclusively male environment.’ 1 However, the efforts to circumvent the restrictions imposed on women observing the proceedings of the House demonstrate that this may be too simple a conclusion to draw from the evidence. Indeed, it could be said that female subversion of political space in Parliament often gave middle-class women greater privileges than other visitors to the Commons.
