The Struggle for Manx Democracy

The Struggle for Manx Democracy

Thu, 17 Nov 2016

Perhaps the most important story of Manx political history has now been published in The Struggle for Manx Democracy by Dr Robert Fyson.

The book covers the period from the achieving of the first public votes on the Island (for the Douglas Commissioners) through to the winning of votes for women in 1881, but the idea for the book began dramatically, with the discovery of a diary which had lain forgotten for over a century...

One day in 2008 John Watterson opened a bag of assorted papers in his late aunt’s house in Northampton. At the bottom he found an apparently unremarkable notebook. As soon as he opened it, he realised he held a hugely important item of Manx history in his hands.

John’s aunt was Margaret Whitehouse, née Brown, and the notebook contained a diary kept by his great-great-grandfather James Brown, founder and editor of the Isle of Man Times, during the seven weeks he spent imprisoned in Castle Rushen for contempt of the House of Keys in the spring of 1864. This diary is a record of one of the most important single episodes in the struggle for democracy on the Isle of Man. 

We in the Island often boast that we are the oldest parliamentary democracy in the world, but in fact the House of Keys was self-selecting until the House of Keys Election Act 1866 brought the rule of the unelected ‘clique’, based in the old capital of Castletown, to an end. 2016 is the 150th anniversary of that Act, and next April the 150th anniversary of our first-ever General Election. Participants in modern Manx elections will do well to remember the efforts of the doughty Victorian campaigners who won them their votes.

In 2013 Culture Vannin commissioned Dr Robert Fyson to write The Struggle for Manx Democracy, since he was perfectly placed to do so, as a former senior history lecturer at Staffordshire University, whose publications and contributions includes The Anglo- Manxman: A Life of A.W. Moore; A New History of the Isle of Man, Vol. 5; and New Manx Worthies.  The book which took three years of research to write covers not only James Brown’s lifetime but also the earlier career of Robert Fargher, founder and proprietor of Mona’s Herald, who was himself was sent to prison in Castle Rushen three times for campaigning for popular elections. The final chapters of the book describe the efforts of the often-overlooked MHK Richard Sherwood towards the introduction of women’s suffrage, in which the Island led the world, and bring the story up to 1919, which for the first time saw universal suffrage for all adults in the Isle of Man.

This is a fascinating, and extensively illustrated, account which should be read by everyone who value their vote – and more importantly, perhaps even more so by those who question the importance of voting at all!

Robert Fyson, The Struggle for Manx Democracy is published by Culture Vannin (272pp). It can be purchased here.