Election Excitement April 1922 Back to the Main Historical Society page
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Election Excitement April 1922


Barwicker No. 118
June 2015


In April 1922 one of the youngest female councillors in the country was elected to Tadcaster Rural District Council. She was Miss Violet Young of New Zealand, Lotherton-cum-Aberford.
Losing out the first time she stood for the Council did not stop Miss Young trying again. The newspaper report states that Miss Young looked 'as if she would be much more at home with the amateur concert party of which she is a member, than among the staid and elderly folk usually found upon rural public bodies '.
Miss Young's father was an antique dealer and also a councillor and had been returned unopposed by Aberford itself and thus both father and his daughter would be together on the Council as well as on the Tadcaster Board of Guardians. Mr Young was also Chairman of the Aberford Parish Council. Ninety one percent of the electorate voted in the recent elections.
Miss Young stood as an Independent Candidate and refused to have the assistance of any outside helpers or cars. She didn't even have a Committee room but relied solely upon help from her family. She personally canvassed nearly every house in the township. She delivered three election addresses which were typed out at home; one being a questionnaire about the council itself, another being 'a poetic effort which was a skit on the election' and the third containing election cartoons drawn by one of her sisters.
As well as wanting to show that she was progressive, her main focus was on economy. She held her father in high regard and was keen to emulate his energy whilst at the same time be her own person. She stated she had 'enjoyed the election campaign and was now prepared to take her duties very seriously, and settle down to work hard and to try and so some real good'.
PAULINE ROBSON


Source: Yorkshire Evening Post 6th April 1922.

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