Ballot for the Ladies’ Gallery.

Printed ticket of admission [115 x 92mm], with the House of Commons blindstamp, and countersigned' Kenyon M.P.'

The ticket is countersigned by John Kenyon MP, for Bury, for what was a fairly busy day in the House of Commons of Private Bills, Petitions, Returns and Reports, although the recipient of this card probably heard very little of the proceedings. The Ballot, which incidentally was the only form of gambling allowed in the Houses of Parliament, was instituted in the 1880's as more women, than the forty seats allowed, began to apply to witness debates.

'The Ladies' Gallery created by Barry had windows covered with heavy metal grilles, which made it difficult to see or hear. Millicent Fawcett wrote, "One great discomfort of the grille was that the interstices of the heavy brass work were not large enough to allow the victims who sat behind it to focus... it was like using a gigantic pair of spectacles which did not fit, and made the Ladies' Gallery a grand place for getting headaches." The grilles became both a physical and metaphorical symbol of women's exclusion from Parliament, and later a target of suffragette agitation and were only removed as late as 1917.

This example, printed soon after the death of Queen Victoria, is suitably edged in black. Officially full Mourning was expected until the 6th of March and half-mourning continued until the 16th April 1901 so the House of Commons were still using up their pre-printed stock of cards.