BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

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Women assumed a proportionately greater role at the Habitation
level.
There they held 372 positions as Ruling Councillors while 48
assumed the title of Dame Presidents.
If the above categories are
grouped together under the general
heading of Ruling Councillor, the
women constitute 25 percent of the total.
If the position of Dame
President is treated
separately, the figure declines moderately to 22.8
percent.
The category of Dame President occupied a somewhat ambiguous
status.
By turns, it represented either a woman of rather substantial
local
prestige assuming a purely ceremonial role or, alternatively, a
woman who acted in one of three capacities: chief officer, co-director
with or the immediate successor to the Ruling Councillor.
Local
Habitation policy and the woman involved largely deter­
mined the role played by the Dame President.
Consequently she might be
classified either with the Ruling Councillor or in a distinct unit.
Generally her social status was equal to or above that of the Ruling
Councillor.
For our purposes the identification of the position of
Dame President with that of Ruling Councillor is perhaps more useful,
although there is little statistical distinction between the two
calculations.
Not surprisingly, it is at the level of Honorary Secretary that
women achieve their greatest representation as officers.
They occupied
450 places or just under thirty percent of all persons named to the
position.
Overall, women appear, particularly in the 1890's and beyond,
to be assuming the predominant role in Primrose League activities.