It is interesting to note how much opinion in certain quarters with regard to Equal Franchise has changed since3 the Prime Minister's intentions were stated last April. This seems largely due, firstly, to the broadcasting of the figures relating to the age distribution of the women to be enfranchised, by which it was shown that two million of the five million will be women over 30, and that only slightly over 400,000 will be of the much criticised age of 21; and also to its having been pointed out that the women to be enfranchised include among their number the great majority of industrially and professionally occupied women…

It is possible that such a Bill might include a clause raising the legal minimum age of marriage to 16 years for both sexes. When the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship recently took a deputation on this subject to the Home Secretary, pointing out that the existence of a legal minimum marriage age of 12 for girls and 14 for boys placed this country among the most backward in the world as regards this point.

I suggest that in order to ensure that the status of a wife should be equal as regards the Income Tax to that of her husband we should continue to demand that the law should be altered to allow for the automatic separate assessment and separate taxation of the incomes of married people, each accepting the liability for his or her share, and dividing equally between them all rebates whether on children or personal allowances. Were this the law, husbands and wives would be on an exactly equal status and the unpaid work of her mother for her children in the home would receive recognition.

The following figures show how rates of taxation would vary according to the proportion of income held by a family of husband and wife and three children where their joint income is £1,000 a year and where it is assumed (for simplicity's sake) that the wife's income is unearned.

If husband pays on whole income the tax paid would be £118.

If husband pays on £900 and his wife pays on £100, tax pad would be £98.

If husband pays on £800 and his wife pays on £200, tax pad would be £85.

If husband pays on £700 and his wife pays on £300, tax pad would be £75.

If husband pays on £500 and his wife pays on £500, tax pad would be £71.

North Kensington's second candidate, Mrs Eva Hubback has been Principal of Morley College for 18 years. She has interested herself in education in its widest aspects, and is an executive committee member of the British Institute for Adult Education. For two of the War Defence Region No 6, and has had wide experience in this form of work, including the vice-chairmanship of the Children's Nutrition Council.

Mrs Eva M. Hubback, Labour LCC member for North Kensington from 1946 until 1949, and principal of Morley College for working men and women, died on Friday in hospital after an operation a few days before.

Daughter of the late Sir Meyer Spielman, Mrs Hubback was born in 1886. She lived at Weigarth Road, NW11.

During her interesting and varied life she won renown as a champion of women's legal rights. She worked hard for women to have the same status as men in the eyes of the law, in ownership and inheritance of property.

She devoted 20 years to the defence of the interests of children of the unemployed, asking for allowances for them under transitional benefit.

Mrs Hubback was educated at St Felix School, Southwald and Newnham College, Cambridge. There she took a first class in Part II of the Economic Tripos in 1908.

She was married three years later. Her husband, Mr. F. W. Hubback was killed in France in 1917.

She was left with three children (two daughters and a son). It was then she started to work for women's rights.

She was a member of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship and for some years between the wars was secretary of the Children's Minimum Committee.

Mrs Hubback was appointed principal of Morley College in 1927 and began to develop courses of university standard for working people at low cost.

During the last war, however, the college was bombed and her dreams faded.

For some years Mrs Hubback was chairman of the Family Endowment Society and of the Neglected Child Committee of the National Council of Social Service. For many years she worked closely with Lord Simon of Whthenshawe and published in collaboration with him "Education in Citizenship" On her own she published recently "The Population of Britain".

Mrs Hubback, a woman of amazing breadth of interest, was co-opted to the LCC Education Committee after her defeat in the recent North Kensington LCC elections. Her authoritative contributions to education problems will be sadly missed at County Hall.

Eva Marian Spielmann was born in Paddington, London, on 13th April 1886, the second of four children born to Gertrude Emily Raphael and Meyer Adam Spielmann, a stockbroker and member of the Stock Exchange.

Eva's father, Meyer Adam Spielmann (1856-1936) was born in North London, the son of Adam Spielmann (1813-1869), a Prussian-born banker of Jewish origin. On 17th June 1884, in Kensington, London, Meyer Adam Spielmann married Gertrude Emily Raphael (born 1864, Hamburg, Germany), the eldest daughter of Charlotte Melchior and George Charles Raphael, a merchant banker based in London.

The union of Meyer Adam Spielmann and Gertrude Emily Raphael produced 4 children:

(1) Edgar Raphael Meyer Spielmann (born 22nd March 1885, Bayswater, London - died 11th May 1978, Kensington, London), who became a stockbroker like his father.

(2) Eva Marian Spielmann (born 13tth April 1886, 23 Oxford Square, Paddington, London - died 15th July 1949, Edgware General Hospital, Hendon, London).

(3) Claude Meyer Spielmann (born 19th April 1889, 23 Oxford Square, Paddington, London - died 4th April, Kensington, London)

(4) Winifred Jessie Gertrude Spielmann (born 21st November 1898, 23 Oxford Square, Paddington, London – died 14th December 1978, Camden, London). Married Ralph Oliver Raphael (1892-1945) in 1929. Divorced before 1939. Winifred was a qualified Occupational Psychologist and at the time of the 1939 General Register was working as the "Head of a Personnel Section" at the National Institute of Industrial Psychology.

At the time of the 1891 census, 4-year-old Eva Spielmann was being cared for by nurses and nursemaids at ‘Castle Hill', Englefield Green, Egham, Surrey, the country mansion of her maternal grandfather George Charles Raphael, a wealthy banker who was residing at his London residence at 37 Portland Place when the 1891 census was taken.

When the 1901 census was taken, Eve Spielmann, now 14 years of age, was back home living with her parents and two younger siblings at 23 Oxford Square, Paddington, London. The Spielmann household was staffed by six domestic servants including a cook and four maids.

At the time of the 1911 census, 24-year-old Eva Spielmann was visiting a holiday cottage in the Welsh village of Llandygái, near the city of Bangor. The house was being rented by two university lecturers – 26-year-old Francis William Hubback from the University of Liverpool and 24-year-old David Randall Pye from the University of Oxford. [D. R. Pye had trained as a mechanical engineer and served in the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force during the First World War. Pye was involved in the planning of aerial attacks on dams in Nazi Germany during the Second World War Viz. ‘The Dam Busters']. Later that year, on 31st August 1911, Eva Spielmann married the Liverpool University lecturer Francis William Hubback in Paddington. Francis William Hubback had been born in Rock Ferry, Cheshire, on 19th April 1884, the youngest child and son of Mary Page Ingram and John Henry Hubback, a London-born corn merchant who had settled in Cheshire after his marriage in 1870. Francis Hubback had attended Westminster School and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge University. When he married Eva Spielmann in 1911, Francis William Hubback was an ‘Assistant Lecturer in Classics' at Liverpool University. Before the First World War, Francis William Hubback worked as a lecturer for the Workers' Educational Association at Manchester University.

The union of Eva Marian Spielmann and Francis William Hubback produced three children: Diana Mary Hubback (born 26th November 1912, Kensington, London), Rachel Shena Hubback (born 28th September 1914, Hendon, N.W. London), and David Francis Hubback (born 2nd March 1916, Paddington). After the birth of their three children, Eva and her husband made their home at ‘Threeways',19 Wellgarth Road, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London NW11.

During the First World War, Francis William Hubback enlisted in the City of London Rifles of the London Regiment. Second Lieutenant F.W. Hubback saw action on the Western Front in France. During heavy shelling near Saulty in Northern France, 2nd Lieutenant Hubback was badly wounded. On 12th February 1917, Second Lieutenant Francis William Hubback died of his wounds. He was 32 years old at the time of his death, leaving effects valued at less than £17. His widow, Mrs Eva Hubback was left a widow with three young children under 5.

When the 1921 Census was taken, 35-year-old Mrs Eva Hubback was visiting the social reformer Eleanor Rathbone (1872-1946) at the latter's house "Oakfield", Penny Lane, Toxteth Park, Liverpool, which Miss Rathbone shared with Elizabeth Macadam (1871-1948) a university lecturer. Also living with Miss Rathbone was a 39-year-old widow named Mrs Annie Farup, described on the 1921 census form as "Secretary" of the "Liverpool Women Citizen's Association". Eva Hubback is recorded on the census return as "Political Secretary" of the "National Union of Equal Citizenship". Miss Rathbone's household was completed by three female domestic servants.

The General Register of 1939 lists Eva M. Hubback as one of ten people residing at "Broomcroft", Wilmslow Road, Manchester, the home of Sir Ernest Simon and his wife Lady Shena Simon. Sir Ernest Simon (1879-1960), an engineer by profession, was a former Lord Mayor of Manchester and had served as Liberal M.P for Manchester Withington. In 1935, Simon had collaborated with Eva Hubback in authoring a book entitled "Training for Citizenship". Also staying with the Simons at "Broomcroft" was the British journalist and author John Lawrence Hammond (1872-1949) his wife, Barbara Hammond (1873–1961). John and Barbara Hammond had co-authored a number of books on social history and politics, including "The Age of the Chartists 1832-1854" (1930) and "James Stansfeld: A Victorian Champion of Sex Equality" (1932). On the General Register of 1939, Eva M. Hubback, a 53-year-old widow, is described as a "Principal of College". [Eva Hubback had been appointed Principal of Morley College, ‘London's Evening University for Working Men and Women', in 1927.]

Mrs Eva Hubback appeared to be an energetic and vigorous woman even in her early sixties, going for early morning swims in the sea during winter months. Early in July 1949, Mrs Hubback collapsed suddenly and was rushed to Edgware General Hospital for an emergency operation. She seemed to be recovering, but in the early hours of Friday, 15th July 1949, a few days after the operation, Mrs Eva Hubback died. She was 63 years old at the time of her death.

The National Probate Calendar records that Eva Marian Hubback, a widow of Threeways,19 Wellgarth Road, Hampstead, Middlesex, died at the Edgware General Hospital, Hendon, Middlesex, on 15th July 1949. She left effects valued at £19,702 and the executors of her will were named as her brother, Edgar Raphael Meyer Spielmann, stockbroker, her married daughter, Mrs Diana Mary Hopkinson, her younger sister, Winifred Jessie Gertrude Raphael (formerly Winifred Spielmann, already divorced from her late husband, Ralph Oliver Raphael), and her son, David Francis Hubback, a civil servant.

Mrs Eva Hubback's Children

Diana Mary Hubback married David Martin Hopkinson, a "Publisher's Representative" and member of a well-known family firm of publishers (Martin Hopkinson & Co.), in 1939. The couple had three children. Mrs Diana Mary Hopkinson died in West Surrey on 19th January 2007, aged 94.

In 1939, Rachel Shena Hubback, Mrs Eva Hubback's second eldest child, was working as a "Labour Manageress" and was living at her mother's house in Wellgarth Road, Hampstead. In 1966, Rachel Hubback became the Director of Camden Council's Social Service Voluntary Worker's Bureau (now called the Volunteer Centre, Camden). She retired as Director of Camden's Volunteer Centre in 1977. Apparently, Rachel Hubback never married. She died in Warwickshire in 2001, at the age of 87.

David Francis Hubback, Eva's youngest child and only son, married Ela?s Judith Williams, a school teacher, and daughter of the international lawyer Sir John Fischer Williams, in 1939. The couple had three children. David Francis Hubback, a former civil servant in the Ministry of Mines, died at University College Hospital, London, on 17th March 1991, aged 75.