Predictably, assaults such as the case of Fanny Elizabeth Bull and Catherine Scragg led to bursts of moral outrage in the newspapers of the time and calls for the railway companies to provide Ladies Only compartments on their trains.

While most railway companies trialled ‘Ladies only’ compartments it wasn’t a great success.

Women tended not to use them – after all an isolated woman in a ladies only compartment was still at risk of attack from a predatory man who jumped into the compartment at the last moment.

The railway companies were not keen to provide them – more men than women travelled, especially on commuter services – meaning providing dedicated women’s compartments reduced the seat availability on the train.

At busy times, quite often men would simply just use the ladies only compartment, giving the railway staff an extra problem to deal with

There were also women who refused to use them at a time when women’s clothing could be voluminous, and when women routinely carried extra paraphernalia such as parasols as they found the ladies only compartments too crowded

I suspect the above article may have been planted by one of the railway companies to discourage the adoption of ladies only compartments but it does show how they were perceived as inconvenient and annoying.

And regular travelers were annoyed by them.

The correspondence columns of the London Times in the 1870s and 80s contain seemingly continual complaints (by men) of them being unable to find an empty seat while there were unused ‘Ladies Only’ compartment. (Unfortunately, they are still copyright, I won’t reproduce any examples, but if you are particularly interested I’ve provided some citations via a link)

It’s worth noting that when, in the early 1890’s, cycling became common women were often shouted at when riding alone leading to the rise of female only cycling clubs. The whole problem was really the result of Victorian Britain being both a highly asymmetric society as well as highly patriarchal, believing women should be closeted at home while men got on with ‘important things’…