The 1918 Representation of the People Act - History Learning Site Home » The Role of British Women » The 1918 Representation of the People Act The 1918 Representation of the People Act Citation: C N Trueman "The 1918 Representation of the People Act" historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 17 Mar 2015. 16 Aug 2016. The 1918 Representation of the People Act The 1918 Representation of the People Act was the start of female suffrage in Great Britain. The bill was passed by an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons (385 for to 55 against) – an element of support that surprised the Suffragettes and other suffragist movements. The 1918 Representation of the People Act gave women of property over the age of 30 the right to vote – not all women, therefore, could vote – but it was a major start. Why did the House of Commons give such overwhelming support to the bill when just four years earlier it had been apparently so hostile to female suffrage?

A general assumption is that the act was a ‘reward’ for the vital work done by women during World War One. Before the war, society had been suitably angered and horrified by the acts of the Suffragettes – arson, vandalism, attacking politicians, the Derby of 1913 etc. Parliament rationalised on the following: how could women be given such a right when they could not be trusted to act decently? During the war, Britain had experienced a potentially disastrous munitions shortage and this was only solved by the work done by women in munitions factories. Women had also driven buses, worked on surface jobs in coal mines etc. Vital work was also done on farms to keep Britain well stocked with food. This assumption has now been challenged as not being as accurate as was once thought. Women in France did equally as important work in World War One but did not receive the right to vote after the war. Why? One of the reasons put forward for this is that there was no pre-war suffragist movement in France – and certainly not the militancy of the Suffragettes.

An argument put forward for the inclusion of a female suffrage section in the 1918 Representation of the People Act is that the work of the Suffragettes and the suffragist movements pre-1914 had been important. While the Suffragettes had shocked society (both male and female), no-one was keen to return to the violence of pre-1914 Britain, a nation exhausted by war. Therefore, the role of the Suffragettes may have been far more important than was originally thought. Britain was shocked by the violence of the Russian Revolution – could it risk such social disorder here? If the Suffragettes re-started their campaign, where would it end? Could the government risk taking such a gamble? Many women who had done such valuable work during the war, had now by 1918 been made redundant or were being pressurised into returning to their old employment – invariably domestic work. How could the government gamble that these women would not join the Suffragettes, thus strengthening their numbers and engage in violent activities (even more violent that pre-1914)? Once society went into a spiral of violence, how could it be contained? So why did the bill pass with such a huge majority?

Did men in the House of Commons suddenly convert to the cause of the suffragist movement? Many MP’s did believe that some reform was inevitable and that by passing the female suffrage section of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, it would keep the suffragists happy but also delay more radical reform – such as full and equal voting rights for men and women. A general view was that such equality could be delayed by up to thirty years if the 1918 bill was passed with a limited female suffrage section in. The bill received support from the Conservative Party because their research had shown that in 142 constituencies, 98 supported women getting the right to vote and only 44 were against the principal. If this support was true over the whole of the country’s constituencies, then the party had to support female suffrage or potentially face the consequences at the general election. While the suffragist movement welcomed the 1918 Representation of the People Act, it was, in fact, a remarkably conservative measure.

Therefore, when the ‘small print’ was read, Conservative MP’s and those in other parties that opposed the issue of female suffrage, may well have seen the act as a success in that it could have gone a lot further. The act only enfranchised women over 30. Many of the women who had worked in the fields and in munition factories were under 30 and therefore did not get the right to vote. There was a belief among politicians that women over 30 were more able to understand the intricacies of politics and that they would be less likely to support radical ideas. It was also reckoned that women over thirty would be more likely to be married with children – also making them less likely to belong to radical movements with radical ideas. Ironically, those who had been the main supporters of the Suffragettes pre-1914 were also excluded. Educated middle-class women had gone into white-collar work after 1920 and many lived in rented property away from their parents as a sign of their independence. Therefore they were not property owners and did not qualify to vote in general elections The bill passed the House of Lords with similar ease despite its reputation for being anti-female suffrage. Why?

The prominent lord, Lord Curzon, was president of the National League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage. He was expected to lead the campaign in the Lords to defeat the female suffrage section in the 1918 Representation of the People Act. In fact, Curzon had made it plain that he did not want to have a clash with the Commons and he stated that he would not oppose the bill. Other members of the Lords seemed to lose heart over his decision not to act as their spokesman and the Lords voted for the bill by 134 votes for to 71 against. After being passed by both Commons and Lords, the bill only needed the Royal Ascent from George V. This it received as a failure to give it would have led to a huge constitutional crisis. It is also possible that advisors to George V made it clear that the bill only had a limited impact where female suffrage was concerned. The 1918 Representation of the People Act increased the electorate to about 21 million. 8.4 million were women. Therefore the act gave women a 40% ‘stake’ in elections.

About 22% of women 30 years of age and above were excluded from the right to vote as they were not property owners. These were women who were invariably working class. The tendency to think that many of the newly enfranchised women were conservative by nature and Conservative politically, seems to be true. Research on voting patterns in the 1920’s does indicate that women did tend to vote for the Conservatives. At the time the 1918 Representation of the People Act seemed a major victory for the suffragist movements. Millicent Fawcett called the enactment of the act the greatest moment in her life. A victory party was held by suffragist societies at the Queen’s Hall in March 1918. Having witnessed in one act a jump from 0 to 8.4 million in terms of the number of women who could vote, many did see the act as a victory. However, there were women who still saw the act as a betrayal as it still classed them as second class citizens to men.

The 1918 Representation of the People Act gave all men over the age of 21 the right to vote (and aged 19 if the men had been on active service in the armed forces). Therefore, politically women were still not the equal to men in Britain even after the 1918 act. Women achieved full equality regarding suffrage in 1928. BBC - Higher Bitesize History - Why women got the vote : Revision, Page2 Home > History > British suffrage movement > Why women got the vote History Why women got the vote Page Next Why some women gained the vote in 1918 The Representation of People Act became law in February 1918. From that point on women over 30, who were occupiers of property or married to occupiers, were entitled to vote. This was seen as a major success for women's suffrage and was also popular with the general public. The Act was not such a success for women under 30. They would have to wait another 10 years before they received the same rights. The success, albeit limited, of women's suffrage in 1918 can be attributed to a number of factors.

War work The remarkable success of the thousands of women who entered the workplace to do the jobs usually done by men won them considerable respect and admiration. Commonly referred to as the 'weaker sex', women had proved themselves to be every bit the equal of men. Trends towards democratic reform From the turn of the nineteenth century, political parties such as the Liberals and Labour favoured extending the franchise to sections of the population that were excluded at the time. Women were one such section. Before the war started the issue had been debated in Parliament and there was growing support for granting women the vote. Political recognition of the important role women played during the war further strengthened their case. Historians still debate which factors were more or less important. The cumulative effect was the recognition of women's political rights in the Representation of People Act. It ought to be borne in mind, though, that this was limited female franchise. Full adult suffrage was not achieved until Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government passed the Equal Franchise Bill in 1928. From that date, all adults regardless of gender were entitled to the vote once they reached 21 years of age.

Page Women get the vote - UK Parliament Women get the vote Women and the Lords Women get the vote During 1916-1917, the House of Commons Speaker, James William Lowther, chaired a conference on electoral reform which recommended limited women's suffrage. Influential consideration Only 58% of the adult male population was eligible to vote before 1918. An influential consideration, in addition to the suffrage movement and the growth of the Labour Party, was the fact that only men who had been resident in the country for 12 months prior to a general election were entitled to vote. This effectively disenfranchised a large number of troops who had been serving overseas in the war. With a general election imminent, politicians were persuaded to extend the vote to all men and some women at long last. Representation of the People Act 1918 In 1918 the Representation of the People Act was passed which allowed women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote. Although 8.5 million women met this criteria, it only represented 40 per cent of the total population of women in the UK.

The same act abolished property and other restrictions for men, and extended the vote to all men over the age of 21. Additionally, men in the armed forces could vote from the age of 19. The electorate increased from eight to 21 million, but there was still huge inequality between women and men. Equal Franchise Act 1928 It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over 21 were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to 15 million. History of Women's Suffrage | Scholastic.com Women's Suffrage From Grolier The struggle to achieve equal rights for women is often thought to have begun, in the English-speaking world, with the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). During the 19th century, as male suffrage was gradually extended in many countries, women became increasingly active in the quest for their own suffrage. Not until 1893, however, in New Zealand, did women achieve suffrage on the national level.

Australia followed in 1902, but American, British, and Canadian women did not win the same rights until the end of World War I. The United States The demand for the enfranchisement of American women was first seriously formulated at the Seneca Falls Convention (1848). After the Civil War, agitation by women for the ballot became increasingly vociferous. In 1869, however, a rift developed among feminists over the proposed 15th Amendment, which gave the vote to black men. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others refused to endorse the amendment because it did not give women the ballot. Other suffragists, however, including Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, argued that once the black man was enfranchised, women would achieve their goal. As a result of the conflict, two organizations emerged. Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association to work for suffrage on the federal level and to press for more extensive institutional changes, such as the granting of property rights to married women. Stone created the American Woman Suffrage Association, which aimed to secure the ballot through state legislation.

In 1890 the two groups united under the name National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In the same year Wyoming entered the Union, becoming the first state with general women's suffrage (which it had adopted as a territory in 1869). As the pioneer suffragists began to withdraw from the movement because of age, younger women assumed leadership roles. One of the most politically astute was Carrie Chapman Catt, who was named president of NAWSA in 1915. Another prominent suffragist was Alice Paul. Forced to resign from NAWSA because of her insistence on the use of militant direct-action tactics, Paul organized the National Woman's Party, which used such strategies as mass marches and hunger strikes. Perseverance on the part of both organizations eventually led to victory. On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment granted the ballot to American women. Great Britain In Great Britain the cause began to attract attention when the philosopher John Stuart Mill presented a petition in Parliament calling for inclusion of women's suffrage in the Reform Act of 1867.

In the same year Lydia Becker (1827 –90) founded the first women's suffrage committee, in Manchester. Other committees were quickly formed, and in 1897 they united as the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, with Millicent Garret Fawcett (1847 –1929) as president. Like their American counterparts, the British suffragists struggled to overcome traditional values and prejudices. Frustrated by the prevailing social and political stalemate, some women became more militant. Emmeline Pankhurst, assisted by her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, founded the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903. Her followers, called "suffragettes," heckled politicians, practiced civil disobedience, and were frequently arrested for inciting riots. When World War I started, the proponents of women's suffrage ceased their activities and supported the war effort. In February 1918 women over the age of 30 received the right to vote. Suffrage rights for men and women were equalized in 1928.

Other Countries European countries such as Finland (1906), Norway (1913), and Denmark and Iceland (1915) granted women the vote early in the 20th century. Other continental powers were quick to accord women the right to vote at the end of World War I. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Netherlands granted suffrage in 1917; Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Sweden in 1918; and Germany and Luxembourg in 1919. Spain extended the ballot to women in 1931, but France waited until 1944 and Belgium, Italy, Romania, and Yugoslavia until 1946. Switzerland finally gave women the vote in 1971, and women remained disenfranchised in Liechtenstein until 1984. In Canada women won the vote in Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan in 1916; after federal suffrage was achieved in 1918, the other provinces followed suit, the last being Quebec in 1940.

Among the Latin American countries, national women's suffrage was granted in 1929 in Ecuador, 1932 in Brazil, 1939 in El Salvador, 1942 in the Dominican Republic, 1945 in Guatemala, and 1946 in Argentina. In India during the period of British rule, women were enfranchised on the same terms as men under the Government of India Act of 1935; following independence, the Indian Constitution, adopted in 1949 and inaugurated in 1950, established adult suffrage. In the Philippines women received the vote in 1937, in Japan in 1945, in China in 1947, and in Indonesia in 1955. In African countries men and women have generally received the vote at the same time, as in Liberia (1947), Uganda (1958), and Nigeria (1960). In many Middle Eastern countries universal suffrage was acquired after World War II.

In some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, there is no suffrage at all, and in others, such as Kuwait, it is very limited and excludes women completely. Bibliography: Buechler, S. M., Women's Movements in the United States (1990); DuBois, E. C., Feminism and Suffrage (1978); Flanz, G. R., Comparative Women's Rights and Political Participation in Europe (1984); Flexner, E., Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, rev. ed. (1975; repr. 1996); Frost, E., and Cullen-Dupont, K., Women's Suffrage in America (1992); Green, E. C., Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question (1997); Holton, S., Feminism and Democracy: Women's Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900 –1918 (1986); Kraditor, A.

S., The Idea of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890 –1920 (1965); Pankhurst, Sylvia, The Suffragette Movement (1931; repr. 1971); Smith, Harold L., The British Women's Suffrage Campaign, 1866 –1928 (1998); Solomon, M. M., ed., Voice of Their Own: The Woman Suffrage Press, 1840 –1910 (1991); Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, et al., eds., The History of Woman Suffrage, 6 vols. (1881; repr. 1971); Weatherford, Doris, A History of the American Suffragist Movement (1998); Wheeler, M. S., ed., One Woman One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement (1995). A group of women watching as Governor Edwin P. Morrow of Kentucky signs the 19th Amendment.

Photo: Library of Congress Women's History Timeline - Topic Search | Women's History Timeline - Topic Search Women's History Timeline - Topic Search International Women’s History 1791: French activist Olympia de Gouges publishes Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (“Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the [Female] Citizen”), in which she argues that women are citizens as much as are men. She goes to the guillotine in 1793. 1804: The Napoleonic Code of France considers women—like criminals, children, and the insane—to be legal minors. A woman's husband controls her property and, in the case of divorce, gets the children. 1817: The South African warrior queen Mmanthatisi becomes the leader of the Tlokwa (a southern Sotho group). She plans military strategy and leads the nation to a new homeland in Lesotho. 1862: In Sweden, single women who pay taxes win the right to vote in municipal elections. 1865: The University of Zürich becomes the first European university to admit women.

1868: In Thailand, Amdang Munan refuses to marry the man her parents picked for her. She prevails upon the king to rule that women may choose their own husbands. 1869: Married women in Britain gain the right to own property. 1872: In Japan, primary education for girls as well as boys is required by law. 1893: Largely through the efforts of suffragist Kate Sheppard, New Zealand becomes the first country to grant women the right to vote. 1905: Mohtaram Eskandari starts the Union of Patriotic Women, Iran's first organization for women. Religious leaders break up the first meeting and burn some of the women alive. 1906: Women in Finland win the right to vote. 1908: The government of Iran institutes a plan to improve women's literacy. 1913: Norwegian women win the right to vote. 1918: Canadian and British women are granted the right to vote, although in Great Britain a woman must be over age 30. 1930: White South African women get the right to vote.

1932: Women of Brazil and Thailand are granted the right to vote. 1933: Portugal's new constitution specifically denies women's equal rights. 1937: Women in the Philippines get the right to vote. 1946: Sudan's first modern women's organization, the Sudanese Women's League, is founded. 1947: The new Japanese constitution guarantees women's equality. 1948: In the newly created countries of Israel and South Korea, women win the right to vote. 1949: Argentinian Eva Perón founds the Peronista Feminist Party. 1958: The British House of Lords admits its first female members. 1964: Patsy Takemoto Mink, of Hawaii, is the first Asian-American woman elected to Congress. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 24 years. 1971: Women in Switzerland win the right to vote. 1977: Nigerian women are granted the right to vote. 1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female prime minister of Great Britain.

1983: Iranian women are required to wear the chador; the penalty for appearing unveiled is a prison sentence of 1 to 12 months. 1988: Benazir Bhutto becomes prime minister of Pakistan. She is the first woman leader of a Muslim country in modern history. 1990: Violeta Barrios de Chamorro is elected president of Nicaragua. She is Central America's first female president. 1996: A report on female genital mutilation urges international action to end the ancient rite of passage that has already been performed on roughly 100 million girls worldwide. 2004: Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, becoming the first black African woman to win a Nobel Prize. 2007: Pratibha Patil becomes the first woman president of India Women and Slavery/The Civil Rights Movement 1828: Former slave Isabella van Wagener obtains her freedom and later takes the name Sojourner Truth. She begins to preach against slavery throughout New York and New England. In 1850, she encounters the women’s rights movement and incorporates its cause to hers.

In 1851 she delivers her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention to an enthralled audience, cementing her reputation as a dynamic speaker. During the Civil War she supports black volunteer regiments and is received by President Abraham Lincoln at the White House. 1849: Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland to Philadelphia. By the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Tubman will have returned to the South some 19 times and rescued upward of 300 other slaves. 1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin, one of the most important antislavery novels in America; it sells 300,000 copies in the first year. 1896: The Supreme Court case of Plessey v. Ferguson allows segregation to exist as long as the facilities are “separate but equal.” 1955: The Montgomery, Alabama transportation system employs a segregated system on city buses where African-Americans are required to sit in the back rows of the bus. If all seats are full and a white person comes on the bus, African-Americans are required to give up their seat.

Rosa Parks boards the bus on December 1, 1955 after a long day of work. After a few stops all seats are full and when the next white person gets on the bus, she is asked to give up her seat. She refuses, is arrested, and placed in jail. African-American community leaders come and pay her bail and soon organize a boycott to challenge the Montgomery transportation segregation laws. 1964: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bans discrimination in employment on the basis of race and sex. At the same time the Act establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate complaints and impose penalties on sex discrimination. Women’s Suffrage 1776: Abigail Adams is the wife of John Adams, the second president of the United States and mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth U.S. president. John and Abigail enjoy a long and spirited relationship with extended periods of written correspondence while John is away on government business.

In reference to his work on the Declaration of Independence, she writes to remind him that women “will not hold ourselves bound by laws which we have no voice.” 1700s-early 1800s: Under common law, an unmarried woman can own property, make a contract and sue or be sued. A married woman gives up her name and all her property to her husband. 1848: The first woman's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. Attended by 300 people including 40 men. Discussions range from the reforming marriage and property laws to a woman’s right to vote. In the end, 68 women and 32 men sign a Declaration of Sentiments calling for equal treatment of women and men under law and voting rights for women. The catalyst for this convention is the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840 and attended by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The women are forced to sit in the gallery as observers because they were women.

1850: Women are granted the right to own land in a state (Oregon) 1862: In Sweden, single women who pay taxes win the right to vote in municipal elections. 1868: The 14th Amendment is ratified but does not mention women; thus, they are continually denied the status of legal citizenship. However, also in 1868, women lawyers are licensed in the U.S. 1869: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association in order to win the constitutional right to vote. 1869: Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and others form the American Woman Suffrage Association, the objective of which is to gain voting rights for women through state constitutional amendments. The two associations will merge in 1890. 1869: Married women in Britain gain the right to own property. 1870: The 15th Amendment is passed enfranchising black men, but not women, with the right to vote. 1893: Colorado becomes the first state to grant women the right to vote and Utah and Idaho follow in 1896.

1906: Women in Finland win the right to vote. 1913: Norwegian women win the right to vote. 1918: Canadian and British women are granted the right to vote; although in Great Britain a woman must be over age 30. 1920: After over seventy years of struggle, women are finally granted the right to vote as the 19th Amendment is ratified. With most southern states against the Amendment, the vote comes down to the state of Tennessee where it passes by one vote in the Tennessee house. The deciding vote is cast by Representative Harry Burn who carried in his pocket a letter from his mother encouraging him to vote for women’s suffrage. 1930: White South African women get the right to vote. 1932: Women of Brazil and Thailand are granted the right to vote. 1933: Portugal's new constitution specifically denies women's equal rights. 1937: Women in the Philippines get the right to vote. 1947: The new Japanese constitution guarantees women's equality. 1948: In the newly created countries of Israel and South Korea, women win the right to vote.

1971: Women in Switzerland win the right to vote. 1977: Nigerian women are granted the right to vote. Women in Politics 1776: Abigail Adams is the wife of John Adams, the second president of the United States and mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth U.S. president. John and Abigail enjoy a long and spirited relationship with extended periods of written correspondence while John is away on government business. In reference to his work on the Declaration of Independence, she writes to remind him that women “will not hold ourselves bound by laws which we have no voice.” 1817: The South African warrior queen Mmanthatisi becomes the leader of the Tlokwa (a southern Sotho group). She plans military strategy and leads the nation to a new homeland in Lesotho. 1916: Jeanette Rankin becomes the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress, when most states don’t grant women the right to vote. She runs for Congress as a progressive Republican and wins serving one term, then unsuccessfully ran for the Senate. After a twenty year hiatus, working for anti-war organizations, Rankin successfully runs again for the House in 1940.

She follows her conscience and votes against U.S. entry into World War II, as she had done in the previous war. She does not run for reelection, instead choosing to devote the rest of her life to promoting peace in the United States and abroad. 1933: Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints Frances Perkins secretary of labor, and she becomes the first American female cabinet member. 1934: Florence Ellinwood Allen becomes first woman on US Court of Appeals. 1940: Margaret Chase Smith is elected to fill her late husband's seat in the U.S. Congress; she becomes the first woman to serve in the House of Representatives and the Senate. 1949: Argentinian Eva Perón founds the Peronista Feminist Party. 1958: The British House of Lords admits its first female members. 1961: Eleanor Roosevelt is appointed to chair the Commission on the Status of Women by John F. Kennedy. 1964: Patsy Takemoto Mink, of Hawaii, is the first Asian-American woman elected to Congress. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 24 years.

1975: Ella Grasso, from Connecticut, becomes the first woman governor to be re-elected. 1977: President Carter names Graciela Olivarez, a Hispanic lawyer, the Director of Community Services Administrations. Olivarez is the former chair of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). 1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female prime minister of Great Britain. 1981: President Ronald Reagan nominates Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. As an associate justice, O’Connor becomes the crucial swing vote for many cases where the Court is split along ideological lines. 1981: President Reagan nominates Jeane Kirkpatrick as the first woman to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. 1988: Benazir Bhutto becomes prime minister of Pakistan. She is the first woman leader of a Muslim country in modern history. 1990: Violeta Barrios de Chamorro is elected president of Nicaragua. She is Central America's first female president. 1993: President Bill Clinton appoints Janet Reno to serve as the first woman U.S. Attorney General.

1997: Nominated by President Bill Clinton, Madeleine K. Albright becomes first woman U.S. Secretary of State. Before that, she served as U.N. Ambassador. 2000: Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes the only First Lady ever elected to the United States Senate. 2001: President Bush nominates Linda Chavez to Secretary of Labor, making her the first Hispanic woman to be nominated to a United States Cabinet position. 2005: Condoleezza Rice becomes the first African-American woman appointed Secretary of State. 2007: Nancy Pelosi becomes the first woman Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. 2007: Pratibha Patil becomes the first woman president of India 2009: Sonia Sotomayor becomes the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice.

The History Blog » Blog Archive » British women voted 75 years before 1918 suffrage British women voted 75 years before 1918 suffrage A dozen hand-written sheets in a box of old solicitor’s records in Lichfield, a cathedral city in Staffordshire, England, bear surprising witness to women voting in a local election in 1843 , 11 years after the Great Reform Act restricted the parliamentary franchise to “male persons,” 8 years after the Municipal Corporations Act forbade women from voting in town council elections, 26 years before the Municipal Franchise Act re-granted women taxpayers (later restricted to single women or widows) the vote in local council elections, and a full 75 years before the 1918 Representation of the People Act granted women over the age of 30 with qualifying property the right to vote in parliamentary elections and 85 years before women were given the same voting rights as men.

The pages come from a poll book, a list of voters, their domiciles, the value of their property, the number of votes they were allowed (the franchise was determined based on the payment of poor rates, a tax levied on the parish which was collected from heads of households who owned or rented property of qualifying value; the higher the rates, the more votes you got) and who they voted for. There was no secret ballot back then, and the voting lists were used much like survey responses, donor lists and possible voter lists are used by campaigns today. The record was compiled because the solicitors were the agents for the Conservative party in Lichfield. The town was a highly marginal constituency in this period, so the party clearly wanted to keep tabs on the political temperature between parliamentary elections. The solicitor would have compiled the poll book from the ballot papers returned by the voters. There are 30 women listed out of 175 voters, an impressive percentage that indicates an involved female electorate. One woman, Grace Brown, a widowed butcher with a large household, was allowed four votes, all of which went to the Conservative candidate. They aren’t all wealthy widows, though.

University of Warwick Professor Sarah Richardson has researched the women on the list and found that in the 1841 census, two of the women were listed as paupers, one as a live-in servant, one as a washerwoman, one the wife of a dyer, another the wife of a sawyer. The presence of penurious women on the poll lists is perhaps an even greater surprise than the presence of women at all. This election was for the local office of Assistant Overseer of the Poor in the parish of St. Chad’s, and although the 1832 reforms sought to regularize and codify local practices, the deeply rooted traditions of common law and custom surrounding the franchise could not be obliterated by parliamentary legislation. Administrative officers in parish elections, town commissioner elections, workhouse guardian elections, were run as they had been run. That’s why the Lichfield poor tax standard was applied to this election rather than the Municipal Corporations Act. Historians have always known that women could vote in these types of elections, but until there hasn’t been any concrete evidence that they actually did.

The closest we’ve got are very occasional references, not all of them serious, in the contemporary press to women voting in local elections, but an official poll book for a parish election of a significant administrative officer is a whole other animal. It is direct evidence of an active female vote. The office’s name may seem modest, but in terms of real impact on people’s lives it was of major importance. The Overseers of the Poor collected the poor tax, so not only was this official a powerful person who could determine with great degree of discretion who received relief benefits, who had to go to the workhouse, who paid what tax, but in Lichfield, he also determined who got to vote for him. A vote for the Assistant Overseer of the Poor was a vote for someone who made life-and-death decisions. The fact that this was an elected position is notable in and of itself; Overseers of the Poor were appointed by local magistrates or boards of guardians in many places. Richardson thinks the paupers may have paid their rates using their benefits money, thus affording the vote, but technically being recipients of out relief barred them from the vote.

If that is what happened, it’s a remarkable cycle: the Overseer determines who gets benefits and who gets the vote based on the rates they pay, the women pay the rates from relief money so they can vote for the Overseer. It’s also possible that there were some shenanigans underpinning the pauper votes. Their votes could have been bought, the rates paid by a third party who then commanded them to vote for a certain candidate. Another possibility is that they weren’t paupers anymore, that between the 1841 census and the 1843 election, they managed to scrounge up a household and pay legitimate poor rates. It’s unlikely (there wasn’t a great deal of upward mobility in this society) but it’s not impossible. Sarah Payne, the servant on the list, for example, lived with an elderly lady in 1841. She died and either left her property to her servant, or in some other way Payne was adjudicated the property-holder for the purposes of the poll book.

This discovery opens a new perspective into the complex history of the franchise, and will hopefully spur historians to dig up primary sources instead of taking for granted that proscriptive legislation translated into practices as restrictive as the law wanted them to be. You can hear more from Sarah Richardson and other historians’ reactions to the find in this BBC Radio program . It’s 20 minutes long and eminently listenable. This entry was posted on Friday, March 22nd, 2013 at 11:25 PM and is filed under Modern(ish) . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. The campaign for suffrage - a historical background Citizenship The campaign for suffrage - a historical background Today, all British citizens over the age of eighteen share a fundamental human right: the right to vote and to have a voice in the democratic process. But this right is only the result of a hard fought battle. The suffrage campaigners of the nineteenth and early twentieth century struggled against opposition from both parliament and the general public to eventually gain the vote for the entire British population in 1928.

Who took part in the campaign? The first women's suffrage bill came before parliament in 1870. Soon after its defeat, in 1897, various local and national suffrage organisations came together under the banner of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies ( NUWSS ) specifically to campaign for the vote for women on the same terms 'it is or may be granted to men'. The NUWSS was constitutional in its approach, preferring to lobby parliament with petitions and hold public meetings. In contrast, the Women's Social and Political Union ( WSPU ), formed in 1903, took a more militant view. Almost immediately, it characterised its campaign with violent and disruptive actions and events. Together, these two organisations dominated the campaign for women's suffrage and were run by key figures such as the Pankhursts and Millicent Fawcett . However, there were other organisations prominent in the campaign, including the Women's Freedom League ( WFL ). These groups were often splinter groups of the two main organisations. What did they campaign for?

Before the first of a series of suffrage reforms in 1832, only 3% of the adult male population were qualified to vote. For the most part, the right to vote depended on how much you earned and the value of your property. For this reason, the majority of people who were able to vote were both wealthy and male. Throughout the 1800s, campaigners fought to extend the franchise and some concessions were made in 1867 and 1884. However, under these reforms women were still denied the vote and an increasing number of groups began campaigning for just that. Campaigners for women’s suffrage initially wanted the vote for women on the same terms as it was granted to men. This is because many of the original campaigners for women’s suffrage were female middle class homeowners. Their priority was that the franchise should be extended to women of their own status rather than to all women. This version of reform did not include either working class men or women but, eventually, universal suffrage – votes for all – became the goal of the campaign. Why were they campaigning? The inability to vote meant that Victorian women had very few rights – their disenfranchised status became a symbol of civil inequality.

Campaigners wanted the vote to be granted to women as they felt that too often the law was biased against women and reinforced the idea of women as subordinate to men. For example, until 1882, a woman’s property often reverted to her husband on their marriage. Even after the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, the situation was not much improved – women now had to pay taxes on the businesses the new law permitted them to own but did not have any say in how those taxes were spent. Campaigners felt that the best way to achieve equal status with men, in society and in the home, would be to get the vote and participate in the parliamentary process. How did they campaign? The campaign for women's suffrage took several forms and involved numerous groups and individuals. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), formed in 1897, was constitutional in its approach. This meant that it campaigned peacefully and used recognised ‘political’ methods such as lobbying parliament and collecting signatures for petitions. The group also held public meetings and published various pamphlets, leaflets, newspapers and journals outlining the reasons and justifications for granting women the vote.

Members of the NUWSS and other such organisations were known as ' suffragists '. In order to gain publicity and raise awareness, the more militant Women's Social and Political Union ( WSPU ), formed in 1903, engaged in a series of more violent actions. They chained themselves to railings, set fire to public and private property and disrupted speeches both at public meetings and in the House of Commons. Members of the WSPU and other militant groups such as the Women's Freedom League were known as ' suffragettes '. Many suffragettes went to prison as a result of their actions and their campaigns did not always stop there – whilst in prison, they often chose to go on hunger strike to continue gaining publicity for their cause and as a result were sometimes force fed. One of the most infamous suffragettes was Emily Davison who, in 1913, threw herself in front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby. She later died of her injuries and became a martyr to the cause. When did this happen? As a result of campaigns dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, some women were finally granted the vote in 1918.

However, many women were still excluded from the franchise - the Representation of the People Act enfranchised all males and women over the age of 30 who already had the right to vote in local elections. 8,400,000 women were enfranchised. Universal franchise was finally granted with the Equal Franchise Act of 1928. 1918 Qualification of Women Act 1918 Qualification of Women Act ▼ Primary Sources ▼ 1918 Qualification of Women Act In January, 1917, the House of Commons began discussing the possibility of granting women the vote in parliamentary elections. Herbert Asquith , the Prime Minister during the militant suffrage campaign, had always been totally against women having the vote. However, during the debate he confessed he had changed his mind and now supported the claims of the NUWSS , WSPU and the Women's Freedom League .

On 28th March, 1917, the House of Commons voted 341 to 62 that women over the age of 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property with an annual rent of £5 or graduates of British universities. MPs rejected the idea of granting the vote to women on the same terms as men. Lilian Lenton , who had played an important role in the militant campaign later recalled: "Personally, I didn't vote for a long time, because I hadn't either a husband or furniture, although I was over 30." Soon afterwards Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst established the The Women's Party . Its twelve-point programme included: (1) A fight to the finish with Germany. (2) More vigorous war measures to include drastic food rationing, more communal kitchens to reduce waste, and the closing down of nonessential industries to release labour for work on the land and in the factories. (3) A clean sweep of all officials of enemy blood or connections from Government departments.

Stringent peace terms to include the dismemberment of the Hapsburg Empire." The party also supported: "equal pay for equal work, equal marriage and divorce laws, the same rights over children for both parents, equality of rights and opportunities in public service, and a system of maternity benefits." Christabel and Emmeline had now completely abandoned their earlier socialist beliefs and advocated policies such as the abolition of the trade unions . After the passing of the Qualification of Women Act the first opportunity for women to vote was in the General Election in December, 1918. Seventeen women candidates that stood in the post-war election. Christabel Pankhurst represented the The Women's Party in Smethwick . Despite the fact that the Conservative Party candidate agreed to stand down, she lost a straight fight with the representative of the Labour Party by 775 votes. Only one woman, Constance Markiewicz , standing for Sinn Fein , was elected. However, as a member of Sinn Fein, she refused to take her seat in the House of Commons . Nancy Astor beat the Liberal Party candidate, Isaac Foot , and on 1st December 1919 became the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons.

Constance Markievicz , like many feminists, was highly critical that a woman who had not been part of the suffrage campaign had been elected to parliament. She accused her being a member of the "upper classes" and "out of touch" with the needs of ordinary people. Norah Dacre Fox , one of the leaders of the Women's Social and Political Union pointed out: "the first woman to be elected for an English constituency was an American born citizen, who had no credentials to represent British women in their own parliament save that she had married a British subject." ▲ Main Article ▲ Primary Sources (1) In her book Memories of a Militant, Annie Kenney described the proposals to give women the vote. In 1917 the question of granting the vote to women was discussed in Parliament. It was admitted by friend and foe that British women had played and were playing a unique part in the war There was great rejoicing among all sections of women. What a relief to think that once peace was declared abroad peace on a modest scale would be declared at home.

The agitation was at last drawing to a close On February 6th, 1918, Royal assent was given to the "Representation of the People Act." Women were voters. And so my Suffrage pilgrimage was ended I left the Movement, financially, as I joined it, penniless. Though I had no money I had reaped a rich harvest of joy, laughter, romance, companionship, and experience that no money can buy. (2) Manchester Guardian (7th February, 1918) The Representation of the People Bill, which doubles the electorate, giving the Parliamentary vote to about six million women and placing soldiers and sailors over 19 on the register (with a proxy vote for those on service abroad), simplifies the registration system, greatly reduces the cost of elections, and provides that they shall all take place on one day, and by a redistribution of seats tends to give a vote the same value everywhere, passed both Houses yesterday and received the Royal assent. (3) In March 1918, Isabella Ford celebrated women over the age of thirty being granted the vote.

It is indeed wonderful when one wakes up in the morning to remember that now, at last, one is considered to be a real, complete human being! After thirty years of endeavor to make men understand they were only half the world the price we have paid for our enfranchisement is too heavy, some of us find, to allow us to rejoice in the light-hearted, happy fashion we used to picture in old days, but we are filled with a deep and earnest thankfulness. (4) Norah Elam , Fascist Quarterly (1935) I preferred to stand as an Independent, going down with all the other women candidates on this occasion, save one. The exception was the Sinn Fein Countess Markievicz, who though a notorious and avowed enemy of Britain, found it a perfectly simple matter under the democratic system to secure election to the Parliament of the country which she had openly boasted that she would destroy, disintegrate and discredit. She was if I remember rightly, returned unopposed. The next example was hardly more encouraging, for the first woman to be elected for an English constituency was an American born citizen, who had no credentials to represent British women in their own parliament save that she had married a British subject.

(5) Constance Lytton , letter to Major Neville Lytton, January 13th, 1918. The women who fought for it - some giving their lives, others mutilated for life, others coming through after much suffering, all greater than mine - have won the victory now for women in Great Britain, and very soon in the four corners of the earth - in America, Canada, South Africa, in the other countries of Europe, in India (though very slowly, I fear, there), in China." (6) In 1919 the Women's Freedom League held a public meeting to celebrate women over thirty obtaining the vote. One of the speeches was made by eighty-three year old Charlotte Despard . I have seen great days, but this is the greatest. I remember when we started twenty-one years ago, with empty coffers I never believed that equal votes would come in my lifetime. But when an impossible dream comes true, we must go on to another. The true unity of men and women is one such dream. The end of war, of famine - they are all impossible dreams, but the dream must be dreamed until it takes a spiritual hold.

(7) Margery Corbett Ashby stood as the Liberal candidate for Ladywood in Birmingham. She explained what happened in her Memoirs. I hoped to get the women's vote and that of the new and inexperienced voters. The women were the most sympathetic to me. The result of the election was a resounding victory for Lloyd George and the coalition government, but I had the satisfaction of polling as many votes as did the nine Liberal candidates in neighbouring constituencies. Being a woman was neither an advantage or disadvantage. (8) Olive Schreiner , speech to meeting in commemoration of John Stuart Mill (July, 1918) We are meeting today to commemorate a man whom I believe to be the noblest of those whom the English-speaking race has produced in the last hundred years. John Stuart Mill laboured for the freedom of women. But he did more. He laboured for human freedom. Women can best show their gratitude to him by studying his writings. Many women have now the vote, and are part of the governing power of their nation - all will have it soon.

If we wish to use our power to its noblest end, we shall have to learn the lesson Mill taught - that the freedom of all human creatures are essential to the full development of human life on earth. We shall have to labour, not merely for a larger freedom for ourselves, but for every subject race and class, and for all suppressed individuals. To do this is to lay the best tribute we can at the feet if John Stuart Mill. (9) Evelyn Sharp , Unfinished Adventure (1933) When militants and non-militants alike hastened to offer war service to the Government, no doubt many of them felt, if they thought about it at all, that this was the best way of helping their own cause. Certainly, by their four years' war work, they did prove the fallacy of the anti-suffragist' favourite argument, that women had no right to a voice in questions of peace and war because they took no part in it.

Personally, holding as I do the enfranchisement of women involved greater issues than could be involved in any war, even supposing that the objects of the Great War were those alleged, I cannot help regretting that any justification was given for the popular error which still sometimes ascribes the victory of the suffrage cause, in 1918, to women's war service. This assumption is true only in so far as gratitude to women offered an excuse to the anti-suffragists in the Cabinet and elsewhere to climb down with some dignity from a position that had become untenable before the war. I sometimes think that the art of politics consists in the provision of ladders to enable politicians to climb down from untenable positions. (10) Norah Elam , The Blackshirt (22nd February, 1935) What woman is there amongst us who made that fight, who does not today feel disillusioned? Where are the great leaders of those days? Look through the names of the women who climbed to Parliament on the efforts of the suffragettes, and see that not one leading women of that day has ever sat in the House of Commons.

Democracy had killed them politically, and today they are forgotten as though they had never been. What happened was that by the time women were given the vote, the democratic system was crumbling and falling into decay.... Turning to various political parties, full of vigour and enthusiasm to play their part in the new world as liberated citizens, they found themselves bound and fettered by the party caucus and chained to the party system... No woman who loves her country, her sex or her liberty, need fear the coming victory of Fascism. Rather she will find that what the suffragettes dreamt about twenty odd years ago is now becoming a possibility, and women will buckle on her armour for the last phase of the greatest struggle, for the liberation of the human race, which the world has yet seen. The Reform Acts The Reform Acts [ Victorian Web Home —> Political History —> Social History — The Reform Acts ] No period of British History has been as tense, as politially and socially disturbed, as the 1830s and early 1840s, when both the working class and the middle class, separately or in conjunction, demanded what they regarded as fundamental changes.

From 1829 to 1832 their discontents fused in the demand for Parliamentary Reform, behind which the massses threw their riots and demonstrations, the businessmen the power of economic boycott. After the 1832, when several of the demands of the middle-class radicals were met, the worker's movement fought and failed alone. — Eric Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire, p. 55. he three Reform Acts, of 1832, 1867, and 1884, all extended voting rights to previously disfranchised citizens. The first act, which was the most controversial, reapportioned representation in Parliament in a way fairer to the cities of the industrial north, which had experienced tremendous growth, and did away with "rotten" and "pocket" boroughs like Old Sarum, which with only seven voters (all controlled by the local squire) was still sending two members to Parliament.

This act not only re-apportioned representation in Parliament, thus making that body more accurately represent the citizens of the country, but also gave the power of voting to those lower in the social and economic scale, for the act extended the right to vote to any man owning a household worth £10, adding 217,000 voters to an electorate of 435,000. Approximately one man in five now had the right to vote. For many conservatives, this effect of the bill, which allowed the middle classes to share power with the upper classes, was revolutionary in its import. Some historians argue that this transference of power achieved in England what the French Revolution achieved eventually in France. Therefore, the agitation preceding (and following) the first Reform Act, which Dickens observed at first hand as a shorthand Parliamentary reporter, made many people consider fundamental issues of society and politics. The 1867 Reform Act extended the right to vote still further down the class ladder, adding just short of a million voters — including many workingmen — and doubling the electorate, to almost two million in England and Wales.

On 15 August 1867 the Second Reform Act received the royal assent, bringing to an end a paradoxical series of events. Derby 's minority government had sponsored legislation which expanded the franchise by approximately a million voters. The Act far surpassed the 400,000 proposed in the Russell-Gladstone Bill, which the Conservatives had helped to condemn some twelve months earlier. To the astonishment of his peers Disraeli incorporated a series of far-reaching amendments — maintaining an agenda in advance of Gladstone , and the Radicals. He recognised the desire of many MPs for the issue to be brought to a swift conclusion and with Derby's backing was able to defuse opposition from all sections of the chamber. [Bodleian Library site] The 1867 act created major shock waves in contemporary British culture, some of which appear in works such as Arnold's Culture and Anarchy and Ruskin 's Crown of Wild Olive, as authors debated whether this shift of power would create democracy that would, in turn, destroy high culture. The 1884 bill and the 1885 Redistribution Act tripled the electorate again, giving the vote to most agricultural laborers.

By this time, voting was becoming a right rather than the property of the privileged. However, women were not granted voting rights until the Act of 1918, which enfranchised all men over 21 and women over thirty. This last bit of discrimination was eliminated 10 years later (in 1928) by the Equal Franchise Act. Related Materials BBC - History - Emmeline Pankhurst z Emmeline Pankhurst, c.1908 © Pankhurst was a leading British women's rights activist, who led the movement to win the right for women to vote. Emmeline Goulden was born on 14 July 1858 in Manchester into a family with a tradition of radical politics. In 1879, she married Richard Pankhurst, a lawyer and supporter of the women's suffrage movement. He was the author of the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882, which allowed women to keep earnings or property acquired before and after marriage. His death in 1898 was a great shock to Emmeline.

In 1889, Emmeline founded the Women's Franchise League, which fought to allow married women to vote in local elections. In October 1903, she helped found the more militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) - an organisation that gained much notoriety for its activities and whose members were the first to be christened 'suffragettes'. Emmeline's daughters Christabel and Sylvia were both active in the cause. British politicians, press and public were astonished by the demonstrations, window smashing, arson and hunger strikes of the suffragettes. In 1913, WSPU member Emily Davison was killed when she threw herself under the king's horse at the Derby as a protest at the government's continued failure to grant women the right to vote. Like many suffragettes, Emmeline was arrested on numerous occasions over the next few years and went on hunger strike herself, resulting in violent force-feeding. In 1913, in response to the wave of hunger strikes, the government passed what became known as the 'Cat and Mouse' Act. Hunger striking prisoners were released until they grew strong again, and then re-arrested.

This period of militancy was ended abruptly on the outbreak of war in 1914, when Emmeline turned her energies to supporting the war effort. In 1918, the Representation of the People Act gave voting rights to women over 30. Emmeline died on 14 June 1928, shortly after women were granted equal voting rights with men (at 21).

Question: In 1918 the right to vote was granted to British women over what age?
Answer: 30