HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Representation of the People Act 1918 was an
Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...
passed to reform the
electoral system An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections ma ...
in Great Britain and Ireland. It is sometimes known as the Fourth Reform Act. The Act extended the
franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...
in parliamentary elections, also known as the right to vote, to men aged over 21, whether or not they owned property, and to women aged over 30 who resided in the constituency or occupied land or premises with a rateable value above £5, or whose husbands did."6 February 1918: Women get the vote for the first time"
BBC, 6 February 2018.
At the same time, it extended the local government franchise to include women aged over 21 on the same terms as men. It came into effect at the 1918 general election. As a result of the Act, the male electorate was extended by 5.2 million to 12.9 million. The female electorate was 8.5 million. The Act also created new electoral arrangements, including making residence in a specific constituency the basis of the right to vote, institutionalising the
first-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...
method of election, and rejecting proportional representation, although this failed by only seven votes in the Commons during the Act's progress. It was not until the
Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This act expanded on the Representation of the People Act 1918 which had given some women the vote in Parliamentary elections for the ...
that women gained electoral equality. The 1928 Act gave the vote to all women aged over 21, regardless of any property qualification, which added another five million women to the electorate.


Background

After the Third Reform Act in 1884, 60% of male householders over the age of 21 had the vote. This left 40% who did not – including the poorest in society. Thus millions of soldiers returning from
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
would still not have been entitled to vote in the long overdue general election. (The last election had been in December 1910. An election had been scheduled for 1915, but was postponed to a time after the war.) The issue of a female right to vote first gathered momentum during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1865, the Kensington Society, a discussion group for middle-class women who were barred from higher education, met at the home of Indian scholar Charlotte Manning in Kensington. Following a discussion on suffrage, a small informal committee was formed to draft a petition and gather signatures, led by women including Barbara Bodichon, Emily Davies, and Elizabeth Garrett. In 1869, John Stuart Mill, published ''
The Subjection of Women ''The Subjection of Women'' is an essay by English philosopher, political economist and civil servant John Stuart Mill published in 1869, with ideas he developed jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill. Mill submitted the finished manuscript ...
'' (1861, published 1869), one of the earliest works on this subject by a male author. In the book, Mill attempts to make a case for perfect equality.Mill, J. S., ''The Subjection of Women'', Chapter 1 He talks about the role of women in marriage and how it needed to be changed, and comments on three major facets of women's lives that he felt were hindering them: society and gender construction, education, and marriage. He argued that the oppression of women was one of the few remaining relics from ancient times, a set of prejudices that severely impeded the progress of humanity. He agreed to present a petition to Parliament, provided it had at least 100 signatures, and the first version was drafted by his step-daughter, Helen Taylor. The Suffragettes and Suffragists had pushed for their right to be represented prior to the war, but felt too little had changed, despite violent agitation by the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst and the
Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership an ...
. The suffragist
Millicent Fawcett Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (née Garrett; 11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was an English politician, writer and feminist. She campaigned for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, women's suffrage by Law reform, legal change and in 1897– ...
suggested that the women's right to vote issue was the main reason for the Speaker's Conference in 1917. She was frustrated by the resultant age limit, though recognising that there were one and a half million more women than men in the country at the time (due to the loss of life in the First World War), accepted that this would not have wide, cross-party support; many of those in favour of suffrage at the Speaker's Conference still wanted to maintain a male majority. Recalling
Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a centr ...
's quip, she noted that Britain "is governed not by logic, but by Parliament". The debates in both Houses of Parliament saw majority cross-party unanimity. The Home Secretary, George Cave ( Con) within the governing coalition introduced the Act:


Terms of the Act

The Representation of the People Act 1918 widened suffrage by abolishing practically all property qualifications for men and by enfranchising women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications. The enfranchisement of this latter group was accepted as recognition of the contribution made by women defence workers. However, women were still not politically equal to men (who could vote from the age of 21 if they were willing to serve British rule); full electoral equality was achieved in Ireland in 1922, but did not occur in Britain until the
Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This act expanded on the Representation of the People Act 1918 which had given some women the vote in Parliamentary elections for the ...
. The terms of the Act were: # All men over 21 gained the vote in the constituency where they were resident. Men who had turned 19 during service in connection with World War I could also vote even if they were under 21, although there was some confusion over whether they could do so after being discharged from service. The Representation of the People Act 1920 clarified this in the affirmative, albeit after the 1918 general election. # Women over 30 years old received the vote, but only if they were registered property occupiers (or married to a registered property occupier) of land or premises with a rateable value greater than £5 or of a dwelling-house and not subject to any legal incapacity, or were graduates voting in a
university constituency A university constituency is a constituency, used in elections to a legislature, that represents the members of one or more universities rather than residents of a geographical area. These may or may not involve plural voting, in which voters ar ...
. # Some seats were redistributed to industrial towns. Seats in Ireland were amended separately, by the
Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918 The Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918 was an Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom which redistributed the parliamentary constituencies in Ireland for the House of Commons. The new constituencies were used for the 1918 g ...
. # All polls for an election to be held on a specified date, rather than over several days in different constituencies as previously. The Act added 8.4 million women to the electorate as well as 5.6 million men. It was therefore the greatest of all the Reform Acts in terms of electorate addition. The costs incurred by returning officers were for the first time to be paid by the Treasury. Prior to the 1918 general election, the administrative costs were passed on to the candidates to pay in addition to their expenses.


Political changes

The size of the electorate tripled from the 7.7 million who had been entitled to vote in 1912 to 21.4 million by the end of 1918. Women now accounted for about 39.64% of the electorate. Had women been enfranchised based upon the same requirements as men, they would have been in the majority because of the loss of men in the war."Electoral Registers Through The Years", on electoralregisters.org website
Accessed 27 July 2015
The age of 30 was chosen because it was all that was politically possible at the time. Any attempt to make it lower would have failed. As Lord Robert Cecil explained shortly after the Act was passed: In addition to the suffrage changes, the Act also instituted the present system of holding all voting in a general election on one day, as opposed to being staggered over a period of weeks (although the polling itself would only take place on a single day in each constituency), and brought in the annual
electoral register An electoral roll (variously called an electoral register, voters roll, poll book or other description) is a compilation that lists persons who are entitled to vote for particular elections in a particular jurisdiction. The list is usually broke ...
.


Votes

The bill for the Representation of the People Act was passed by a majority of 385 to 55 in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
on 19 June 1917. The bill still had to pass through the
House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...
, but
Lord Curzon George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, (11 January 1859 – 20 March 1925), styled Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and then Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman ...
, the president of the
National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage The National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage was founded in London in December 1910 to oppose the extension of the voting franchise to women in the United Kingdom. It was formed as an amalgamation of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League a ...
did not want to clash with the Commons and so did not oppose the bill. Many other opponents of the Bill in the Lords lost heart when he refused to act as their spokesman. The bill passed by 134 to 71 votes.


Aftermath

The first election held under the new system was the 1918 general election. Polling took place on 14 December 1918, but vote-counting did not start until 29 December 1918. After this Act gave about 8.4 million women the vote, the
Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It gave women over 21 the right to stand for election as a Member of Parliament. At 27 words, it is the shortest UK statute. Background The R ...
was passed in November 1918, allowing women to be elected to
Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
. Several women stood for election to the House of Commons in 1918, but only one, the
Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...
candidate for Dublin St. Patrick's,
Constance Markievicz Constance Georgine Markievicz ( pl, Markiewicz ; ' Gore-Booth; 4 February 1868 – 15 July 1927), also known as Countess Markievicz and Madame Markievicz, was an Irish politician, revolutionary, nationalist, suffragist, socialist, and the firs ...
, was elected; however she followed her party's abstentionist policy and did not take her seat at Westminster and instead sat in the Dáil Éireann (the
First Dáil The First Dáil ( ga, An Chéad Dáil) was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 1919 to 1921. It was the first meeting of the unicameral parliament of the revolutionary Irish Republic. In the December 1918 election to the Parliament of the United ...
) in
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
. The first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons was
Nancy Astor Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor's first husband was America ...
on 1 December 1919, who was elected as a
Coalition Conservative The Coalition Coupon was a letter sent to parliamentary candidates at the 1918 United Kingdom general election, endorsing them as official representatives of the Coalition Government. The 1918 election took place in the heady atmosphere of victory ...
MP for
Plymouth Sutton Plymouth, Sutton was, from 1918 until 2010, a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. History Pl ...
on 28 November 1919. As Members of Parliament, women also gained the right to become government ministers. The first woman cabinet minister and Privy Council member was the Labour Party's Margaret Bondfield, Minister of Labour from 1929 to 1931. Although the Representation of the People Act extended the franchise significantly, it did not create a complete system of ''
one person, one vote "One man, one vote", or "one person, one vote", expresses the principle that individuals should have equal representation in voting. This slogan is used by advocates of political equality to refer to such electoral reforms as universal suffrage, ...
''. Seven percent of the population enjoyed a plural vote in the 1918 election, mostly middle-class men who had an extra vote due to a
university constituency A university constituency is a constituency, used in elections to a legislature, that represents the members of one or more universities rather than residents of a geographical area. These may or may not involve plural voting, in which voters ar ...
(this Act increased the university vote by creating the Combined English Universities seats) or by occupying business premises in other constituencies.For men, business premises with a ratable value in excess of £10 gave a right to vote in a constituency. Voting in multiple constituencies was not prohibited until the Representation of the People Act 1948 s1(2).


See also

* Electoral reform in the United Kingdom * Reform Act *
Suffragette bombing and arson campaign Suffragettes in Great Britain and Ireland orchestrated a bombing and arson campaign between the years 1912 and 1914. The campaign was instigated by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and was a part of their wider campaign for women's ...
*
Timeline of women's suffrage Women's suffrage – the right of women to vote – has been achieved at various times in countries throughout the world. In many nations, women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women and men from certain classes or races w ...
* Women in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom * Women in the House of Lords *
Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom A movement to fight for women's right to vote in the United Kingdom finally succeeded through acts of Parliament in 1918 and 1928. It became a national movement in the Victorian era. Women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Britai ...


References


Sources

* *


Citations


Further reading


The text of the act.

Image of Act on the Parliamentary website.
{{UK legislation United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1918 Representation of the People Acts Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom 1918 in women's history February 1918 events 1918 in British politics