The total registered electorate in the United Kingdom grew from 5.7 million in 1885 to over 21 million in 1918. Much of the growth was result of the

Representation of the People Act 1918 The Representation of the People Act 1918 ( 7 & 8 Geo. 5. c. 64) was an act of Parliament passed to reform the electoral system in Great Britain and Ireland. It is sometimes known as the Fourth Reform Act. The act extended the franchise in pa ...

, which expanded franchise by abolishing property qualifications for men and introduced female suffrage for some women over the age of 30. Changes in parliamentary franchise from 1885 to 1918 in the United Kingdom were the result of centuries of development in different kinds of constituencies. The three Reform Acts of the nineteenth century brought about some order by amending franchises in a uniform manner (see

Reform Act 1832 The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the Reform Act 1832, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. 4. c. 45), enacted by the Whig government of Pri ...

Reform Act 1867 The Representation of the People Act 1867 ( 30 & 31 Vict. c. 102), known as the Reform Act 1867 or the Second Reform Act, is an act of the British Parliament that enfranchised part of the urban male working class in England and Wales for the ...

and Representation of the People Act 1884). After 1885 the occupation franchise (under which most of the electors qualified in this period) was similar in all types of constituency, throughout the United Kingdom, but there were some surviving ownership and reserved Borough franchises which applied differently in particular seats. The major distinction was between

county constituencies In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one member to the House of Commons. Within the United Kingdom there are five bodies with members elected by electoral districts called " constituen ...

and

borough constituencies In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one member to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons. Within the United Kingdom there are five bodies with members elected by ...

. All county constituencies had the same mix of franchises. Some of the older boroughs were still affected by the different franchises that had applied to them before 1832 (see the

Unreformed House of Commons The "unreformed House of Commons" is a name given to the House of Commons of Great Britain (after 1800 the House of Commons of the United Kingdom) before it was reformed by the Reform Act 1832, the Irish Reform Act 1832, and the Scottish Reform ...

for details of the position before the Reform Act 1832). The Reform Acts had preserved some of the unreformed borough franchises, as well as introducing new rules for all boroughs. The contents of the section on the parliamentary franchise below, are taken from ''The Constitutional Year Book 1900'', a publication issued by Conservative Central Office in 1900 and thus out of copyright. They were intended to guide

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

agents and other activists, so can be assumed to be an accurate summary of the law for the period 1885-1918, between the implementation of the Representation of the People Act 1884 and the coming into force of the

. The exact period when this pattern of franchises applied was between the dissolution of the 22nd Parliament of the United Kingdom (18 November 1885) and that of the 30th Parliament (25 November 1918). Note that the

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of a higher-level political or administrative unit, such a ...

franchise was different; in particular, single women ratepayers could vote in municipal elections from 1869 following the Municipal Franchise Act 1869, confirmed and extended to some married women by the

Local Government Act 1894 The Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The act followed the reforms carried out at county leve ...

Numbers enfranchised

The first table below shows the total registered electorate (including university electors), between the 1880 general election (the last election before the Third Reform Act) and the 1918 general election (the first after that Act was replaced). The increase in Ireland between 1880 and 1885 was particularly significant, as the Irish county franchise was brought into line with that in Great Britain. The 1885 general election and the 1886 general election were fought on the same register. The January 1910 and December 1910 general elections were fought on the same register, except in Scotland. The voters in the second election differed from the 1910 figures in the table with Scotland 779,012 and Universities 46,566 contributing to a total of 7,709,981 registered voters. *(Source: Adapted from Craig) The table below provides figures (taken from Parliamentary Papers in 1886 and 1902) for those qualified by various franchises, in England and Wales, after the 1884 reforms and again in 1902. * (Source: Adapted from Seymour) By comparison when universal manhood suffrage was introduced for the 1918 general election, there were 12,913,166 registered male electors in the United Kingdom (including University electors), as opposed to the registration at the December 1910 general election of 7,709,981 (again including University electors). The available figures suggest that the 1885-1918 electorate comprised about sixty per cent of the adult male population.

The parliamentary franchise

Numbers enfranchised

The parliamentary franchise

Counties

Boroughs

See also

References

Further reading