ABSTRACT

The long fight for female emancipation has become one of the best known aspects of the story of parliamentary reform. Within Parliament the issue was complicated by the crises over Ireland, the House of Lords and the trade unions, and by the need to address female suffrage in conjunction with other aspects of parliamentary reform, notably redistribution and the issue of plural voting. Even more striking than speeches in Parliament is the evidence of actual steps taken to extend political rights to women. In 1869 single women ratepayers got the vote in municipal elections and in 1870 in elections to the new School Boards; women could also vote under the 1888 Local Government Act and in 1894 they were allowed to sit on local councils. The precedent of 1918 undoubtedly helped, not so much because it marked a watershed but precisely because it seemed, in retrospect, something of an anticlimax.