Conclusion

When the first women in Britain received the right to vote in parliamentary elections through the passage of the Representation of the People Act in February 1918, it was a compromise solution to a problem that had occupied parliament for fifty years. While the Act enfranchised all men over the age of 21, for women the minimum age was 30 and the law included a property qualification: only women who “were themselves local government electors or who were married to local government electors” were able to vote. ¹ The public activities of the suffrage movement had largely ceased after the outbreak of the First World War. However, activists continued their work behind the scenes, particularly once it became apparent that a franchise reform before the end of the war was inescapable, since current electoral law would have disenfranchised large numbers of servicemen owing to existing residency requirements. Instead of “the unreserved accolade of a grateful government and country … in recognition of women’s war service” – as the narrative of how women got the vote still too often goes – the limited franchise was granted as a result of the same wrangling along party lines and lobbying from pressure groups as with any other government business, then or now. ² Only in 1928, through the aptly named Equal Franchise Act, did British women acquire the right to vote in parliamentary and local government elections on the same terms as men.