ABSTRACT
The legal and social position of women gradually improved over the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, to one of less extreme inequality with men. The Local Government Act 1894 allowed women to be elected as members of county and borough councils and Poor Law guardians, and to vote in the requisite elections. In 1912, the Liberal cabinet agreed to an amendment to its Franchise and Registration Bill which would have given some women the vote. The future of the House of Lords as a legislative body is currently under consideration. By the House of Lords Act 1999, all rights to speak and vote in the Upper House were removed from hereditary peers, other than the Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain, as Great Officers of State, and 90 others elected by their fellows under transitional provisions.
