ABSTRACT
The franchise measures of 1867 and 1884 created many working class voters. The suffrage was, of course, denied to women, and it did not include all men. In practice, it gave votes to the majority, but not all, of those who were heads of households, and excluded the majority, but not all, of the rest. Probably no more than three in five of adult male wage-earners were eligible to vote in the elections of the early twentieth century, and the proportion fell well below this in the poor, central districts of large towns. Notwithstanding such inequalities, however, in at least some parliamentary constituencies a considerable majority of the electorate was made up of industrial or agricultural wage-earners. Henry Pelling, in his study of the elections of 1886–1910, identifies 89 such seats in England and Wales; there were probably over 100 throughout Britain, and in many more, the working class comprised at least half of the registered voters.
