Reform Act 1918
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The Representation of the People Act 1918 ( 7 & 8 Geo. 5. c. 64) was an act of Parliament passed to reform the
electoral system An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...
in Great Britain and Ireland. It is sometimes known as the Fourth Reform Act. The act extended the franchise in parliamentary elections, also known as the right to vote, to men aged over 21, whether or not they owned property, and to women aged over 30 who resided in the constituency whilst occupying land or premises with a rateable value above £5, or whose husbands did."6 February 1918: Women get the vote for the first time"
BBC, 6 February 2018.
At the same time, it extended the local government franchise to include women aged over 30 on the same terms as men. It came into effect at the 1918 general election. As a result of the act, the male electorate was extended by 5.2 million to 12.9 million. The female electorate was 8.5 million. The act also created new electoral arrangements, including making residence in a specific constituency the basis of the right to vote and institutionalising the
first-past-the-post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...
method of election. It was not until the
Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 ( 18 & 19 Geo. 5. c. 12) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This act expanded on the Representation of the People Act 1918 ( 7 & 8 Geo. 5. c. 64) which had given som ...
( 18 & 19 Geo. 5. c. 12) that women gained electoral equality. The 1928 act gave the vote to all women aged over 21, regardless of any property qualification, which added another five million women to the electorate.


Background

After the
Third Reform Act In the United Kingdom under the premiership of William Gladstone, the Representation of the People Act 1884 ( 48 & 49 Vict. c. 3), also known informally as the Third Reform Act, and the Redistribution Act of the following year were laws which ...
in 1884, 60% of male householders over the age of 21 had the vote. This left 40% who did not – including the poorest in society. Thus millions of soldiers returning from
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
would still not have been entitled to vote in the long overdue general election. (The last election had been in December 1910. An election had been scheduled for 1915, but was postponed to a time after the war.) The issue of a female right to vote first gathered momentum during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1865, the Kensington Society, a discussion group for middle-class women who were barred from higher education, met at the home of Indian scholar
Charlotte Manning Charlotte Manning (''née'' Solly; 30 March 1803 – 1 April 1871) was a British feminist, scholar and writer. She was the first head of Girton College. Family Charlotte Solly was born in 1803, daughter of merchant Isaac Solly of Leyton, Ess ...
in Kensington. Following a discussion on suffrage, a small informal committee was formed to draft a petition and gather signatures, led by women including Barbara Bodichon, Emily Davies, and Elizabeth Garrett. In 1869,
John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...
published ''
The Subjection of Women ''The Subjection of Women'' is an essay by English philosopher, political economist and civil servant John Stuart Mill published in 1869, with ideas he developed jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill. J.S. Mill submitted the finished manus ...
'' (1861, published 1869), one of the earliest works on this subject by a male author. In the book, Mill attempts to make a case for perfect equality.Mill, J. S., ''The Subjection of Women'', Chapter 1 He talks about the role of women in marriage and how it needed to be changed, and comments on three major facets of women's lives that he felt were hindering them: society and gender construction, education, and marriage. He argued that the oppression of women was one of the few remaining relics from ancient times, a set of prejudices that severely impeded the progress of humanity. He agreed to present a petition to Parliament, provided it had at least 100 signatures, and the first version was drafted by his step-daughter, Helen Taylor. The
Suffragettes A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for women's suffrage, the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in part ...
and
Suffragists Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
had pushed for their right to be represented prior to the war, but felt too little had changed, despite violent agitation by the likes of
Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline Pankhurst (; Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women to win in 1918 the women's suffrage, right to vote in United Kingdom of Great Brita ...
and the
Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and p ...
. The suffragist
Millicent Fawcett Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (; 11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was an English political activist and writer. She campaigned for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, women's suffrage by Law reform, legal change and in 1897–1919 led Brita ...
suggested that the women's right to vote issue was the main reason for the Speaker's Conference in 1917. She was frustrated by the resultant age limit, though recognising that there were one and a half million more women than men in the country at the time (due to the loss of life in the First World War), accepted that this would not have wide, cross-party support; many of those in favour of suffrage at the Speaker's Conference still wanted to maintain a male majority. Recalling
Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman, Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creat ...
's quip, she noted that Britain "is governed not by logic, but by Parliament". The debates in both Houses of Parliament saw majority cross-party unanimity. The Home Secretary, George Cave ( Con) within the governing coalition introduced the act: As well, another electoral reform had been debated and only partially implemented - the elimination of
plural voting Plural voting is the practice whereby one person might be able to vote multiple times in an election. It is not to be confused with a plurality voting system, which elects winners by relative lead in vote tallies and does not necessarily involve pl ...
. Between 1906 and 1914, the Liberal party had been intent on passing a bill to prevent electors whose names appeared on the electoral register more than once from voting more than once. However, Parliament shelved the bill when World War I started. The section 8(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1918, did partially bring in that reform. The bill provided that "a man shall not vote at a general election ... for more than one constituency for which he is registered by virtue of other qualifications han a residence qualificationof whatever kind, and a woman shall not vote at a general election ... for more than one constituency for which she is registered by virtue of any other qualification han a local government qualification" As a result, no one was allowed to vote more than twice in a general election of the House of Commons. (Being able to vote twice in the same election in parliamentary elections was finally abolished by the
Representation of the People Act 1948 The Representation of the People Act 1948 ( 11 & 12 Geo. 6. c. 65) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered the law relating to parliamentary and local elections. It is noteworthy for abolishing plural voting for parlia ...
( 11 & 12 Geo. 6. c. 65), which first applied in the 1950 General Election. Plural voting in local government elections was mostly abolished by the
Representation of the People Act 1969 The Representation of the People Act 1969 (c. 15) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that lowered the voting age to 18 years. This statute is sometimes called the Sixth Reform Act. Background The 1960s were a period of grow ...
. Plurality voting still exists in the
City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...
.)


Passage of bill through Parliament

The bill was introduced in May 1917 with various stages taking place during the rest of the year, then into 1918. The number of members in both Houses was much lower than would be expected due to active military service. The Speakers' Conference of 1917 had recommended a form of proportional representation to be enacted, but this proved a highly contentious topic through differences of the methods between the two Houses. The final votes of the Bill took place on the very last day of the parliamentary session with the Act including a section arranging for a royal commission to consider whether "one hundred members shall be elected to the House of Commons at a general election on the principle of proportional representation for constituencies in Great Britain returning three or more members". The subsequent commission was held two months after the act was passed and was rejected by the House of Commons. The very final vote on 6 February 1918 in the House of Commons that led to royal assent of the bill was passed with 224 Ayes to 114 Noes.


Terms of the act

The Representation of the People Act 1918 widened
suffrage Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
by abolishing practically all property qualifications for men and by enfranchising women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications. The enfranchisement of this latter group was accepted as recognition of the contribution made by women defence workers. However, women were still not politically equal to men (who could vote from the age of 21 if they were willing to serve British rule); full electoral equality was achieved in Ireland in 1922, but did not occur in Britain until the
Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 ( 18 & 19 Geo. 5. c. 12) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This act expanded on the Representation of the People Act 1918 ( 7 & 8 Geo. 5. c. 64) which had given som ...
( 18 & 19 Geo. 5. c. 12). The terms of the act were: # All men over 21 gained the vote in the constituency where they were resident. Men who had turned 19 during service in connection with World War I could also vote even if they were under 21, although there was some confusion over whether they could do so after being discharged from service. The Representation of the People Act 1920 clarified this in the affirmative, albeit after the 1918 general election. # Women over 30 years old received the vote if they were registered property occupiers (or married to a registered property occupier) of land or premises with a rateable value greater than £5 or of a dwelling-house and not subject to any legal incapacity, or were graduates voting in a
university constituency A university constituency is a constituency, used in elections to a legislature, that represents the members of one or more universities rather than residents of a geographical area. These may or may not involve plural voting, in which voters ar ...
. # Some seats were redistributed to industrial towns. Seats in Ireland were amended separately, by the
Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918 The Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918 ( 7 & 8 Geo. 5. c. 65) was an Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom which redistributed the parliamentary constituencies in Ireland for the House of Commons. It was enacted on the sam ...
. # All polls for an election to be held on a specified date, rather than over several days in different constituencies as previously. The act added 8.4 million women to the electorate as well as 5.6 million men. It was therefore the greatest of all the UK
Reform Acts The Reform Acts (or Reform Bills, before they were passed) are legislation enacted in the United Kingdom in the 19th and 20th century to enfranchise new groups of voters and to redistribute seats in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the ...
in terms of electorate addition. The costs incurred by returning officers were for the first time to be paid by the Treasury. Prior to the 1918 general election, the administrative costs were passed on to the candidates to pay in addition to their expenses.


Short title, commencement and extent


Political changes

The size of the electorate tripled from the 7.7 million who had been entitled to vote in 1912 to 21.4 million by the end of 1918. Women now accounted for about 39.64% of the electorate. Had women been enfranchised based upon the same requirements as men, they would have been in the majority because of the loss of men in the war."Electoral Registers Through The Years", on electoralregisters.org website
Accessed 27 July 2015
The age of 30 was chosen because it was all that was politically possible at the time. Any attempt to make it lower would have failed. as Lord Robert Cecil explained shortly after the act was passed: In addition to the suffrage changes, the act also instituted the present system of holding all voting in a general election on one day, as opposed to being staggered over a period of weeks (although the polling itself would only take place on a single day in each constituency), and brought in the annual
electoral register An electoral roll (variously called an electoral register, voters roll, voters list, poll book or other description) is a compilation that lists persons who are entitled to vote for particular elections in a particular jurisdiction. The list is ...
.


Aftermath

The first election held under the new system was the 1918 general election. Polling took place on 14 December 1918, but vote-counting did not start until 29 December 1918. After this act gave about 8.4 million women the vote, the
Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It gave women over 21 the right to stand for election as a Member of Parliament. At 41 words, it is the shortest UK statute. Background The ...
was passed in November 1918, allowing women to be elected to
Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
. Several women stood for election to the House of Commons in 1918, but only one, the
Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffit ...
candidate for Dublin St. Patrick's,
Constance Markievicz Constance Georgine Markievicz ( ; ' Gore-Booth; 4 February 1868 – 15 July 1927), also known as Countess Markievicz and Madame Markievicz, was an Irish politician, revolutionary, nationalist, suffragist, and socialist who was the first woman ...
, was elected; however she followed her party's abstentionist policy and did not take her seat at Westminster and instead sat in the
Dáil Éireann Dáil Éireann ( ; , ) is the lower house and principal chamber of the Oireachtas, which also includes the president of Ireland and a senate called Seanad Éireann.Article 15.1.2° of the Constitution of Ireland reads: "The Oireachtas shall co ...
(the
First Dáil First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...
) in
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
. The first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons was
Nancy Astor Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor was born in Danville, Virginia and rai ...
on 1 December 1919, who was elected as a
Coalition Conservative The Coalition Coupon was a letter sent to parliamentary candidates at the 1918 United Kingdom general election, endorsing them as official representatives of the Coalition Government. The 1918 election took place soon after British victory in the ...
MP for Plymouth Sutton on 28 November 1919. As Members of Parliament, women also gained the right to become government ministers. The first woman
cabinet minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ' prime minister', ' p ...
and Privy Council member was the Labour Party's
Margaret Bondfield Margaret Grace Bondfield (17 March 1873 – 16 June 1953) was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician, trade unionist and women's rights activist. She became the first female cabinet minister, and the first woman to be a priv ...
, Minister of Labour from 1929 to 1931. Although the act extended the franchise significantly, it did not create a complete system of ''
one person, one vote "One man, one vote" or "one vote, one value" is a slogan used to advocate for the principle of equal representation in voting. This slogan is used by advocates of democracy and political equality, especially with regard to electoral reforms like ...
''. Seven percent of the population enjoyed a plural vote in the 1918 election, mostly middle-class men who had an extra vote due to a
university constituency A university constituency is a constituency, used in elections to a legislature, that represents the members of one or more universities rather than residents of a geographical area. These may or may not involve plural voting, in which voters ar ...
(this act increased the university vote by creating the
Combined English Universities Combined English Universities was a university constituency represented in the United Kingdom Parliament (from 1918 until 1950). It was formed by enfranchising and combining all the English universities, except for Cambridge, Oxford and London ...
seats) or by occupying business premises in a constituency different from where they live.For men, business premises with a ratable value in excess of £10 gave a right to vote in a constituency. Voting in multiple constituencies was not prohibited until the
Representation of the People Act 1948 The Representation of the People Act 1948 ( 11 & 12 Geo. 6. c. 65) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered the law relating to parliamentary and local elections. It is noteworthy for abolishing plural voting for parlia ...
s. 1(2).


See also

*
Electoral reform in the United Kingdom Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems that alters how public desires, usually expressed by cast votes, produce election results. Description Reforms can include changes to: * Voting systems, such as adoption of proportional represen ...
*
Parliamentary franchise in the United Kingdom 1885–1918 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, which expanded franchise by abolishing property qualificat ...
*
Reform Acts The Reform Acts (or Reform Bills, before they were passed) are legislation enacted in the United Kingdom in the 19th and 20th century to enfranchise new groups of voters and to redistribute seats in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the ...
*
Representation of the People Act Representation of the People Act is a stock short title used in Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Mauritius, Pakistan, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, ...
*
Suffragette bombing and arson campaign Suffragettes in Great Britain and Ireland orchestrated a bombing and arson campaign between the years 1912 and 1914. The campaign was instigated by the Women's Social and Political Union, Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and was a part ...
*
Timeline of women's suffrage Women's suffrage – the right of women to vote – has been achieved at various times in countries throughout the world. In many nations, women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, in which cases women and men from certain Social ...
*
Women in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom The representation of women in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom has been an issue in the politics of the United Kingdom at numerous points in the 20th and 21st centuries. Originally debate centred on whether women should be allowed to vo ...
*
Women in the House of Lords The first women in the House of Lords took their seats in 1958, forty years after women were granted the right to stand as MPs in the House of Commons. These were life peeresses appointed by the Prime Minister, although countesses had appeared ...
*
Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom A movement to fight for women's right to vote in the United Kingdom finally succeeded through acts of Parliament in 1918 and 1928. It became a national movement in the Victorian era. Women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Brita ...


Footnotes


References


Sources

* *


Citations


Further reading


The text of the act.

Image of Act on the Parliamentary website.
* Ball, Stuart, ‘The Reform Act of 1918: the advent of democracy’, ''Parliamentary History'', vol. 37, no. 1 (2018), pp. 1-22. * Ball, Stuart (ed.), ''The Advent of Democracy: The Impact of the 1918 Reform Act on British Politics'' (Wiley, 2018), ISBN 978-1119511199 * Blackburn, Robert, ‘Laying the foundations of the modern voting system: the Representation of the People Act 1918’, ''Parliamentary History'', vol. 30, no. 1 (2011), pp. 33-52 * Butler, David, ''The Electoral System in Britain 1918-1951'' (Oxford University Press, 1953) * Pugh, Martin, ‘Politicians and the woman’s vote 1914-1918’, ''History'', vol. 59, no. 197 (1974), pp. 358-374 * Fair, John D., ‘The political aspects of women’s suffrage during the First World War’, ''Albion'', vol. 8, no. 3 (1976), pp. 274-295 * Pugh, Martin, ''Electoral Reform in War and Peace 1906-1918'' (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978) * Rolf, David, ‘The origins of Mr. Speaker’s conference during the First World War’, ''History'', vol. 64, no. 210 (1979), pp. 36-46 * Tanner, Duncan, ‘The Parliamentary electoral system, the Fourth Reform Act, and the rise of Labour in England’, ''Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research'', vol. 56 (1983), 205-219 {{suffrage United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1918 Repealed United Kingdom Acts of Parliament Representation of the People Acts Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom 1918 in women's history February 1918 in the United Kingdom 1918 in British politics Democratization