Representation of the People Act 1918

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Representation of the People Act 1918

The Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed as an Act of Parliament in 1918 to reform the electoral system in Great Britain and Ireland. It is also called the Fourth Reform Act . The law extended the right to vote in parliamentary elections to men over the age of 21, regardless of whether they owned property. Women aged 30 and over who were constituency residents who owned land or facilities with a tax value of more than five pounds, or whose husbands met this requirement, were also given the right to vote. At the same time, it expanded the municipal suffrage so that women over the age of 21 could now vote on the same terms as men.

The result of the law was that the male electorate increased from 5.2 million to 12.9 million. The female electorate was 8.5 million. The law also reorganized the electoral law, so the residence in a certain constituency became the prerequisite for voting, the principle of “first-past-the-post” was introduced (the candidate wins with a majority of one vote: “The winner takes it all "). And the proportional representation was rejected.

It was not until the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 , the Electoral Reform Act of 1928 , that women achieved equality in the right to vote. This law gave the right to vote to all women over the age of 21, without any qualification through possession. This added another five million women to the electorate.

background

Under the Third Electoral Reform Act of 1884, 60% of male household heads over the age of 21 had the right to vote. Under the previous right to vote, 40% of the male population were not eligible to vote. Millions of soldiers returning from World War I would not have been eligible to vote in the general election. (The last election took place in December 1910. The elections planned for 1916 had been postponed until after the war.)

John Stuart Mill (1865)

The problem of women's suffrage became more pressing in the second half of the 19th century. In 1865 the Kensington Society, a discussion group of middle-class women who were denied higher education, met in the apartment of an Indian academic named Charlotte Manning in Kensington. After discussing the right to vote, a small informal committee was formed to draft a petition and collect signatures. Among others were Barbara Bodichon, Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett. In 1869 John Stuart Mill published his essay The Subjection of Women (written in 1861), one of the earliest works on the problem by a male author. In the book, Mill tries to present his concern for perfect equality between the sexes. He talks about the role of women in marriage and how it needs to be changed. And he comments on three main factors in women's existence that he feels would prevent them from doing so: society and the relationship between the sexes, upbringing and education, and marriage and marriage. He argued that the oppression of women was one of the few holdovers of the old days, a group of prejudices that seriously prevented human progress. He was ready to present a petition to parliament, provided it contained at least 100 signatures. The first version was designed by his step-daughter Helen Taylor .

The suffragettes and "suffragists" fought for women's suffrage before the war. But they felt that too little had changed, despite the sometimes violent protests by women like Emmeline Pankhurst and the Women's Social and Political Union .

Suffragist Millicent Fawcett suggested that in 1917 the problem of women's suffrage was the main reason for the “Speaker's Conference” (conference of party speakers). She protested the result of the age restriction while acknowledging that there were one and a half million more women than men in the country at the time and that even the friends of women's suffrage wanted to keep a male majority.

The debates in both houses of parliament resulted in a majority and unity across party lines. Home Secretary George Cave with his Conservative Party in the ruling coalition presented the law:

“War by all classes of our countrymen has brought us nearer together, has opened men's eyes, and removed misunderstandings on all sides. It has made it, I think, impossible that ever again, at all events in the lifetime of the present generation, there should be a revival of the old class feeling which was responsible for so much, and, among other things, for the exclusion for a period, of so many of our population from the class of electors. I think I need say no more to justify this extension of the franchise. "

“The war participation of all classes of our compatriots brought us closer together, opened people's eyes and made misunderstandings disappear on all sides. I believe that it has become impossible that, during all of the opportunities in the lifespan of the current generation, there could be a resurgence of the old class consciousness that was responsible for so much. And among other things for the exclusion from the electorate class for so many of the population for a long time. I think that I don't need to say more to justify the extension of the right to vote. "

Provisions of the law

The new electoral law of 1918 increased the electorate by abolishing virtually all property qualifications for men and giving the vote to women over 30 with low property qualifications. The right to vote for the latter was accepted in recognition of the contribution made by the female workers in the armor. Politically, however, women were still not on an equal footing with men (who could vote from the age of 21); Full electoral equality was achieved in Ireland in 1922; in the UK, this was not achieved until the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 .

Important provisions of the 1918 Act were:

  1. All men over the age of 21 were given the right to vote in the constituency where they lived. Men who had turned 19 while serving in the First World War were also allowed to vote, even if they were under 21. However, there was some confusion as to whether they could do this before or after they were released from their service. The electoral law of 1920 clarified this in a positive way, albeit only after the general election of 1918.
  2. Women over the age of 30 also got the right to vote, but only if they owned (or the wives of a registered owner) land or facilities that had a taxable value of more than five pounds, or if they owned a home. They had to have civil rights. They were also allowed to participate if they were academics who cast their votes in a university constituency ("University Constituency").
  3. Some parliamentary seats have been redistributed to industrial cities.
  4. All votes for an election had to be held on a specific date instead of over several days in the different constituencies as was previously the case.

The law added 8.4 million women as well as 5.6 million men to the electorate. It was therefore the most extensive reform of the electoral law, given the increase in the electorate.

The costs incurred by the election workers were borne by the Ministry of Finance for the first time. In the period before the 1918 general election, the administrative costs had been passed on to the candidates, who had to pay them in addition to their other expenses.

Political changes

Finally - women's suffrage is here!

The size of the electorate tripled from 7.7 million who were eligible to vote in 1912 to 21.4 million at the end of 1918. Women now made up 39.64% of the electorate. If the women had been allowed to vote on the same terms as the men, they would have been in the majority because of the losses suffered by the men in the war. The voting age of 30 was chosen because any attempt to lower it would be politically unenforceable.

A minister explained it this way shortly after the law was passed:

"(T) he reason why the age limit of thirty was introduced (was) in order to avoid extending the franchise to a very large number of women, for fear they might be in a majority in the electorate of this country. It was for that reason only, and it had nothing to do with their qualifications at all. No one would seriously suggest that a woman of twenty-five is less capable of giving a vote than a woman of thirty-five. "

(German: The reason why the age limit of thirty was introduced was the deliberate avoidance of the right to vote for a very large number of women, for fear that they could make up the majority in the electorate of this country. It only happened for this reason and has nothing to do with her qualifications at all. No one would seriously argue that a woman of twenty-five is less capable of choice than a woman of thirty-five. )

In addition to the electoral changes, the law established the current system of putting all voting in a general election on one day. Previously, it was common to cast votes over a period of weeks (although the vote itself was only held on one day in each constituency). Furthermore, the annual voter registration (Electoral Register) was introduced.

Voting results

The electoral law "Representation of the People Act" was passed on June 19, 1917 with a majority of 385 to 35 votes in the House of Commons . Now the law had to pass the House of Lords , but Lord Curzon , the President of the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage, did not want a clash with the House of Commons and did not oppose the law. Many other opponents of the law among the Lords lost heart when he refused to act as their spokesman. So the law went through with 134 votes to 71.

Consequences and Effects

Nancy Astor, first MP (1919)

The first election that was held under the new system was the 1918 General Election. Voting took place on December 14, 1918, but the counting of votes did not begin until December 28, 1918. After this law, 8.4 million women were given the right to vote had, the "Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918" was passed in November 1918, which allowed women to be elected to parliament. Several women ran for election to the House of Commons in 1918, but only one, the Sinn Féin candidate for Dublin St. Patrick's, Constance Markievicz, was elected; however, she did not take her seat in Westminster and was instead a member of the Dáil Éireann (the first Dáil) in Dublin . The first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons on December 1, 1919, was Nancy Astor , who was elected as a member of Parliament for the Coalition Conservative for Plymouth Sutton on November 28, 1919.

As members of parliament, women were also given the right to become ministers in government. The first woman in the Cabinet and Privy Council was Margaret Bondfield , Secretary of Labor from 1929 to 1931.

There were some limitations in the new electoral law: It did not create a complete system of the principle of “one person, one vote” , ie political equality. Seven percent of the population enjoyed a multiple vote in the 1918 election. It was mostly middle-class men who had an extra vote because of the University Constituency. This law had increased the university votes by creating seats for "Combined English Universities". Or they had a vote through a company headquarters in a different constituency. Voting in multiple constituencies was not banned until the Representation of the People Act 1948. There was of course the clear inequality between the voting rights of men and women: women could only vote after they had reached the age of 30.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael Dawson: Money and the real impact of the Fourth Reform Act . In: The Historical Journal, Vol. 35, No. 02. P. 369.doi 10.1017 / S0018246X0002584X
  2. ^ "6 February 1918: Women get the vote for the first time," BBC, 6 February 2018.
  3. ^ Hugh Fraser: The Representation of the People Acts, 1918 to 1921: With explanatory notes . London, Sweet and Maxwell 1922. S. xxv. See: [1] accessed on June 21, 2018
  4. ↑ Harold L. Smith: The British Women's Suffrage Campaign 1866–1928 . Revised 2nd edition Routledge 2014. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-317-86225-3
  5. ↑ Colin Rallings, Michael Thrasher: British Electoral Facts 1832-2012 . Biteback Publishing 2012. ISBN 978-1-84-954134-3
  6. ^ Martin Roberts: Britain, 1846-1964: The Challenge of Change . Oxford University Press 2001. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-19-913373-4
  7. ^ Blackburn, 2011
  8. ^ Derek Heater: Citizenship in Britain: A History . Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press 2006. p. 145
  9. ↑ Chris Cook: The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Nineteenth Century, 1815-1914 . P. 68
  10. ↑ John Stuart Mill: The Subjection of Women , chapter 1
  11. ↑ John Cunningham Wood. John Stuart Mill: critical assessments . Volume 4
  12. ↑ John Stuart Mill: The subjection of women . In: Ann E. Cudd, Robin O. Andreasen: Feminist theory: a philosophical anthology . Oxford, England and Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing 2005, pp. 17-26, ISBN 978-1-40-511661-9
  13. ^ Anon: John Stuart Mill and the 1866 petition. In: Parliament.uk.Retrieved February 5, 2018
  14. ↑ Millicent Garrett Fawcett: The Women's Victory and after-reminiscences 1911-1918 London, Sidgwick & Jackson 1920. pp. 138-142.
  15. ^ Hansard HC Debs (22 May 1917) vol 93, C 2135 Retrieved February 17, 2017
  16. ^ Fraser, Sir Hugh: The Representation of the People Act, 1918 with explanatory notes . In: Internet Archive . Retrieved January 28, 2009.
  17. ^ Fraser, Sir Hugh: The Representation of the People Act, 1918 . In: www.parliament.uk . Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  18. ↑ EM Syddique: Why are British elections always held on Thursdays? In: The Guardian. See: [2] Retrieved April 10, 2017
  19. ^ "Electoral Registers Through The Years", accessed July 27, 2015 from electoralregisters.org website
  20. ↑ Chris Day: The Representation of the People Act 1918: Votes for (some) women, finally In: [3] Retrieved from the website of "The National Archives" on June 15, 2018
  21. ↑ Lord Cecil, Hansard , November 6, 1918, volume 110
  22. ↑ EM Syddique: Why are British elections always held on Thursdays? In: The Guardian. See: [4] accessed April 10, 2017
  23. ↑ CLAUSE 4 .- (franchises (Women).) (Hansard, 19 June 1917) . Retrieved June 8, 2016.
  24. ↑ Martin Pugh. "Politicians and the Women's vote, 1914-1918" , History , 59, No. 197 (1974): 358-74
  25. ↑ Martin Pugh. Politicians and the Women's vote, 1914-1918 , History , 59, No. 197 (1974): 373
  26. ^ History Learning Site: The 1918 Representation of the People Act . In: History Learning Site . Retrieved January 28, 2009.
  27. ^ Isobel White, Mary Durkin: General Election Dates 1832-2005 . House of Commons Library. November 15, 2007.
  28. ^ Fawcett, Millicent Garrett. The Women's Victory - and After . p.170. Cambridge University Press
  29. ↑ 1918 Qualification of Women Act . Spartacus Educational. Archived from the original on September 25, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 28, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
  30. ↑ From the archive, December 2, 1919: First Woman Member . In: The Guardian , December 2, 2010. Retrieved June 11, 2018. 
  31. ^ Derek Heater: Citizenship in Britain: A History . Edinburgh University Press, 2006, ISBN 9780748626724 , p. 145.

swell

literature

  • Blackburn, Robert: Laying the foundations of the modern voting system: The Representation of the People Act 1918. In: Parliamentary History , January 30, 2011, pp. 33-52
  • The text of the law on the Statutes.org.uk website