Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928

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The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 was a law of the English Parliament . This law expanded the Representation of the People Act 1918 , which for the first time since the First World War had given some women the right to vote in general elections . The 1928 law increased the electorate by giving all women the same right to vote as men. All women over the age of 21 got the right to vote, regardless of their property. Previously, only women over 30 years of age who met minimum property requirements had the right to vote. Similar measures were taken for the Parliament of Northern Ireland through the Representation of the People Act (Northern Ireland) 1928 (18 & 19 Geo V, Ch 24 (NI)) ”.

This law is also known informally as the Fifth Reform Act or the Equal Suffrage Act .

Adoption of the law

The law was introduced by the Conservative Party and passed without much opposition from the other parties.

The law came into effect on July 2, 1928, after being introduced in March. The leader of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies who had campaigned for this right to vote, Millicent Fawcett , was still alive and was attending the parliamentary session to see the vote on it. She wrote in her diary that evening:

Millicent Fawcett after the King approves the Equal Suffrage Act (July 2, 1928)

"It is almost exactly 61 years ago since I heard John Stuart Mill introduce his suffrage amendment to the Reform Bill on 20 May 1867. So I have had extraordinary good luck in having seen the struggle from the beginning."

(German: It has been almost exactly 61 years since I heard John Stuart Mill introduce his suffrage amendment for the Reform Bill on May 28, 1867. So I am exceptionally lucky to have the Fight from the start. )

On August 5, 1928, Millicent Fawcett received a letter from Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin . He said that although there were obstacles in reading the law, he always believed that it was passed in the simple and complete form as it ultimately looked ("in the simple and complete form it ultimately assumed") would be. He concluded the letter by expressing the hope that electoral equality would be beneficial to the country and that it would serve the good of the country of England.

Result

The law added an additional five million women to the electoral roll and had the effect that women were now in the majority, holding 52.7% of the electorate in the 1929 general election, known as the " Flapper Election" .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hansard, House of Commons, fifth edition, vol 219, col 1035
  2. ^ [1] Baldwin, Stanley. Letter to Fawcett, Millicent. August 5, 1928. MS
  3. ^ Derek Heater: Citizenship in Britain: A History . Edinburgh University Press 2006. p. 145. ISBN 9780748626724
  4. ↑ The British General Election of 1929. Retrieved March 25, 2019