RESEARCH: Representation of the People Act 1918 (1)

https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/what-was-the-1918-representation-of-the-people-act/
Article published on February 7th 2018

What did the Act achieve?

• Parliamentary act passed in the final year of the First World War that tripled suffrage in Britain and Ireland.
• Expanded the franchise to include some women. 
• Entitled all men over the age of 21 to the vote and granted suffrage to women over 30. (as long as they were either owners of property, or married to owners of property)
• June 1917, the Representation of the People Bill had been passed by a large majority in the House of Commons, with 385 votes for to 55 against.
• Act became law after receiving Royal Assent on 6 February 1918.
• The size of the electorate triple from 7.7 million to 21.4 million.
•  9.2 million new female voters and 4.5 million new male voters.
• The act also stipulated that women were for the first time allowed to sit in the House of Commons. 
• While Irish republican Countess Constance Markievicz was the first woman to be elected to the Commons in December 1918, as a member of Sinn Féin she did not take her seat. It wasn’t until December 1919 that Nancy Astor was successfully elected as the MP for Plymouth Sutton and became the first woman to ever sit in the House of Commons.

Why was the Act passed in 1918?

• At the beginning of the First World War, approximately 60 per cent of adult men were entitled to the vote.
• As the war progressed, it was clear that electoral reform would be needed to address the fact that many men returning from the war would not be able to vote, as they did not meet existing property qualifications.
• The 1867 Parliamentary Reform Act had notably granted the vote to occupiers in the boroughs (people who rented properties rather than owning them) as well as lodgers who paid rent of £10 a year or more and in 1884, a Third Reform Act extended these voting rights to the counties. 
• Following the 1884 act, approximately two in three men now had the vote.
• When war arrived in August 1914, campaigners’ activities were largely halted.
• As many men left home and work to fight in the conflict, women were required to step into roles that had previously been considered outside of their sphere, such as munitions work or farm labour.

When did all women receive the vote in Britain?

• It would be another 10 years before all women in Britain would receive the vote. 
• Women were allowed to sit in the House of Lords as life peers (who are unable to pass their title on to their children) from 1958, but they could not sit as hereditary peers (those who had inherited their titles) until 1963.

Was Britain the first country to enfranchise women?

• New Zealand was the first nation to explicitly grant women the right to vote, in 1893
• Australia followed suit in 1902, though suffrage was still restricted for indigenous Australians.
• Finland granted women the right to vote in 1906 and Norway in 1913.
• In the USA, the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified on 18 August 1920, granted all American women the right to vote for the first time.
• For French campaigners, the female vote wouldn’t come until April 1945, in the first election to be held after the country was liberated from Nazi occupation.

In conclusion, I found this source valid as the source is an established, online, magazine publication. I really found interesting the final paragraph about the influences on and from the whole world.

(In the post above, I have noted my findings for further use, all information is from the link at the top of this page.)