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14 December 1918Primary source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Parliament Gives Women the Vote

Decades of suffragette campaigning end with 8.5 million women voting for the first time

On the timeline · around 14 December 1918 · Modern BritainEmpire and IndustryModern BritainParliament Gives Women the Vote1875190019251950

Quick facts

Act passed
1918 (Representation of the People Act)
Women's age qualification
30 years, plus property qualification
Women enfranchised
8.5 million (40% of women)
First election women voted in
14 December 1918

What happened

The Representation of the People Act 1918, sometimes called the Fourth Reform Act, gave the vote to all men over 21 and, for the first time, extended it to women. The Act's own text, preserved by the National Archives, specifies that a woman was entitled to be registered as a parliamentary elector once she had attained the age of thirty years and met a property qualification, holding land or premises of a yearly value of at least five pounds, or a dwelling house, in her own or her husband's right. London Museum records that as a result, 8.5 million women, 40 percent of Britain's female population, could vote at the 1918 general election, and that on 14 December 1918, with the losses of the First World War still fresh, women walked to the polls alongside their husbands, brothers, sons, and lovers to vote in a general election for the first time. Many of the younger suffragettes who had campaigned hardest for the right remained excluded by the 30-year age threshold.

Why it matters

The 1918 Act ended a decades-long campaign, including the militant tactics of the suffragette movement in the years before the First World War, and marked the first time women had any voice at all in electing Britain's Parliament. Full equal suffrage, extending the vote to women on the same terms as men at 21, did not arrive until a further Act in 1928, but 1918 broke the principle that women could not vote at all.

How we know

The Representation of the People Act 1918 survives as original legislation, held by the National Archives under catalogue reference C65/6385, specifying the exact age and property qualifications imposed on women voters.

Sources

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