The United Kingdom general
election of 1918 was the first to be held after the Representation
of the People Act 1918, which meant it was the first United Kingdom general
election in which nearly all adult men and some women could vote. Although
polling was held on 14 December 1918, the count did not begin until 28 December.
The election was won by a coalition of the Conservatives
under Andrew Bonar Law, the
pro-coalition Liberals
under David Lloyd
George, and a few independent and former Labour MPs including the
anti-socialist National
Democratic and Labour Party. It resulted in a government which
retained Lloyd George as Prime
Minister.
It is considered the first and
the only largely democratic and universal
elections on the whole United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in which for the first time
the majority of poorer British and Catholic Irish adult people were allowed to
vote for Parliament.The Representation of the People Act 1918 widened suffrage 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); full electoral equality wouldn't occur until the Representation
of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928.
The terms of the act were:
1. All adult males gain the vote,
as long as they are 21 years old or over and are resident in the constituency
2. Women over 30 years old
receive the vote but they have to be either a member or married to a member of
the Local Government Register
The size of the electorate
tripled from the 7.7 million who had been entitled to in 1912 to 21.4 million
by the end of 1918. Women now accounted for about 43% 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.
Photo Legacy: Making your memories last forever http://www.photolegacy.com
Research courtesy of Wikipedia
Images courtesy of Eastman House
under The Commons Agreement of Flickr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_of_the_People_Act_1918
No comments:
Post a Comment