The Representation of the People Act 1918 added 8.5 million women – those over 30 who owned property or were graduates voting in a university constituency – to the electoral roll. It extended the parliamentary vote to some women and paved the way for universal suffrage 10 years later. It also gave the vote to 5.6 million more men after their voting age was lowered to 21 and the property qualification abolished. The general election in December 1918 consulted an electorate three times the size of the one before it.
42, Kingsway: campaigners outside Lincoln’s Inn House, the headquarters of the Women’s Social and Political Union from 1913 until 1917, publicise the suffragette summer festival, to be held at the Empress Rooms in Kensington
Great George Street: former suffragette prisoners pass the Houses of Parliament after their release from Holloway prison
St James’s Street: a suffragette demonstration
The Mall: a suffragette is arrested outside Buckingham Palace after a demonstration
Victoria Embankment: a suffragette demonstration passes the Houses of Parliament
Trafalgar Square: the crowd hears from Flora Drummond, one of the leaders of the suffragette movement who was known as The General
The Embankment: the coronation of King George V inspired the Women’s Social and Political Union to organise its own spectacular pageant. The four-mile procession culminated in a rally at the Royal Albert Hall and attracted more than 60,000 delegates
Pall Mall: Fortune Favours the Brave – a suffragette procession
The Strand: police arrest a suffragette
Buckingham Palace: Emmeline Pankhurst is arrested by Supt Rolfe outside Buckingham Palace after trying to present a petition to the king
Epsom: the suffragette Emily Davison throws herself under King George V’s horse at the Epsom Derby. (Racing photograph: Alamy)
