Women's suffrage - February 1918, first women gain…

Women's suffrage - February 1918, first women gain right to vote in parliamentary elections

The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) on a horse-drawn carriage driven by Emmeline Pankhurst - file photo from 1910, PA wire. Photograph: PA

The Act granted some women the right to vote in parliamentary elections for the first time, but not on an equal basis to men, who gained universal suffrage. This resource looks at how the Guardian reported the law being passed and its marking of the centenary.

Women had campaigned for the right to vote in parliamentary elections for over 50 years. The Act of 1918 had a number of possible motivations. Suffrage activity both peaceful and militant was suspended at the outbreak of war in 1914 and might well have been resumed in peacetime if no action was taken to give women the vote. Women had played a major role in the war effort, taking on jobs previously done by men in areas such as transport, farming and munition production, and the vote can be seen as a reward for this work. Parliament had to pass a new franchise law as millions of men who had been fighting in the war were unable to vote in the next general election as they did not meet the residency conditions and many had not registered. Politicians did not seriously debate giving all women the vote on the same basis of men as by doing this women would have outnumbered men and party representation in the House of Commons might be seriously altered.

In February 1918 women over 30 were given the right to vote in general elections if they already voted in local government elections or were married to men who did. The Act gave all men aged 21 the right to vote or at aged 19 if they had seen active service and were not legally disqualified. A fifth of women over 30 did not fulfil the voting registrations requirement. 60% of women could not vote, including many of the women who worked in the war and whose jobs ended in peacetime. Approximately 12.5 million men now had the right to vote and 8.5 million women.

The Guardian news report on 7 February noted that the Act’s terms included “soldiers, sailors, and women’s war-worker’s votes”. Its editorial celebrated it as an “mighty constitutional landmark” and that “ the recognition of political equality is the first step to the recognition of equality in every other field where nature has not set up her own barriers”.

On 11 February the paper reported the Manchester Reform Club’s celebration of the extension to Parliamentary vote to some women. CP Scott, editor of the Guardian, said at the meeting, he believed the act was “not merely the beginning of legislative justice but of a great social change.” Councillor Margaret Ashton also present noted that this was only the beginning and that when equal suffrage “was obtained we should be able to speak of democracy in this country for the first time.”

It was to be another 10 years before all women got the vote on the same basis as men with the passing of the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act in 1928.

Marking 100 years

Editorial: The Guardian view on women’s suffrage: still no real equality

Suffragette London – then and now

‘We owe it to their memory’: family stories 100 years since the suffragette movement

My great-great-aunt was a terrorist: women’s politics went beyond the vote

The role of violence in winning votes for women (and men)

Will women be equal to men in 100 years? The panel verdict

Which branch of feminism won women the vote? We all did

Why we should channel the suffragettes and rethink democracy

Statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett to be unveiled in April

We owe it to the suffragettes to keep campaigning for women

‘Shambolic’: women’s groups accuse government over vote centenary funding