The suffragette movement

At the same time that American women began to demand the vote, a similar movement in Britain the woman’s Suffrage Societies was founded in 1867 (at the time of the Second Reform Bill), but it made little progress.

At that time women were treated very much as second class citizen in Britain. They did not get equal pay for equal work, not where they treated equally with men when applying for a job. Many women realized that they would only be able to improve their position if they had the vote.

 

Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst and her two daughter Christabel and Sylvia decided positive action was needed. They founded the women’s Social and Political Union in 1903 to campaign actively for votes for woman. They suffragette began their protest by heckling government ministers at meeting and putting up posters. But the movement later turned to violet protest after some suffragettes were badly treated in prison.

 

They called off their protest at the start of the First World War, and when it ended in 1918 parliament passed the Representation of the people Act. This gave the votes to;

(a)all men over the of 21,

(b)all women over the age of 30.

 

Finally, in 1928 the equal Franchise Act gave the vote to women on the same terms as for men. At long last all adults had the vote. Universal suffrage had arrived. The voting age was further reduced from 1 to 18 years by the Representation of the People Act in 1969