Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928

The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928^[1] was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This act expanded on the Representation of the People Act 1918 which had given some women the vote in Parliamentary elections for the first time after World War I. It widened suffrage by giving women electoral equality with men. It gave the vote to all women who paid rates to the local government on the same terms as men. This meant they had to be over 21 years old, regardless of property ownership. Prior to this act only women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications could vote.

This statute is sometimes known informally as the Fifth Reform Act or the Equal Suffrage Act.

Passing of the act

The act was passed by the Conservative Party without much opposition from other parties. This was unsurprising given that the Liberal Party had been behind most reform in the nineteenth century. The Tories wanted to gain more voters in order to secure their position in government.

The bill became law on 2 July 1928, having been introduced in March. The leader of the NUWSS who had campaigned for the vote, Millicent Fawcett, was still alive and attended parliament to see the vote take place. She wrote in her diary the same night "It is almost exactly 61 years ago since I heard John Stuart Mill introduce his suffrage amendment to the Reform Bill on 20 May 1867. So I have had extraordinary good luck in having seen the struggle from the beginning."

References

See also

• Reform Act

External links

• Equal Franchise Act notes on Spartacus Education