TWO articles (“Brave Women who suffered for suffrage”, The Herald, February 6, and “Suffragettes won the fight, they don’t need pity pardons”, The Herald, February 8) are typical of the exaggerated credit given in the media to the Suffragettes for The Representation of the People Act of 1918 which gave votes to women in parliamentary elections for the first time – it is rarely noted that some women had long been able to vote in local elections.
Once again, the contribution of the peaceful Suffragists who made up the great majority of women campaigning for the vote, has been downplayed. Thanks to the work of the Suffragist movement since the 1870s most politicians by the time the Liberals came into power in1906 accepted the principle of votes for women; however, they could not agree on which women to give the vote to. Liberal politicians were concerned that giving the vote on the same terms as men would lead to wealthier female householders voting for the Conservatives. It is also worth pointing out that recent discussion of the 1918 Act has almost completely ignored the fact that pre-1918 42 per cent of (mainly poorer) men did not have the vote. It wasn’t just women who were discriminated against at that time.
Before 1914 Suffragette violence had split the suffrage movement – many Suffragists were concerned it would undo all their work and would alienate support for votes for women. Indeed, the Government showed no sign of giving way to the violence, particularly as it was also faced with violent strikes and, in particular, the threat of civil war in Ireland.
The role of Suffragette violence certainly played a role in the 1918 Act as the government was keen to avoid the return of violence once the war ended. However, crucially, during the war the Suffragists were prepared to accept the compromise that votes for women should not be on equal terms with men in 1918, believing that votes for all women would follow shortly afterwards, as it did in 1928. The Government was afraid of the consequences of giving all women the vote and there was also a strong belief that men’s sacrifices in the war counted for more than than the war work done by women.
Finally, the effects of the 1918 Act have also been significantly underplayed. For example, The Herald online picture gallery refers to the "legislation that enabled all men and some women over the age of 30 to vote for the first time”. The 1918 Act gave the vote to 8.5 million women thanks to the clause that gave the vote not just to women over 30 who were householders but who were married to householders. It was the latter provision that transformed the number of female voters. The majority of women could now vote – hardly “some women”.
Kelvin Sinclair,
10 King Edward Road, Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here