Women’s Suffrage and Electoral Reform in Britain Through the Representation of the People Act, 1918

Acts of Parliament Women’s Suffrage

Pamphlet

Representation of the People Act, 1918, 1918, documents the statutory transformation of British electoral democracy at the close of the First World War, granting parliamentary voting rights to women over thirty who met property qualifications while extending the franchise to men over twenty-one. The Act records the legal mechanism by which decades of women’s suffrage agitation entered parliamentary law, revealing how electoral reform operated through age, sex, residence, and property qualifications, and providing primary-source evidence for the study of women’s political rights, wartime citizenship, and the expansion of representative government in Britain.

Representation of the People Act, 1918. [8 Geo. 5. Ch. 64]. London: Printed by Percy Lund, Humphries & Co. Ltd. for Norman Gibb Scorgie, C.V.O., C.B.E., Controller of His Majesty’s Stationery Office and King’s Printer of Acts of Parliament, 1918. First edition. 161 pages. Original paper wrappers. 9.5 x 6 inches. The printed Act sets out the revised parliamentary franchise, registration procedures, voting rules, redistribution provisions, and related administrative structures that governed the enlarged electorate. Its significance lies not only in the admission of approximately 8.5 million women to the electorate, but also in the unequal structure of that admission: women’s voting rights remained restricted by age and qualification while men received a broader franchise.

Passed after a long suffrage campaign that included constitutional lobbying, mass organizing, civil disobedience, imprisonment, and militant protest, the Act marked a decisive but incomplete victory for women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom. Original wrappers with expected minor handling wear; internally sound, very good. A major parliamentary document for the study of women’s suffrage, postwar citizenship, and the legal architecture of modern British electoral reform.

Item #16570

Price: $480.00