Votes for both women and men.

Only some women got the vote in 1918 though lemon whereas all men over 21 did. Nothing to celebrate for all women really until 10 years later.

Good post. But what a shame that people don’t think it their duty to vote, after others struggled so hard for the right. Duty despite the obvious current disincentives, that is.

Wonderful Suffergettes rally showing on TV now, wonder what they would have made of GransNet ?

I honestly don’t think that a lot of younger men and women care much about the right to vote, otherwise more would vote in general elections.Since polling is open from about 6a.m to about 10 pm there is no excuse not to vote.
I don’t know if this subject is covered in schools, but it should be.

I don’t know what they would have made of GN Brid but I do wonder what they would make of young women who only seem to care about hair extensions, nails and watching Love Island.?

So true Lemongrove, it seems such an airhead attitude to have ,especially when you think what woman have gone through & some still do. I can’t bare to watch it or understand the concept of it ( apart from the cynical ratings aspect)

Ps, I hope they would have approved of GN , just think what they could have achieved with today’s technology .

Sorry lemongrove my DD is blonde, has acrylic nails and watches Love Island. She first voted 2 days after her 18th birthday and hasn't missed an opportunity to vote since.

I also dip in and out of Love Island, it is definitely 'an eye opener'.

My gorgeous DS's have tattoos (which I am getting used to) take care of themselves (gym and male grooming) have also voted since they were 18.

I have learnt not to,judge a book by its cover, it's hard sometimes not to go on first appearances, but a little faith in our younger generation please.

There are always exceptions GrannyG
But there must be some explanation for the very many who can’t be bothered to vote.

When watching old news clips of women suffrage marches, and actions, I am always surprised and horrified by the crowds around them, largely well dressed men in suits and hats, baying at them and pulling and hitting out at them.

Because of the way the suffragettes are dressed, they all give the view of these 'genteel' looking women, being treated with such violence, in a time when men were supposed to be gentlemen and treat women as "ladies".

It's amazing just how quickly that facade of 'respectable' behaviour broke down into violence against the suffragettes once they were considered to be over stepping the line, drawn, by a predominantly male controlled society.

The women sufferage movement brought so many sub agenda's to the fore, like domestic violence, sexual abuse in marriage, by lifting the curtain on the social veneer of respectability.

Lemon grove your point about working men getting the vote should I agree be celebrated. The move from only people, in those days, largely men, who did not own property being considered unreliable and not worthy of a vote, is just beyond our understanding in these times. Votes for working men was an enormous social step forward.

This is something I don't know. Was votes for working men brought about solely because of the war, or because to give women the vote, without all working men of the appropriate age having the vote too, would have been unacceptable? I don't recall men campaigning on votes for working men, or it might have been less newsworthy than votes for women campaigns.

You have brought this to my attention lemongrove, something of great social importance that seems to have gone under the radar. Was it because their was no votes for working men campaign? Or was there a campaign?

It does raise an interesting point Allygran. In either case, whether working men getting the vote was because of the war or women couldn't be given the vote unless it was given to all men, without any more information, it could be argued that the right to vote was regarded as more important to women than men.

Of course working men may have campaigned but I can never remember reading anything about this if they did.

Smileless I had a niggle at the back of my mind probably from school days. It was the Chartist's Movement. Could not remember much, so did some research and here it is. It might be of interest. Male suffrage although different in it's persecution to that of women's suffrage, was hard won over a long time.

It's a long paste hope you don't mind, I think it's of interest.
“A man shall be entitled to be registered as a parliamentary elector for a constituency… if he is of full age and not subject to any legal incapacity.”

"The 1918 Representation of the People Act symbolised the end of the long and weary path for universal male suffrage. Manhood suffrage may have been removed as the focus for electoral progress as women’s suffrage became more prominent, but it always remained an issue for the electoral system. Although the Chartist Movement had been unsuccessful, by the time of the Fourth Reform Act, nearly all their aims had been achieved, except for annual parliamentary elections. The period between the first and the fourth Acts witnessed minor victories for male suffrage, but it was the final reform and the introduction of women to the electorate that won all men the right to vote."
blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/universal-manhood-suffrage/

History of the Chartist Movement.
"In 1832, voting rights were given to the property-owning middle classes in Britain. However, many people wanted further political reform."

"Chartism was a working class movement, which emerged in 1836 and was most active between 1838 and 1848. The aim of the Chartists was to gain political rights and influence for the working classes."
"Chartism got its name from the formal petition, or People’s Charter, that listed the six main aims of the movement. These were:
1.a vote for all men (over 21)
2.the secret ballot
3.no property qualification to become an MP
4.payment for MPs
5.electoral districts of equal size
6.annual elections for Parliament"
"The movement presented three petitions to Parliament - in 1839, 1842 and 1848 – but each of these was rejected. The last great Chartist petition was collected in 1848 and had, it was claimed, six million signatures. The plan was to deliver it to Parliament after a peaceful mass meeting on Kennington Common in London. The government sent 8,000 soldiers, but only 20,000 Chartists turned up on a cold rainy day. The demonstration was considered a failure and the rejection of this last petition marked the end of Chartism."

The rejections:
"1842 was the year in which more energy was hurled against the authorities than in any other of the 19th century".[3]:295 In early May 1842, a second petition, of over three million signatures, was submitted, and was yet again rejected by Parliament. The Northern Star commented on the rejection:

“Three and half millions have quietly, orderly, soberly, peaceably but firmly asked of their rulers to do justice; and their rulers have turned a deaf ear to that protest. Three and a half millions of people have asked permission to detail their wrongs, and enforce their claims for RIGHT, and the 'House' has resolved they should not be heard! Three and a half millions of the slave-class have holden out the olive branch of peace to the enfranchised and privileged classes and sought for a firm and compact union, on the principle of EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW; and the enfranchised and privileged have refused to enter into a treaty! The same class is to be a slave class still. The mark and brand of inferiority is not to be removed. The assumption of inferiority is still to be maintained. The people are not to be free.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism
Such powerful words.

Eventual reforms
Chartism did not directly generate any reforms. It was not until 1867 that urban working men were admitted to the franchise under the Reform Act 1867, and not until 1918 that full manhood suffrage was achieved. Slowly the other points of the People's Charter were granted: secret voting was introduced in 1872 and the payment of MPs under the Parliament Act of 1911.[42] Annual elections remain the only Chartist demand not to be implemented. Participation in the Chartist Movement filled some working men with self-confidence: they learned to speak publicly, to send their poems and other writings off for publication, to be able, in short, to confidently articulate the feelings of working people. Many former Chartists went on to become journalists, poets, ministers, and councillors.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism

"When the Act passed into law, on 6 February 1918, it wasn’t just about women’s suffrage. As well as enfranchising eight million women, more than five million men suddenly became eligible too."

inews.co.uk/news/uk/millions-working-class-men-got-vote-100-years-ago/

Lots of interesting information on:
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/politics/g

Women , no matter how educated or wealthy were denied the vote based on their gender alone before 1918, men’s voting rights were based on an economic category not their gender. I would guess this is the reason more emphasis is made of a revolutionary change, rather than the slower, more evolutionary move towards suffrage equality. It’s not a question of women being given preference. I suppose a bit like the abolition of slavery being seen as a more remarkable social change than the abolition of child labour in a series of laws which were gradually introduced over a number of decades.

Finally in 1918, Parliament passed an act granting the vote to women over the age of 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property with an annual rent of £5, and graduates of British universities

While the 1918 Act made suffrage universal for males over the age of 21 it only gave a limited suffrage to women (and note that insulting age boundary .)

It was another 10 years before universal female suffrage on equal terms with men was achieved. 1918 was a milestone, not the end of the journey.

Thanks for that Allygranas soon as I read 'Chartists Movement' something was triggered in my memory, as with you probably from my school days.

The Chartist movement was the beginning of the campaign for universal suffrage, but the pary which really campaigned for it was the Labour party. And the Women's Labour League (branch of the Labour Party 1906-1918)campaigned for universal suffrage not just votes for women. One reason proposed for why women didn't get the vote at 21, on equal terms with men in 1918 is because had this happened there would have been more women than men voters in that general election.

Thanks Allygran a very interesting piece.?

It is interesting to me at least, that the Labour party was a late comer to the campaign for universal suffrage, not being formed until as late as 1893. Developing out of the Chartist male and female movement, formed by middle class radicals and the first political unions formed in the 1840's. Later joined by trade unions.

The independent Chartist at one point attempting to prevent unions in Bristol from going over to the Liberal's. The "political unions" existed in the large industrialised citys, Birmingham of course Manchester and Sheffield. In London the the "fist trade unions: Amalgamated Society of Engineers" was the first 'Trade Union" to be "formed in 1851 giving birth to the modern trade union movement". "The London Trades Council being formed in 1852". These Unions developed from "Robert Owen's socialist and cooperative ideas" and Union. The "TUC was formed in Manchester in 1868".
It was the chartist movement of 1840 and the subsequent political unions that became trade unions that brought about the three reform bills, that eventually lead to the beginning of the end of "male and female suffrage", brought to the fore by the industrialised 19th Century Britain.

"The Fabian Society being formed in 1883" along with other "socialist leagues run by William Morris" were all fore runners to the formation of the Labour movement being formed as late as "1893 as the Independent Labour Party."

From Peterloo in the early part of the 19th century through to the beginning of the 20th century. A whole century of enormous economic, industrial, technological and social changes that altered the way of life for the people of the next century: us!

This is a precis of the work found on the link below and old notes of my own:
freeuniversitybrighton.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/History-of-Labour-Movement.pdf

trisher, your point about the voter ratio's of men to women in 1918, is of course a valid one. Women for the first time on a large scale, had been engaged in what had traditionally been regarded as "mens" work to keep the country running during the Great War WW1. This National recognition of the role of women during that war, could not have been ignored when it came to excluding or including women in the voting population.

The categorisation of mens and women jobs started to change at this point as well, since there was a shortage of working age young men to build the economy after the war.

Another issue of course was the large numbers of men who did not return from the war. Leaving women as the "Head" of the household, this "role", the importance and reason for it, could hardly have been ignored without massive reaction across the country.