Purple, white, green

[altariel]

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the first UK general election in which women were able to vote (14th December 1918).

Earlier in the year, the Representation of the People Act had been passed giving votes to women, provided they were aged over thirty and either they, or their husband, met a property qualification. (I would not be able to vote under these provisions. That would not happen until the 1928 Equal Franchise Act, which gave women equal voting rights with men.)

Also in 1918, the Parliamentary Qualification of Women Act was passed, enabling women to stand as Members of Parliament. We usually hear that Nancy Astor was the 'first woman to take her seat in Parliament'. The first female Member of Parliament was in fact Countess Constance Markievicz, who won St Patrick's Ward in Dublin for Sinn Fein in the December 1918 election. Like other Sinn Fein MPs, she refused to take her seat since she would not swear an oath of allegiance to the King. Constance Markievicz was also the first woman to hold a Cabinet position in a European government. Nancy Astor won a by-election in Plymouth for the Conservatives in December 1919.

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine, who was 21 in 1929, was one of the first 21-year-old women to vote in a UK General Election - in fact, she rather hoped she was the first, as she made a point of getting to the polling station beforehand so she could vote at the earliest possible moment. The papers called them the Flapper Vote.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Amazing story. That's just the kind of thing we would do in those circumstances.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Wonderful!

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Just out of interest, I discovered from Stevie Davies's Unbridled Spirits that individual women had, once, been able to vote in elections if they were property holders in their own right (like widows). This loophole was closed in 1644 by the jurist Sir Edward Coke, whose Institutes disqualified "all males being minors, all that have no freehold and all women having freehold or no freehold". Not many women had qualified before, but this erased all those who did. Thanks, Ed.....

[altariel.livejournal.com]

That's a very interesting fact (filing it away): chimes with my sense that the position of mediaeval women was a lot more complex than we generally imagine. I googled the book and it looks very interesting.

[raspberryfool.livejournal.com]

That just shows that Plymouth is a progressive city, like i've always said.

Go Plymouth :-)

Having said that, Northampton had Charles Bradlaugh, who refused to swear an allegience to god. Unlike the Sinn Fein MPs, he tried several times to take his seat in Parliament but was prevented from doing so.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yay Plymouth!