The Right to Vote

• The Reform Act of 1832 greatly increased the number of people with the right to vote. However, voting was still based on ownership of property. This meant that members of the working class were still unable to vote.
• Campaigners called the Chartists, presented petitions to Parliament to demand the vote for the working classes and other people without property.
• In 1867, there was another Reform Act. This created many more urban seats in Parliament and reduced the amount of property people needed before they could vote. However, most men still did not have the right to vote, and no women could vote.
• Until 1870, when a woman married, her earnings, property and money automatically belonged to her husband.
• Acts of Parliament in 1870 and 1882 gave wives the right to keep their earnings and property.
• In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an increasing number of women campaigned and demonstrated for greater rights and, in particular, the right to vote. They formed the women’s suffrage movement and became known as ‘suffragettes’.
• Emmeline Pankhurst was one of the key suffragettes in the early 20th century.