Votes for Women in Leigh on sea!

February 5, 2018 by Melinda at Giles Wilson Solicitors

On 6 February 2018 it will be exactly 100 years since some women were granted the right to vote in the UK for the first time. The ironically titled Representation of the People Act 1918 allowed women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote (this was 40% of all women in the UK), and at the same time the Act removed any restrictions on men voting. This meant that all men over the age of 21 could vote. So not really representative, but nevertheless this step is one that is being celebrated throughout the UK as the first one in the right direction. (It was a further 10 years until women achieved equal voting rights to men).

And what of the women of Leigh on sea? What part did they play in the suffrage movement? Women’s suffrage (meaning the fight for women’s right to vote) had begun before the First World War and the main organisation was the National Union of Women’s Suffrage (the NUWSS). By 1913, a Southend and Westciff-on-sea branch had formed, and the records show that the Secretary was a Mrs Webb of Salisbury Road, Leigh on sea. The Women’s Social and Political Union (the more militant split from the NUWSS – that known as suffragettes), also had local support with the Treasurer recorded as living in Oakleigh Park Drive, and the Secretary in Torquay Drive. So we can be proud to have played a part! (for more see this website’s own Historicaleigh – Votes for Women article by Carole Mulroney in June 2017).