Women gained the right to vote in the UK due to several key factors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: 1) The Industrial Revolution led more people, including women, to demand political representation to improve living conditions in cities and push for reforms. Wealthy business owners also gained suffrage, increasing calls for universal suffrage. 2) Growing education and newspapers helped spread suffragist ideas. Campaign groups like the Suffragists advocated for equal voting rights. 3) Government reforms impacting daily life, like pensions, increased demands for a say through voting. Pressure also grew as other countries like New Zealand granted women's suffrage. 4) World War I influenced reforms,

1. Why did women get the
vote?/Reasons for voting
changes

2. Discussion Point
1) What was the most significant act in the
journey to franchise equality?

3. Task 2
Take a new page in your jotter and put the following mind-map in the
centre. Take notes around the mind-map as we move through the
slides.
Reasons for
voting changes

4. Factor 1: The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution changed
Britain; more people lived in towns and
cities such as Glasgow, so they saw the
problems and poverty everyone faced.
This encouraged more people to want
the vote to force the Government to
improve their lives.
They were also more business owners
who were wealthy enough to get the
vote. This led to calls for everyone to get
the vote.
THINK
1) What would the problem
be if workers got the vote
but business owners did
not?

5. Factor 2: Education
The rise in the number of people educated and newspapers helped
spread ideas that everyone should get the vote.
This led to educated individuals setting up campaign groups such as the
Suffragists which allowed men and women to work together to achieve
equality.

6. Government changes
Local and national government began to introduce changes that
impacted people’s lives such as pensions and access to clean water.
More people then demanded the vote to ensure that the Government
was listening to them when they made these changes.
Other countries such as New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893,
the Government was then under pressure as New Zealand was part of
the British Empire.

7. Equality
As more men got the vote it was
harder for women to be denied
the vote.
In particular, wealthy and
educated women such as the
Pankhursts argued it was
unacceptable that poor peasant
men could vote but female
doctors and teachers could not.

8. World War One
World War One had a major influence in
the fight for franchise equality.
Men had been forced to fight and
women’s contribution in war work was
essential to victory.
The 1918 Representation of the People’s
Act was seen as reward to women who
worked in the war effort.

9. Exam Question(s)
1) Explain the reasons why women gained the vote by 1928 – 6 Marks
2) Evaluate the usefulness of Source A as evidence of the extension of
the right to vote by 1918.
Source A is from ‘Scotland and the Impact of the Great War 1914 –
1918’ a book written by the historian John Kerr in 2010
The 1918 Representation of the People Act gave some women over 30 the vote in
national elections. They had to be either householders or the wives householders,
or the graduates of British universities. The electorate expanded to 21 million of
which 8.4 million were women. By the end of the 1920’s women over 21 were also
given the vote.