Winning the right to vote

The vote widened by stages, each one stopping short of the next. The Reform Act of 1832 swept away the pocket and rotten boroughs and handed seats to the growing towns; the second Reform Act of 1867 widened it again, to more of the men working in those same towns and cities. Property still decided who counted, and no woman counted at all. Abroad the century closed in conflict: the start of the Boer War came in 1899, with Britain fighting settlers of Dutch descent in southern Africa.

Votes for women arrived in two steps, and only after the First World War. Women over 30 getting the vote came in 1918, a partial settlement rather than equality, and it left younger women out of an election they had helped make possible. Ten years later the job was finished: 1928 brought women getting the vote at 21, the same as men.