Women Over 30 gained the vote in 1918 mainly because of women's contribution to the war effort

The Suffragists also supported the war, although as an organisation they did not actively encourage men to fight. They had built up considerable support by 1914 and by then it had become apparent that any new reform bill to do with voting would have to include women as well as men. In fact, they had built up so much support that some people believe the war actually delayed the inevitable and that women would have achieved suffrage earlier if the war had not distracted attention away from them.

        Many women wanted the “Right to serve”. This did not necessarily mean doing the actual fighting but war work that would help to win the war. This included working in munitions factories; nursing; joining the army as a cook, cleaner or secretary as well as other war related jobs. These women included people from all kinds of class backgrounds from working class women to aristocrats. This was the first time it was really seen as acceptable for women other than working class women to be working. This may have helped women to gain the vote, however, the majority of the women who entered the workforce to help with things such as munitions would have been young and probably under 30. This means that although women surely helped to win the war, giving women over 30 the vote at the end of the war cannot have been as a direct “reward” for their effort during the war.

It seems more likely that the effect war had on gaining women the vote was less direct than this. Considering that it was women over 30 who gained the vote, and only householders or the wives of householders were allowed to vote, it appears more likely that they gained the vote because they would have been unrepresented had they not. These women would probably have had husbands who fought in the war. Millions of men died in the war and many of these men would have been voters as by this time over 50% of the male population could vote. This meant that women who previously had an indirect vote by influencing their husband’s decision now had no input whatsoever. To correct this the government gave women over 30 who were householders or the wives of householders the vote.

Women finally gained suffrage in 1918 because the reasons for allowing it to them were better than those for denying it to them. These reasons carried different weight but in my opinion the war was the decisive factor. Allowing women the vote meant they could claim that they were conceding to Suffragists and Suffragettes without making any major changes, since the women who could now vote would be likely just to vote the same way as their husbands did, or used to if they had died. This meant that the campaigns could be stopped while they tried to restructure the country and they would not get in the way. By claiming that it was the war that gained women the vote and not the militancy of the Suffragettes they did not encourage others to use the same techniques and also made the women who had actually made a strong contribution to the war effort think that they had gained a reward. Without the war women would probably have gained the vote at around the same time due to the efforts of campaigners but if the campaigns had stopped at the time they did and there was war then suffrage may never have been attained for women in Britain.