Image: Focus E15 protests against social cleansing.
It was against the backdrop of the First World War that George Cave, Conservative Home Secretary, introduced to Parliament the Representation of the People Act 1918 to extend voting rights. Now celebrated as the first victory in women gaining the vote, it’s notable that the most famous extracts from Cave’s speech don’t mention them at all:
“War by all classes of our countrymen has brought us nearer together, has opened men’s eyes, and removed misunderstandings on all sides. It has made it, I think, impossible that ever again, at all events in the lifetime of the present generation, there should be a revival of the old class feeling which was responsible for so much, and, among other things, for the exclusion for a period, of so many of our population from the class of electors. I think I need say no more to justify this extension of the franchise.”
