[1]In 1907 Acts of parliament for England, Wales and Scotland (and one for Ireland in 1911) made women eligible as members of Town, County, Burgh and Borough Councils and as chairmen of these bodies, including the right to be Mayors and Provosts, Aldermen and Baillies, with the limitation that women appointed to an office carrying with it the right to be Justices of the Peace should be incapacitated from so acting. These Acts though noncontentious in the party sense required fourteen years' strenuous work to secure their adoption as Government measures. This was achieved during Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman's premiership, the necessary legislation being announced in the King's Speech as part of the Government programme.
In 1918 the Qualification of Women Act for the United Kingdom made women eligible to the House of Commons. The Bill passed almost without opposition through both Houses and became law in the week ending November 16. As the General Election took place on December 14 there was little time for preparation, nevertheless, there were seventeen women candidates and one, the Countess Makievicz, a Sinn Feiner, was elected but refused to take her seat. The fact that her husband was a foreigner made it doubtful whether she would have been allowed to do so, though an Irishwoman by birth. In 1919 Viscountess Astor was elected for Plymouth.
In 1919 the Sex Disqualification Removal Act for the United Kingdom went some way but not the whole way towards the fulfilment of the pledge given by the Coalition Government of Mr. Lloyd George in December, 1918, "to remove existing inequalities in the law as between men and women." A much more complete bill had been introduced by the Labour Party early in the session, which passed through all its stages in the House of Commons notwithstanding Government opposition but was defeated in the House of Lords and the Government changeling substituted. This Act, though it did not give women the parliamentary vote on the same terms as men nor admit them to the civil service on equal
- ↑ Accompanying this chapter was a complete list of laws in the interest of women enacted by the Parliament beginning in 1902, prepared by Miss Chrystal Macmillan, M.A., B.Sc. The lack of space which has compelled the omission of similar laws from all of the State chapters makes it necessary in this one. Three of importance politically are given.—Ed.
