- People believed this was the best way: the right to choose who would represent them
- Some believed democracy was 1) a long cherished ideal, 2) caused by struggle with authority and 3) only very slowly achieved
- 1918 ( Britain had become a full democracy
Women and the vote:
- Women were the last group of people to achieve the vote
- 1918 ( women had to be over 30 and be: householders, pay rent over £5 a year, or have graduated from a British university to obtain the vote
- 10 years passed, and only then were women on equal terms with men (voting age of 21)
- So eventually after 1928, regardless of women’s financial/marital status, if over 21, they could vote (they were “enfranchised”)
- Still, this was after a long, and at terms controversial, campaign
Education:
Feminists believed education was the key to unlock closed doors in politics. When the suffrage movement started, the majority of women from all social classes generally lacked a formal education.
Working class girls:
- Until 1870, young factory workers went to factory schools and pauper children went to workhouse schools
- The remainder of the female population (if educated formally at all) were taught in a fee-paying school run by older women/charity schools for poor children
- When the educations act 1870 was introduced (which allowed local authorities to build schools for children aged 5-13 years), state schools replaced this informal system
- End of 19th century ( schooling was free and compulsory to all children up to 13 years old
This gave some chances to working class girls to be numerate and literate
- By the end of 19th century 97% of all children could read and write
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But: the curriculum was too wide, the teaching too rigid, and the classes too...
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