Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech celebrating 50th anniversary of equal female suffrage ("A Right to Vote")

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Westminster Hall, Westminster
Source: Thatcher Archive: speaking text
Editorial comments: Time uncertain.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 590
Themes: Parliament, Women

A Right to Vote

I am very glad to take part in this ceremony marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Act of 1928, which conferred full equal voting rights upon women, and which Lord Birkenhead gloomily urged the Lords to support “with resolute resignation” —a course of action which I also often commend to the James CallaghanPrime Minister in another context.

The admirable Judge Page declared in 1733 that “I see no disability in women voting for a Parliament-man” , and I venture to declare in the context of 1978, that “I see no disability in men voting for a Parliament-woman” . [end p1]

At the height of the Suffragette movement women chained themselves to the railings outside Number Ten Downing Street. Today, women are not content to be outside Number Ten looking in.

I am particularly pleased that the 1928 Act was the work of a Conservative Government. Although I lament that Mr Churchill (together with Lord Birkenhead) was in a hostile minority to the measure, I rejoice that Clementine Churchillhis wife was a vehement critic of his actions on this issue. [end p2]

But this occasion also marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Representation of the People Act of 1918—which for the first time gave the vote to all men over 21, regardless of property qualifications, and gave the vote to women over 30, with the property qualifications. It was a final and decisive step towards full adult male suffrage; it was a dramatic advance towards achieving the same goal for women. [end p3]

Of course, I would not dream of making any political points on such an occasion, but it is worth reminding ourselves that this was achieved by an overwhelmingly Conservative Government, led by an eminent David Lloyd GeorgeWelshman who was by no means dedicated to the cult of anti-feminism, and that the first woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons was the redoubtable, controversial, and greatly beloved Lady Astor. [end p4]

I suppose this is expected to be a sombre and solemn occasion of glum reminiscences of the past and artificial optimism for the future. Certainly, the presence of the James CallaghanPrime Minister, George ThomasMr Speaker, and the Lord Elwyn JonesLord Chancellor in their gloomy splendour, wearied after their researches into discovering Welsh Suffragettes, might give that impression.

Incidentally, if one is to look at the distant past, it is significant to recall that women were summoned to attend the earliest Parliaments in the fourteenth century, and note that it is regrettable that after centuries of erudition, enlightenment, and reform, we reached in 1918 the same situation that obtained in the so-called Dark Ages. [end p5]

Women are tired of being patronised and condescended to. We are bored by being considered as a curious and endangered species. We are certainly not “more deadly than the male” —indeed as history emphasises, we are noticeably less deadly. If our homes and our families, remain central to us and our concerns, they are no longer our horizon.

Thus, in celebrating the anniversary of 1928, we also celebrate those measures which made this nation a true democracy—which involved men and women as equal human beings in the destiny of Britian. We honour them all. And here, on this occasion, we resolve to prove worthy of their endeavour, and their achievements, of which we are their heirs and trustees.