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How the vote for all women was won
MARY DAVIS explains the historic significance of Sylvia Pankhurst and the East London Federation of Suffragettes

This year we celebrate the centenary of the Representation of the People Act when women over 30 with a small property qualification were enfranchised, even though the 1918 Act gave all men over 21 the vote.

[[{"fid":"1741","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Sylvia Pankhurst casts her vote","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Sylvia Pankhurst casts her vote","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"alt":"Sylvia Pankhurst casts her vote","class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"},"link_text":null}]]For some reason there appears to be a greater preference to mark the 1918 anniversary than 1928 when, at last, all women over 21 were enfranchised.

We need to re-examine suffrage history.

She wanted working class women to be fighters on their own account, free from the patronising attitudes of middle class women

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