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Why did a campaign for women’s suffrage develop in the years after 1870
but it was still not enough they wanted their own say.
This takes onto another issue, the government had made three reform acts on men’s status on voting, the third extended the vote to five million men nearly two thirds of the male population, the only men who could not now vote were the poorest men like servants who lived with employers, criminals and lunatics, the men who could vote had to either rent or own property of a certain value and be literate, still no progress for women. A number of questions arose such as, if men had to be literate to vote, who taught them, women! This idea was taken from the American independence war, if women were being taxed without representation why should they pay taxes, finally if a working class man can vote shouldn’t a spinster/widow who owns property or rents it be allowed to cast her vote? The government were very fickle for instance here is an example lets say a women owns a farm and next to a hundred men work for her she isn’t allowed to vote yet some of her workers are, this was the mentality of the government at the time, all was soon to change though.