Universal Suffrage In The UK - The Videos

A private soldier’s registration to vote following the passing of the 1918 Representation of the People Act

By MRA-UK: This is a shameless bit of advertising. I have made my first – and possibly last – foray onto YouTube.
The epochal 1918 Representation of the People Act will have its centenary in February 2018. This Act gave the vote to the majority of women for the first time in the UK. It also gave the vote to a far larger number of men than any other kindred Act. It is right that it should be celebrated. But it should be celebrated as a triumph for the principle of democracy – that the Parliamentary vote is a matter of right, not a matter of wealth.
My concern is that it may be celebrated for the wrong reasons. So my videos are a pre-emptive strike.
Most obviously, nearly half of men did not have the vote prior to 1918. So, whilst it is valid to celebrate the Act because it gave the vote to women, it would be inappropriate to celebrate only that aspect of it.
I suspect it will no longer be possible to hide the fact that most men/boys who died, or were maimed, in World War 1 did not have the vote. But it may still be possible to misrepresent, or downplay, the true motivations for Parliament passing the Act.
I argue in the videos that the wholesale deaths of men in the World War1 trenches was the impetus behind the passing of the Act, due to a wave of egalitarian feeling arising from this slaughter. This is a truth which has been buried.
For those preferring to read the material, a snappy 30,750 words, it’s here.
Linked below is this material in audio form, broken down into 25 manageable parts…
This inks to the whole channel of 25 videos  which will play in sequence.
Alternatively, individual links to the 25 parts are given below,

• Part 1 – Centuries of Oppression: The Road to 1918 – Introduction

• Part 2: The Medieval Period

• Part 3 – The Era of Domestic Trades

• Part 4 – Battles for Representation

• Part 5 – The Industrial Revolution

• Part 6 – Coal, Canals, Steam and Death

• Part 7 – The Chartists

• Part 8 – The Great Reform Act 1832

• Part 9 – The Second and Third Reform Acts

• Part 10 – From 1884 to 1918: The Overview

• Part 11 – The Suffragettes, the Working Class, and The Big Snag

• Part 12 – The History of the Parliamentary Franchise in Numbers

• Part 13 – The Parish and the Poor Law

• Part 14 – Emmeline Pankhurst’s Errors

• Part 15 – The Hypocrisy of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst

• Part 16 – The Great Unrest and Men’s Demands

• Part 17 – The Constitutionalists and the Convergence on Democracy

• Part 18 – The Speaker’s Conference and the Approach to 1918

• Part 19 – Was the 1918 Act a Reward for Returning Heroes?

• Part 20 – Was the 1918 Act a Result of the Suffragette Protests?

• Part 21 – Why were women included in the 1918 Act?

• Part 22 – Why the age limit of 30 in the 1918 Act?

• Part 23 – Was the 1918 Act passed to avoid revolution?

• Part 24 – What If World War 1 Had Not Happened?

• Part 25 – Conclusion and Summary 

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