Women queuing up to cast their votes for the first time in the general election, December 1918. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

On 14 December 1918, women, providing they were over 30 and they or their husbands were an occupier of property, were able to vote in a general election for the first time. This had been called by prime minister David Lloyd George immediately after the armistice which ended the first world war. Eight and a half million women were eligible to vote following the extension of the franchise in the Representation of the People Act 1918.

For more: theguardian.com