Members of the Speaker's Conference

The Speaker chose 32 MPs and Peers to be members, attempting to represent all interests fairly. He included approximately 17 women's suffrage supporters and 10 anti-suffragists, with others undecided or unclear. He explained to the Prime Minister, ‘On the question of Woman Suffrage I endeavoured to obtain an equal division of opinion… but many obvious difficulties presented themselves in discovering the views of gentlemen upon that important topic.'

List of members of the Speaker's Conference on Electoral Reform 1916/7:

Speaker James W. Lowther, Chair of the Conference
W. T. Jerred, Local Government Board, Secretary to the Conference

LIBERALS
Sir Ryland Adkins MP
Sir John Bethell MP
Richard Causton, 1st Baron Southwark (appointed after 13 Dec)
Ellis Davies MP
Willoughby Dickinson MP
Herbert Gladstone, 1st Viscount Gladstone
Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey
George Lambert MP
Alexander MacCallum Scott MP
W. M. R. Pringle MP
Sir John Simon MP
Aneurin Williams MP

CONSERVATIVES AND UNIONISTS
Edward Archdale MP
Sir Frederick Banbury MP (resigned 13 Dec)
Sir William Bull MP
Colonel James Craig MP (resigned 13 Dec)
Sir Robert Finlay MP
James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury (resigned 13 Dec)
Sir Joseph Larmor MP
Harry Levy-Lawson, MP and later 1st Viscount Burnham
Donald Macmaster MP
Col Henry Page-Croft MP
Basil Peto MP
Sir Harry Samuel MP
Charles Stuart-Wortley, 1st Baron Stuart of Wortley
George Touche MP
Edmund R. Turton MP
Sir Robert Williams MP (appointed after 13 Dec)

IRISH NATIONALISTS
Patrick Joseph Brady MP (appointed after 13 Dec)
Maurice Healy MP
T. P. O'Connor MP
Thomas Scanlan MP

LABOUR
Frank Goldstone MP
Stephen Walsh MP
George J. Wardle MP

Viscount Bryce, Laurence Hardy MP and John Mooney MP were also appointed, but withdrew before the Conference began.