Successive governments in Britain took great steps towards a more democratic form of government between 1911 and 1928. Universal suffrage, first proposed tentatively by a government in the former year, was completed in the latter. In the same period, the house of lords - the rejuvenation of which was treated at least nominally as vital by both the Liberal government and the Conservative opposition in 1911 - was effectively relegated even by Conservatives to an unimportant role. The attitudes and policies of Conservative politicians towards these changes deserve study for diverse reasons. They were part of a national debate about the wisdom of progress towards democracy; and so they form an important chapter in the development of political attitudes. They also do much to explain both how the process of democratization occurred, and how post-war governments viewed the electorate, as Conservatives participated in or dominated governments for most of the years from 1915 to 1945. Finally, the importance of Conservative views has been overlooked by historians, because they have persistently pre-dated the trend to democracy in Britain and so underestimated the scale of controversy about it. These historiographical tendencies are illustrated by the still lingering myth that the franchise before 1914 was close to manhood suffrage, or by the hitherto general assumption that the reform bill of 1917–18 was uncontroversial.