Board: AQA | Option: 1G | Component: Component 1 (Breadth Study) | Assessment Objective: AO3
This option covers Britain from the Great Exhibition to the first Wilson government, tracing social and political transformation across a century of extraordinary change. Students examine the extension of the franchise, the rise of the Labour Party, women’s suffrage, two world wars, the inter-war social crisis, and the post-war welfare state — engaging with historiographical debates about the pace and causes of democratic and social reform.
What this option covers
- Mid-Victorian confidence: the Great Exhibition, economic growth, and political stability
- The Second and Third Reform Acts and the extension of the franchise
- The emergence of the Labour movement and the formation of the Labour Party
- The suffragette and suffragist movements: methods, leadership, and the road to 1918
- The Liberal welfare reforms 1906–1914
- The First World War: social impact, the Defence of the Realm Act, and the end of the pre-war order
- The inter-war years: unemployment, the General Strike, and the National Government
- The Second World War and the Attlee government: the NHS and the welfare state
- Austerity to affluence: post-war Britain and the 1950s consensus
Key historiographical debates
- What drove the rise of Labour? Class identity, trade unionism, or the decline of Liberalism?
- The suffragette movement: did militancy help or hinder the cause?
- The impact of the First World War on British society: rupture or continuity?
- The Attlee government: socialist revolution or pragmatic Keynesianism?
AO3 Interpretation Pack — now available
The AO3 Interpretation Pack for AQA 1G is now available — see below. It covers all four major historiographical debates examined in this option, with named historians, paired comparison tasks built to AQA mark scheme logic, and provenance prompts for every debate.
£9.99 per pack
