I don't know about that. It doesn't seem too clear why we are 240/230 and they are 110v.
But Edison used +110v, 0, -110v in his DC. And in the AC v DC wars Edison claimed AC high voltage was dangerous. So they may have perceived 110v to be safer.
A couple of links give this answer though
http://thednetworks.com/2012/06/10/why-does-ukusa-use-110120v-and-others-use-220240v/which I didn't know.
