diff --git a/CHANGELOG.txt b/CHANGELOG.txt
index b36af8117..a307b340d 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.txt
+++ b/CHANGELOG.txt
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ Changelog
  * Added `WAGTAILADMIN_RECENT_EDITS_LIMIT` setting to to define the number of your most recent edits on the dashboard (Maarten Kling)
  * Creating / editing users through the Wagtail admin no longer modifies the `is_staff` flag (Matt Westcott)
  * Added link to the full Elasticsearch setup documentation from the Performance page (Matt Westcott)
+ * Tag input fields now accept spaces in tags by default, and can be overridden with the `TAG_SPACES_ALLOWED` setting (Kees Hink, Alex Gleason)
  * Fix: Marked 'Date from' / 'Date to' strings in wagtailforms for translation (Vorlif)
  * Fix: "File" field label on image edit form is now translated (Stein Strindhaug)
  * Fix: Unreliable preview is now reliable by always opening in a new window (Kjartan Sverrisson)
diff --git a/docs/advanced_topics/settings.rst b/docs/advanced_topics/settings.rst
index 505160c50..55b65c893 100644
--- a/docs/advanced_topics/settings.rst
+++ b/docs/advanced_topics/settings.rst
@@ -327,6 +327,15 @@ Case-Insensitive Tags
 
 Tags are case-sensitive by default ('music' and 'Music' are treated as distinct tags). In many cases the reverse behaviour is preferable.
 
+Multi-word tags
+---------------
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+  TAG_SPACES_ALLOWED = False
+
+Tags can only consist of a single word, no spaces allowed. The default setting is ``True`` (spaces in tags are allowed).
+
 Unicode Page Slugs
 ------------------
 
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.10.rst b/docs/releases/1.10.rst
index ad82fd491..47637d33d 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.10.rst
+++ b/docs/releases/1.10.rst
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ Other features
  * Added support for displaying ``non_field_errors`` when validation fails in the page editor (Matt Westcott)
  * Added `WAGTAILADMIN_RECENT_EDITS_LIMIT` setting to to define the number of your most recent edits on the dashboard (Maarten Kling)
  * Added link to the full Elasticsearch setup documentation from the Performance page (Matt Westcott)
+ * Tag input fields now accept spaces in tags by default, and can be overridden with the ``TAG_SPACES_ALLOWED`` setting (Kees Hink, Alex Gleason)
 
 
 Bug fixes
diff --git a/wagtail/wagtailadmin/static_src/wagtailadmin/js/core.js b/wagtail/wagtailadmin/static_src/wagtailadmin/js/core.js
index 346c2072d..affe92606 100644
--- a/wagtail/wagtailadmin/static_src/wagtailadmin/js/core.js
+++ b/wagtail/wagtailadmin/static_src/wagtailadmin/js/core.js
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ function escapeHtml(text) {
     });
 }
 
-function initTagField(id, autocompleteUrl) {
+function initTagField(id, autocompleteUrl, allowSpaces) {
     $('#' + id).tagit({
         autocomplete: {source: autocompleteUrl},
         preprocessTag: function(val) {
@@ -32,7 +32,9 @@ function initTagField(id, autocompleteUrl) {
             }
 
             return val;
-        }
+        },
+
+        allowSpaces: allowSpaces
     });
 }
 
diff --git a/wagtail/wagtailadmin/widgets.py b/wagtail/wagtailadmin/widgets.py
index dc2c0f2a7..332a8e9f3 100644
--- a/wagtail/wagtailadmin/widgets.py
+++ b/wagtail/wagtailadmin/widgets.py
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ import itertools
 import json
 from functools import total_ordering
 
+from django.conf import settings
 from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse
 from django.forms import widgets
 from django.forms.utils import flatatt
@@ -68,9 +69,11 @@ class AdminDateTimeInput(WidgetWithScript, widgets.DateTimeInput):
 
 class AdminTagWidget(WidgetWithScript, TagWidget):
     def render_js_init(self, id_, name, value):
-        return "initTagField({0}, {1});".format(
+        return "initTagField({0}, {1}, {2});".format(
             json.dumps(id_),
-            json.dumps(reverse('wagtailadmin_tag_autocomplete')))
+            json.dumps(reverse('wagtailadmin_tag_autocomplete')),
+            'true' if getattr(settings, 'TAG_SPACES_ALLOWED', True) else 'false',
+        )
 
 
 class AdminChooser(WidgetWithScript, widgets.Input):