DEMOCRATIC REFORM
IN BRITAIN:
PROGRESS THROUGH
EVOLUTION
Britain would take a course in the 19th and
early 20th century that would gradually
develop into a truly democratic system.
• Great Reform Bill of 1832
• reduced property qualifications to
enfranchise the middle class, increasing the
number of voters from 500,000 to over
800,000 (still only 5% British adult males)
• Took representation away from many rotten
and pocket boroughs
• Granted representation to many populous
industrial cities
• By these provision the bill shifted control of
the House of Commons from the landed
aristocracy to the commercial and industrial
middle class
• The Chartist Movement
• City workers, not enfranchised by the Reform Bill of
1832,
• In the “People’s Charter they petitioned the
government for
• Universal manhood suffrage
• Equal districts
• The secret ballot
• Annual elections
• Removal of property qualifications for members
of parliament
• Salaries for members of Parliament
• The Chartist movement died out following its failure
to secure reforms from parliament in 1848
• Subsequently, most Chartist demands were enacted
into law
• The Reform Bill of 1867 decreased the property
qualification for voting thus extending suffrage
to better paid workers
• Reform Bill of 1884 extending the right to vote
to agriculture workers
• The Reform Bill of 1918 gave the vote to all men
over the age of 21 and to most women over 30
• The Reform Bill of 1928 would give all women
over 21 the vote