Age of Reforms
Liberal Reforms in Great Britain and its Empire
Reforms of the 1800’s
 Liberals helped enact numerous reforms to protect
individuals’ political and civil liberties. Reforms focused on:
 Suffrage: the rite to vote
 Correcting social and economic problems
 Abolition of slavery and slave trade.
 Voting Restrictions
 The only people who could vote owned property.
 Voted in open (Bribes or Intimidation)
 Only men who owned a lot of property could be member of
the House of Commons.
 No Catholics, Jews, or Dissenters could hold office.
Reform Bill of 1832
 Catholic Emancipation Act: allowed Roman Catholics to
serve in Parliament if they recognized Protestant monarch as
ruler of Great Britain.
 Reform Bill of 1832: took seats in House of Commons away
from less populated areas and gave them to industrial cities.
 People with less property could vote
 Liberal Party is formed: mix of Tory and Whigs
 Conservative Party: Tory Party of wealthy landowners
Economic Changes
 Factory Act of 1833: reforming horrible working conditions
of women and children.
 Slavery was abolished in all British colonies.
 Free public education
 Eliminated Unpopular Corn Laws:
 Taxes on grain imported by Britain enabling landowners
to sell their grain at high prices.
 High prices or starve
Chartist Movement
 William Lovett demanded universal male suffrage and secret
ballot.
 People’s Charter:
 Universal mall suffrage and secret ballot
 Electoral districts redrawn in order to equalize parliamentary
representation.
 Salaries for members of Parliament
 Supporters of Lovett were called Chartists
 Chartist Movement in long run
 Doubled the number of British voters
 Most urban and industrial workers could
Now vote (women cannot).
 Queen Victoria: queen for 63 years (Victorian Age)
 Gave prime ministers free hand (Did not interfere) They were:
 Benjamin Disraeli: twice served as prime minister
 Guiding foreign affairs and expanding Britain’s empire.
 Second term, gained control of Suez Canal (Empress of
India).
 William Gladstone: served four terms as prime minister
 Concerned with domestic and financial affairs
 Education Act of 1870: national elementary education system
for a small fee and free by 1891.
 Began to use secret ballot
 Voting districts redrawn
Reforms of the 1900’s
 Fabin Society: improve society through social ideas and
education.
 Helped workers with frustration with liberal and conservatives
 Herbert Asquith: prime minister and member of liberal party
(1905).
 Set up old-age pensions, health insurance, and
unemployment insurance.
 Suffragettes: women who campaigned for their right to vote.
 Emmeline Pankhurst: leader of Suffragettes
 Petitioned Parliament and demonstrated
 Not won until WW1.
Other Areas of the British Empire
Canada:
 1830’s, a depression, unemployment, and crop failures led to
failed uprisings.
 Lord Durham: broad powers to reform Canada government
 Keep colonies in Empire but grant them self-government
 British Upper Canada and French Lower Canada
 North America Act in 1867: creating Dominion of Canada
with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New
Brunswick.
 Purchased Northwest Territories making Manitoba a province
 Yukon Territory: Gold
 Pacific Railway=immigration=Alberta and Saskatchewan
Australia
 Used as penal colony
 Convicts who served sentences could stay in Australia and own
land.
 1800’s: lawless Australia (Immigrants, ex-con’s, and gangs
clashed).
 Death due to diseases from Europeans
 British claimed entire continent in 1829.
New Zealand
 Maori: original inhabitants of New Zealand
 Signed a treaty with British which gave them control
 British Parliament granted New Zealand a constitution (Selfgoverning colony).
 Hurt by European settlement due to:
 Fights over land
 Warfare and disease
 Discovery of gold (Brought immigrants)
 1st country in world to grand women
Right to vote.