Britain’s Reform
Acts:
Or the
Expansion of
Male
Suffrage
Adapted from parliament.uk
• For centuries, Parliament consisted of a small
landowning elite whose priorities were their own
power and prosperity.
• From the 18th century onwards, the social changes
brought about by industrial growth and the decline of
agriculture meant that the demographic landscape of
Britain was altered.
• With these changes came demands from the working
and middle classes for equality and fairness. It took
many years for a more representative Parliament to be
achieved.
The ruling elite was challenged by calls for
parliamentary reform and changes in legislation
led to a fairer, more democratic system
• Before the later 19th and early 20th century
only a small minority of men were entitled to
vote in parliamentary elections. Parliament
was dominated by rich landowners and
reflected their interests.
• Their priorities were to defend their property
rights against taxation and state interference.
Social disorder was not tolerated. Women did
not have any right to vote at all.
• The growth of industry in the 18th century
brought great change to the country, its people
and their aspirations. Towns and cities increased
in population as factories grew in number and
people were drawn to work in urban areas as
agriculture declined.
• This led to further inequalities in representation
in Parliament. Urban areas such as Birmingham
and Manchester had no Members of Parliament
while small villages which had once been
important in the Middle Ages sometimes sent
two representatives to Parliament.
• A sense of injustice and a growing political
consciousness outside the landed classes, as well
as the influence of revolutions in America and
France, contributed to a small but growing
demand for parliamentary reform.
• The violence of the French Revolution entrenched
the ruling elite's belief that the lower orders
should be kept in their place but as the 19th
century progressed, it was less easy for calls for
change to be ignored.
• As the 19th century progressed and the memory of the
violent French Revolution faded, there was growing
acceptance that some parliamentary reform was
necessary. The unequal distribution of seats, the
extension of the franchise and 'rotten boroughs' were
all issues to be addressed.
• The Tory Prime Minister in 1830, Arthur Wellesley, First
Duke of Wellington, was resolutely opposed to
parliamentary reform. However, there was growing
support for limited change within his party, primarily
because partially extending the franchise would allow
the wealth and influence of Britain's growing middle
class to be exploited.
• When the Tory government was ousted later in 1830,
Earl Grey, a Whig, became Prime Minister and pledged
to carry out parliamentary reform. The Whig Party was
pro-reform and though two reform bills failed to be
carried in Parliament, the third was successful and
received Royal Assent in 1832.
• The Bill was passed due to Lord Grey's plan to persuade
King William IV to consider using his constitutional
powers to create additional Whig peers in the House of
Lords to guarantee the Bill's passage. On hearing of this
plan, Tory peers abstained from voting, thus allowing
the Bill to be passed but avoiding the creation of more
Whig peers.
• The Representation of the People Act 1832, known as
the first Reform Act or Great Reform Act:
1- disenfranchised 56 boroughs in England and Wales and
reduced another 31 to only one MP
2- created 67 new constituencies
3- broadened the franchise's property qualification in the
counties, to include small landowners, tenant farmers,
and shopkeepers
4- created a uniform franchise in the boroughs, giving the
vote to all householders who paid a yearly rental of £10
or more and some lodgers
• Limited change had been achieved but for
many it did not go far enough. The property
qualifications meant that the majority of
working men still could not vote. But it had
been proved that change was possible and
over the next decades the call for further
parliamentary reform continued.
• The 1832 Reform Act proved that change was possible.
The parliamentary elite felt that they had met the need
for change but among the working classes there were
demands for more. The growth and influence of the
Chartist Movement from 1838 onwards was an
indication that more parliamentary reform was
desired.
• The Chartist Movement had peaked by the 1850s but
there was an acceptance among Members of
Parliament that there was more work to be done to
remove anomalies in the system that the first Reform
Act had not addressed
• However, the call for universal manhood
suffrage or 'one man, one vote' was still
resisted by Parliament and the second Reform
Act, passed in 1867, was still based around
property qualifications.
• There was no question of campaigning for the
right to vote for women too. They were still
excluded.
• The 1867 Reform Act:
• granted the vote to all householders in the
boroughs as well as lodgers who paid rent of £10
a year or more
• reduced the property threshold in the counties
and gave the vote to agricultural landowners and
tenants with very small amounts of land
• Men in urban areas who met the property
qualification were enfranchised and the Act
roughly doubled the electorate in England and
Wales from one to two million men.
• Parliament’s resistance to ‘one man, one vote’
was partly overturned in 1884 with the third
Reform Act which:
• established a uniform franchise throughout the
country
• brought the franchise in the counties into line
with the 1867 householder and lodger franchise
for boroughs
• The following year, the Redistribution of Seats Act
redrew boundaries to make electoral districts
equal. As a result of this Act, most areas returned
only one Member to Parliament, although 23
seats, including the City of London and Bath,
continued to return two Members until 1910.
• Parliament and the political landscape changed
greatly over the 19th century, beginning with a
small ruling elite in Parliament and gradually
increasing to be more democratic and
representative.
• However, one section of society was still
completely excluded from the voting process women. To be truly representative, Parliament
still had changes to make.