The
Breakthrough
of Liberalism
in the West:
Great Britain
Section 11.54,
11.56 & 57
McKay Ch 23
(772-775)
Great Britain
1815-1850
-London Police
Force formed
(1828)
-Catholic
Emancipation Act
(1829)
Corn Law
passed
1815
1820
-Peterloo
Massacre (1819)
-Six Acts Passed
-Cato Street
Conspiracy
1825
Great
Exhibition in
Crystal Palace
(1851)
Chartists issue
Six Points (1836)
Factory
Act of
1853
1830
1835
Great Reform Bill
(1832)
Mines
Act
(1842)
1840
1845
-Irish Potato
Famine
begins
-Corn Laws
repealed
(1846)
1850
Ten Hour
Act (1847
Corn Laws
•
•
•
•
•
•
Landed classes feared an
onrush of imported
agricultural goods and the
collapse of farm prices
Passed 1st in series of
“Corn Laws” (1815-1846)
– tariff on imported (grain)
that maintained high
prices for domestic
produce
Stopped importation of
cheaper foreign grains
Helped Tory aristocrats
Wages could not keep up
with prices
Contributes to the spread
of radicalism
Peterloo Massacre
• riot broke out in London in Dec 1816,
• In Feb, the Prince Regent was attacked in
carriage
• Coercion Acts of 1817
– gov suspends habeas corpus and employ
agents provocateurs (spies) to charge
radicals
– Allowed arbitrary arrest and punishment
– Curtailed freedom of press and assembly
• Manchester (1819)
– Mass demonstration of 80 thousand at St.
Peter’s Fields
– Reformers demanded
• Repeal of Corn Laws
• universal male suffrage
• annual elections of HOC
– Perfectly orderly protest
– Government cavalry rushed the crowed
• fired on crowd
• 11 killed, 400 wounded, including 113 women
• called Peterloo Massacre in comparison to
Waterloo
Six Acts (1819)
• Parliament laws
meant to repress
political agitators
– Outlawed seditions
and blasphemous
literature
– Stamp tax on
newspapers
– Search of private
houses for arms
– Restricted the right of
public meetings
Arthur Thistlewood
Cato Street Conspiracy (1820)
• Revolutionaries planned to
blow up & assassinate the Tory
cabinet
• Caught by police on Cato
Street (1820)
• Five members of the Cato
Street Conspiracy are hanged
• Reactionary policies dug in to
stop the flood of revolutionary
spirit
• Great Britain is on the verge of
becoming a reactionary state
Catholic Emancipation Act
• Act of Union (1800)
• Made Ireland part of the United Kingdom
(Great Britain =England, Wales, & Scotland)
– Now Irish Protestants (Anglicans) could
vote
• Penal Laws had excluded Irish Catholics
from running for office or voting
• Daniel O’Connell
– Irish nationalist was elected to
Parliament in 1828 (but legally could not
take a seat)
• Duke of Wellington feared nationalists revolt
• Pushed through Catholic Emancipation Act
– Catholics could now run for office
– Provision in it required substantial
property to vote
Reform in Great Britain
•
•
Sir Robert Peel
Initiates Gaols Act of 1823
–
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Prison reform bill
Capital punishment eliminated for about
100 offenses
Novel idea of a policed state
Paid professionals who were visible to
help prevent crime
Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850)
Sponsored law for police on London
streets (1829)
Known as “bobbies” or disparagingly as
Peelers
But Liberal Tories could NOT:
– question the Corn Laws
– reform the House of Commons
(representation)
Robert Peel
Problems of Representation
• House of Commons does not
represent the population or economy
• Rotten Boroughs
–Some boroughs were
empty and had
representation
–one was under water in
the North Sea
• New factory towns were un-represented
(Manchester)
• Whigs propose reform bill on elections
• Tories under Wellington (victor of Waterloo
was most extreme conservative) refuse to
act
Arthur Wellesley,
1st Duke of Wellington
1830 Whigs take over the ministry
Introduce a reform bill that is rejected
Whigs resign and Tories fail to take up
leadership
Whigs return an reintroduce the bill and it
passes the HOC but is rejected by the
House of Lords
Uproar throughout the country and
revolution seems eminent
Whigs get the king to threaten to increase
the peerage in the HOL
House of Lords yields and Reform Bill of
1832 becomes law
Reform Bill of 1832
• Little impact on who voted
(increased from about 500
to 800 thousand
• Redistributed the seats in
the HOC to include the
industrial cities
(Manchester)
– Got rid of “rotten” boroughs
• The rising middle class is
gaining political
representation
• England sidesteps a
revolution through the
existence of Parliament
Read Thomas Babington Macaulay
defends the Great Reform Bill.
(685)
• Be prepared to discuss the corresponding
questions.
Britain after 1832
•
Reform Bill of 1832 did have some lasting
effects
•
New business interests stand alongside the
old aristocracy
Liberal Party develops
•
Aristocratic Whigs, radical industrialists,
and liberal Tories
Conservative party
•
Tories, few old Whigs, and a few former
radicals
•
Classic era to two party politics in England
•
1833 Slavery is abolished
•
1834 New Poor Law is passed
–
Provided relief for sick and aged (not
able bodied)
Municipal corporations act
•
Helped cities manage urban life problems
•
Reforms in the Church of England
•
Redistribution of Church income in more
equitable terms
Tory counteroffensive
•
Tories become champions of the
industrial workers
Publicized the social evils of rapid and
ruthless industrialization
Humanitarian industrialists were
sympathetic
Factory Act 1833 forbade child labor
(under 9)
•
•
•
–
•
1842 underground mine work was
forbidden for women, girls, and boys
under 10
1847 the Ten Hours Act
•
–
•
•
•
Paid inspectors to insure compliance
limited the labor of women and children to
10 hours
eventually men only worked ten hours
also
Liberal cotton magnate John Bright
called Ten Hours Act a “delusion
practiced on the working class”
it was against laissez-faire
Anti-Corn Law League (1838)
• Anti-Corn Law Whigs argued
against high prices for food
• Causes high wages and make
manufactures more expensive, high
food prices
• Pro-Corn Law Tories argued that
Britain should avoid becoming too
exclusively dependent on imported
food
• Modern political practices were
employed by the Anti-Corn Law
League to pressure the government
• Headquartered in Manchester
• it sent out lecturers, agitated
newspapers, held political teas,
open-air meetings
Anti-Corn Law League (1838)
• 1846 the Tory ministry under Robert Peel
yields and the Corn Law is repealed
• Symbolizes the change in England’s
government
• Industrial interests are now firmly seated
in government
• Free trade is to become the rule
• England becomes dependant on foreign
imports of food
• Industry became the mainstay of the
British economy
• workers transitioned to industrial jobs
• manufactures, coal, shipping, and
financial services become the basis of
the new economy
• Importing vital necessities from the rest
of the world was the fuel for the system
• Britain depended on the maintenance of
free trade and naval power
Over London by Rail Gustave
Doré c 1870. Shows the densely
populated and polluted
environments created in the new
industrial cities
Coalbrookdale at night, 1801 :
Artist: Philipp Jakob Loutherbourg
the Younger
Early Labor Movement
• Chartist Movement (1838-48)
• movement for political and social reform in the
United Kingdom during the mid-19th century
between 1838 and 1848
• Reform Act 1832
– gave the vote to a section of the male middle
classes, but not to the "working class"
– Six Points
• universal male suffrage for all men aged 21
and over.
– Contradicts ‘stake in society’ and
property qualifications
• A secret ballot.
• No property qualification for elected
members of Parliament (
• Payment of MPs (
• Equal constituencies i.e. the same number
of voters in each constituency.
• Annual Parliaments so that MPs could be
held to account by their constituents.
Chartism continued
• June 1839 Members
presented petition to House
of Commons
– voted not to even hear the
petitioners
– Rioting ensued
• 1848 presented a petition to
Parliament
– claimed to have only
1,957,496 signatures
– Some were forgeries
• Queen Victoria
• Movement faded away
Great Exhibition
• 1851 London was site of
industrial fair
• Held in Crystal Palace
• Constructed of
glass/iron
• Visited by 6 million
• Symbol of “workshop of
the world”
• 20% of entire world
manufactured goods