Booklet 3 Essay Plan - Growth of Reform BEFORE 1832

Question 1

Emergence of an industrial middle class - who were they?

Answer 1

• Fact: The new middle class were educated, self-made factory owners who had reaped huge economic benefits from the industrial revolution and employed many thousands of workers
• Explanation: The fact that they were educated and had employed thousands of workers meant that they had potential to force through political change. Their intense commercial desire was able to be converted into political drive and they wanted political power equivalent to their economic power

Question 2

Emergence of an industrial middle class - Corn Laws

Answer 2

• Fact: They lobbied against laws such as the Corn Laws of 1815 because employers had to increase wages to ensure their workers could afford bread to remain healthy enough to work
• Explanation: The middle class were thus beginning to assert their political dominance; as a group they wee affluent, were educated and motivated by a strong sense of purpose, which was far more difficult to ignore than mob pressure

Question 3

Emergence of an industrial middle class - importance of employers

Answer 3

• Fact: With the mass movement to the cities, the importance of the employers was ever more significant, and the landed aristocracy in rural areas less so
• Explanation: As a result they sought votes on the basis that they were now the most important component of the economy, and the biggest employer. The old voting system not only failed to recognise them, but also the new urbanisation

Question 4

Parliament’s unwillingness to modernise - pre-reform system

Answer 4

• Fact: The pre-reform system was comprised of boroughs and counties, and represented less than 5% of the population
• Explanation: The system was dubbed ‘Old Corruption’, as it was still based on the archaic 17th century system

Question 5

Parliament’s unwillingness to modernise - unbalanced representative

Answer 5

• Fact: By 1831, Lancashire had a population of 1.3 million and had 14 MPs. Cornwall, however, had a population of 300,000 and 42 MPs
• Explanation: The attitude of Tory governments who dominated the period was one of refusal to modernise. The system propped them up, and was highly beneficial to them

Question 6

Parliament’s unwillingness to modernise - corruption

Answer 6

• Fact: Over 50 boroughs had fewer than 40 votes, each represented by two MPs. Rotten boroughs, such as Old Sarum had a single landowner and no inhabitants, but still returned 2 MPs to Parliament. These were areas that had been important in the 17th century, and had since been depopulated
• Explanation: The system highlighted the corruption and other aspects such as ‘lambing’ (intimidating voters by using armed thugs) and ‘cooping’ (kidnapping rivals’ supporters) was also used

Question 7

Unrest and ideology - Thomas Paine

Answer 7

• Fact: Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man sold more than 200,000 copies and had become a bestseller by 1793
• Explanation: The Rights of Man emphasised the natural rights belonging to human beings and called for radical reform, particularly rule by the people - which he saw as the only justifiable method of government - all whilst drawing attention to the corruption within the British system

Question 8

Unrest and ideology - Peterloo Massacre

Answer 8

• Fact: Wealthy landowner Henry Hunt organised mass meetings, such as the Peterloo Massacre in August 1819, where 60,000 people gathered to hear him speak after which he was imprisoned for 2.5 years
• Explanation: They were designed to provoke a violent response from the authorities so that they would lose credibility. 11 were killed by the Manchester yeomanry, and 400-600 were wounded. This was particularly effective because it gave organisation and structure to unrest, a union between upper and lower classes that the government was wary of due to the legacy of the French Revolution

Question 9

Unrest and ideology - Cato Street Conspiracy

Answer 9

• Fact: The Cato Street Conspiracy was an attempt to murder all the British cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool in 1820. The aim was to trigger a mass uprising in the country. The police had an informer; the plotters fell into a police trap. Thirteen were arrested, while one policeman, Richard Smithers, was killed. Five conspirators were executed, and five others were transported to Australia
• Explanation: This created demand for parliamentary reform because it precipitated a flurry of revolutionary activity across the country. In places such as Glasgow and Huddersfield, weavers attempted to take control of the towns

Question 10

Outside influence - French Revolution

Answer 10

• Fact: The French Revolution in 1789, an uprising of the masses which deposed the bourgeoise
• Explanation: This provided the working classes of Britain an example of how change could be executed by them. Criticisms of the British model began to re-emerge, as people increasingly begun to question the legitimacy of ‘rule by the rich’

Question 11

Outside influence - unemployment after war

Answer 11

• Fact: 400,000 soldiers returned from the war and 7000 ironworkers lost their jobs in Shropshire as they were no longer needed after the war. Average earnings were lower in 1815-19 than they were in the 1780s
• Explanation: Coupled with a rise in taxes, this increased the sources of economic discontent and helped to further radical action

Question 12

Outside influence - LSCJ + others

Answer 12

• Fact: Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information (formed 1791) and the larger London Corresponding Society a year later in 1792(?)
• Explanation: The defence of the system that existed in Britain did little to quiet Britain’s growing discontent, and by the turn of the century it would be given intellectual credibility by Thomas Paine. As time moved on, new organisations spread throughout Britain, including those that were predominantly working class