How far do you agree that the 1867 Reform Act was more significant than reform in 1832? Flashcards
How was 1867 obviously more significant than reform in 1832?
Numerically
How is 1832 significant?
Paved the way and provided for further reform
How was the 1832 reform act in regard to the party system?
It started to define the British party model for politics
Which act can only be truly called ‘significant’?
1867
What are the 5 factors used to assess the changes?
1) Growth of the electorate
2) Fairer representation of the new cities and geographical improvements
3) Impact on the parties
4) Impact on the working class
5) Impact on the aristocracy/elites
How many people could vote after 1832?
650 000
How many people could vote after 1867?
2.46 million
What proportion of all adult males could vote after the 1867 reform act?
⅓
What percentage of all adult males could vote after the 1832 reform act?
18%
What was the voting qualifications following the 1832 reform act for the boroughs?
In boroughs votes were given to adult males who owned or rented property worth £10/year and had owned it for a year and paid taxes.
What was the voting qualifications following the 1832 reform act for the counties?
In the counties the vote was given to adult men who owned land worth £10/year or rented land worth £50/year.
How did the voting procedure change after the 1832 reform act?
Whilst there was no secret ballot, voters now had to be registered and polling was limited to two days
What fact about Leeds suggests that the £10 property qualification was limiting?
Just 5000 qualified to vote in Leeds out of a population of 125 000
What was the property qualification following the 1867 reform act in boroughs?
In boroughs it granted the vote to all householders as well as lodgers who paid rent of >£10/year.
What was the property qualification following the 1867 reform act in counties?
In the counties, in addition to the existing franchise, all owners and leaseholders of land worth £5/year.
What clause limited the extent of enfranchisement in 1867 and to what extent did it limit it?
The clause that required people to have been resident at a property for a year discriminated against 30% of the working class population.
What system of voting was introduced for those who owned land in both a bough and a county in 1867?
Plural voting
How does the Historian Bentley describe Britain after the 1832 reform act?
Still a ‘sink of corruption’ with no secret ballot and corruption endemic
What disenfranchising happened to boroughs under the 1832 reform act that suggests that there was fairer representation of the new cities?
56 boroughs with fewer than 2 000 voters were disenfranchised.
In order to give fairer representation to the new cities, how many boroughs were created under the 1832 reform act?
42
Despite the efforts made in 1832 to make the new cities better represented, what was the regional discrepancy that nevertheless existed?
South still had more presentation than the north
Despite the efforts made in 1832 to make the new cities better represented, what fact about small boroughs is there?
73 boroughs had fewer than 500 electors. 31 had fewer than 300.
Under the 1867 reform act, how many boroughs were taken away from boroughs and what was the criteria for this?
45 seats taken from boroughs with fewer than 10 000 people
How many boroughs completely disenfranchised under the 1867 reform act?
7
Of the 45 seats taken from boroughs, how many went to the counties?
25
Of the 45 seats taken from boroughs, how many went to new boroughs?
20
Of the 45 seats taken from boroughs, how many went to existing boroughs?
6 existing boroughs gained an extra seat, with one seat reserved for London uni.
How did the 1832 reform act impact upon the parties by changing the number of contested seats?
due to the 1832 reform act the number of contested seats did increase significantly from 30% in 1832 to 50% afterwards
Whilst due to the 1832 reform act the number of contested seats did increase significantly from 30% in 1832 to 50% afterwards, what did this not give?
it did not give them politicians who were working in the national interest
Of the twenty years between 1832 and 1852, the Tories and Conservatives were in power for how many years?
7
What were the two motives for passing the 1832 reform bill?
1) gain middle class support for the whigs
2) stabilise an increasingly dangerous situation
As the size of the electorate increased to 2.46 million due to the 1867 reform act, what did politicians start to become more interested in?
politicians started to become more interested in public opinion and campaigning, meaning that their policies acted increasingly in the interest of their electorate
What happened in 1868 that shows the significance of 1867 reform act in redefining how the parties needed to operate?
The reason that the Tories lost the 1868 election is, in part, due to the Whig’s acknowledgement that issue based campaigning was required to appeal to such a wide new electorate.
For the 1868 election that needed campaigning, compare the tactics of the whigs and the conservatives
The Liberals attempted to gain influence by getting members to speak all over the country, however Disraeli was only confident enough to issue a printed election address to the country.
In recognising and then pursuing the task of persuading voters to their causes due to the changes of the 1867 reform act, what did British parties become?
British parties became more representative of democratic interest, heralding the start of a more democratic establishment.
Which act has the greatest impact on parties?
The impact on the parties is far greater in the 1867 reform act than it was in 1832.
Assess the overall 1832 impact on the political parties?
The 1832 Reform Act’s impact had a significant short term impact for the Tory party and their subsequent power, but did not make long term changes to the democratic landscape in the way that 1867 did.
What suggests that the 1832 reform act’s goal was not to have an impact on the working classes
In 1832, the Whigs made no attempt to conceal that the £10/year property qualification’s purpose was to exclude the working classes from voting.
The 1832 reform act was passed in order to stabilise what, according to EP Thompson?
The closest that Britain had come to revolution
What quote from which newspaper epitomises how the poor felt about the 1832 reform act?
So little was the 1832 reform act’s positive impact on the working class that the “Poor Man’s Guardian”, the mouthpiece of radicalism claimed that the “millions will not stop at the shadows” and epitomised the betrayal of the Working classes.
What were many chartists?
Those who suffered the disappointment of the 1832 reform act
How was Chartism started?
William Lovett’s 1836 London Working Men’s Association (LWMA) drew up the ‘people’s charter’, calling for universal male suffrage and a secret ballot.
Describe the new voters in 1832
Whilst new voters after 1832 were mostly middle-class and fairly conservative
Describe the new voters in 1867
skilled, urban workers, potentially much more radical
What demonstrates that the new voters in 1867 were skilled, urban workers, potentially much more radical?
Outcome of the 1868 revolution
What was the most significant impact of the 1867 reform act for the working classes?
It meant that the balance of power was no longer in the hands of the wealthy in many boroughs
Of the how many individuals who served in cabinets between which dates, only how many were from middle class backgrounds?
Of the 103 individuals who served in cabinets between 1830-66, only 14 were from middle class backgrounds.
Describe the overall changes to the status quo following the 1867 reform act?
superficial
Complete the sentence: whilst the 1832 reform act may have been an inconvenience to the wealthy…
…it was 1867 that presented a real challenge to their power
What political theorist said what about the continued corruption following the 1832 reform act?
Political theorist Sir Thomas Erskine May observed that “as more votes had been created, more votes were to be sold”.
Why was the 1867 reform act good for workers in challenging the rich?
They were now the majority in many boroughs, not the other way round
1832 was significant because it overcame what?
The political inertia
How did the 1867 reform act start to re-shape Britain?
Stated to re-shape it into a modern democracy
