Reform of Parliament. Flashcards
What was Britain divided into?
Britain was divided into constituencies, or voting areas. Each one had one or two MPs to represent them who sat in the House of Commons.
What was the County Franchise?
One hundred and twenty-two MPs represented county seats. In these countryside areas, anyone with a freehold of land worth 40 shillings could vote. This was often very few people - before 1832, records indicate that in Hertfordshire, about 4% of the population could vote and in Middlesex, less than 1%.
What was the Borough Franchise?
The rest of the seats were parliamentary boroughs, which were towns granted the right to have MPs. Unlike county seats, there was no standard set of rules and different constituencies had different qualifications to vote.
What were these qualifications?
Scot and lot and potwalloper boroughs: this was where people could vote if they made a payment of a share into a local poor tax fund, or where a resident owned their own hearth to boil a pot to feed themselves. In these areas, the majority could often vote.
Burgage borough: this was where the right to vote was only given to people who owned certain specific pieces of land in the area. A wealthy man could buy all this land and choose all the MPs.
Freeman borough: anyone who had the status of being a freeman, often through marriage apprenticeship or appointment by the council, could vote. People not living in the town could be made freemen, so some councils guaranteed a win by making friends in other areas who could vote for them.
Corporation borough: this was where the local corporation that ran the town appointed the MP without holding an election. These areas often ignored what the local people wanted. Some did not even bother renewing their MP at elections.
What was the significance of this arrangement?
This constitutional arrangement ensured that there was no real way for those of lower wealth and social standing to be represented. They could neither have a vote nor stand to be elected. The elections themselves were highly influenced by those with wealth and social status.
What were the reasons behind the demands for change?
- The growth of the industrial mobile classes.
- The changing demography of the Industrial Revolution.
- The influence of new, revolutionary ideas about equality.
- The increased access to media through Liberal newspapers such as Cobbet’s Political register.
- The post-Napoleonic War spirit of change and improvement.
What were the main arguments to avoid change?
- Opposition from the Tory Party.
- The concern of the landed elite.
What was the Representation of the People Act, 1867?
In the 1820s, a demand for wider male suffrage was supported by the middle classes.
What was the pressure to pass it?
- The end of the Napoleonic Wars revitalised the demand for reform.
- Peel’s Tory govt passed the controversial 1829 Act of Catholic Emancipation.
- William IV was open to reform.
- The growth of political unions.
- 1829-30 was a period of economic depression.
- Whig determination.
- In Bristol, protesters burned the palace of an anti-reform bishop and the house of an anti-reform MP.
What did it do?
- It made uniform rules for voting.
- In the counties, those who had previously voted under the 40 shillings franchises kepy their vote.
- Voters had to register to vote formally.
What was the impact of the 1st Representation of the People Act?
- Increased electorate from 435,000 to 813,000.
- Plural voting continued.
- Did not change the hustings.
What was the Second Representation of the People Act, 1867?
Between 1832 and 1860, there was not a lot of demand for further reform. However, in the 1860s, the issue arose again.
What was the pressure to pass the second Act?
- Palmerston died.
- The Reform Union was formed.
- The Conservatives saw the bill as a way to gain political advantahe by passing it before the Liberals could.
- Disraeli accepted amendments proposed by radical Liberals but rejected ones from Gladstone.
- Derby generated support in the House of Lords to ensure that the bill was passed.
- External pressure.
What did the second act do?
- Extended the vote in boroughs to householders and lodgers who had been resident for at least 12 months.
- In the counties, more landowners and tenant farmers were registered to vote.
What was the impact of the second act?
- Electorate rose from 20 to 30% of adult male population.
- Largest change was in urban areas.
- Plural voting continued.
