Time-line of Parliamentary Reform 1851-1867

Question 1

1850s

Answer 1

• Five unsuccessful attempts by Liberal (Lord Russell & Gladstone) and (minority) Conservative governments (Lord Derby & Disraeli) to introduce very limited extensions to the franchise.
• Conservatives in government for less than 2 years out of 14 and then as minority governments.
• No Conservative majority government since 1848.

Question 2

early 1860s

Answer 2

Skilled workers experience improved living standards and organise patriotic and social self-help organisations;
- US Civil War & Italian unification promotes democratic attitudes.
- Reform League and smaller London Working Men’s Association established
- latter seeks male suffrage; former mainly demands male household suffrage.

• Reform Union, a pressure group of M/C radicals demands fairer redistribution of seats & secret ballot.

Question 3

1864

Answer 3

• Impressed by model unions and Friendly Societies, Gladstone makes a speech arguing that: ‘every man who is not incapacitated by personal unfitness & political danger is morally entitled to come within the pale of the constitution provided that this does not lead to sudden or violent or excessive change’.

Question 4

1865

Answer 4

• Lord Palmerston, PM of Liberal government & opponent of parliamentary reform beyond 1832 Act, dies.

Question 5

March 1866

Answer 5

• Lord Russell, with Gladstone in the Commons introduces a parliamentary reform bill, the second after the Reform Act of 1832, to extend the vote to urban £7 rate-payers and county rate-payers of £14 and redistribute a few seats.
• Designed to increase the electorate with 400,000 voters from the ‘aristocracy of labour’, highly skilled workers.

Question 6

june 1866

Answer 6

• Liberal MP Robert Lowe leads Whig opposition to the bill within the Liberal parliamentary party (‘Adullamites’ of the ‘Cave’) and combines with Conservative MPs led by Disraeli to defeat the bill.
• The Liberal government resigns but parliament continues to sit with a minority Conservative government (290 MPs/658 total) led by Disraeli and Derby.

Question 7

july 1886

Answer 7

• Reform League and Reform Union campaign together
• League organises demonstrations at Hyde Park in protest of Liberal defeat which becomes a day-long riot; large demonstrations nationally follow.

Question 8

feb 1867

Answer 8

• Disraeli introduces his ‘10 minute bill’ (so called as it took 10 minutes to draft) which reflects anti-suffrage attitudes of group in the cabinet (e.g £6 urban rate-payers).
• It is defeated in the Commons and a subsequent bolder bill is introduced by Disraeli which leads to 3 resignations from the cabinet: extends vote to all male urban householders who pay rates and occupy home for 2 years, £15 rateable value in counties & ‘fancy franchises’ & 2 year registration as counter-weights to new W/C voters.

Question 9

april 1867

Answer 9

• Gladstone’s attempt to amend the bill (and lessen the extension of the vote) is heavily defeated in the Commons
• Hodgkinson’s amendment added 500,000 ratepayers previously disenfranchised for paying rates with rent to a landlord
• Disraeli was forced to abandon his counter-weights so the franchise extended far more than he originally intended.

Question 10

Strengths of reform – was it a radical reform by Radicals?

Answer 10

• 830,000 new urban voters;
• 290,000 new rural voters;
• urban vote increased 134%.
• 1 in 3 adult males now had the vote.
• Electorate is mostly drawn from the working classes
• but a third of w/c is without the vote.
• The electorate increased by roughly 1.2m to 2.5 m.
• Uncontested elections reduced from 58% of elections in the general election of 1859 to 32% of elections in the general election of 1868.

Question 11

Weaknesses of reform – was it a conservative reform by Conservatives?

Answer 11

• Agricultural workers excluded from enfranchisement
• only 40% increase in rural franchises.
• Conservative dominated SW remains over-represented by seats relative to its declining population e.g - SW England: 45 MPs but NE England with three times the population of the SW only had 32 MPs.
• Boundaries changed to remove urban areas from counties = gain of 25 seats for Cons
• Only 45 seats redistributed and 20 of them to counties Manchester only gained 1
• 1868 general election: 32% of elections were uncontested.
• Corruption remained because of the absence of a secret ballot.
• Attempt by J.S Mill MP to extend the vote to women is heavily defeated.

Question 12

secret voting

Answer 12

• 1867 secret voting had been rejected
• 1870 Liberal MP introduced a Private Member’s Bill to introduce voting by secret ballot.
• Secret Ballot Act was passed in 1870.

Question 13

Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act

Answer 13

• 1883
• setting strict limits on election spending,
• requiring official accounts of spending
• imposing heavy sanctions for breaches of the Act.
• the general election of 1874 was infamous for corruption and violence, Chamberlain was hit in the face by a dead cat thrown at him!

Question 14

single seat constitutions

Answer 14

• Whigs benefited from two seat constituencies as it allowed Liberal voters to vote for a radical and a Whig.
• Naturally, they feared a single-seat constituency in a Liberal-supporting area would return a radical not a Whig (they were right)
• The Conservatives anticipated that single member seats would allow rate-payers to dominate and this would benefit the Tories, especially in London (it did, in 1895 67 of 75 London seats were Conservative)

Question 15

Representation of the People Act

Answer 15

• Gladstone 1884
• extended the vote to householders and lodgers in the rural counties
• electorate rose from 2.5m to 5m , two men in every three were entitled to vote

Question 16

Redistribution of Seats Act

Answer 16

• 1885
• ensured that constituencies were re-distributed and re-designed to create equal-sized constituencies (roughly each with a population of 50,000 people)
• ## 142 seats were redistributed equally between counties and boroughs