The Reform Act of 1832: in relation to Britain (Engl./Scotl.Wales)

Before 1832 the British parliament was entirely dominated by the nobility and the landed gentry in the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Those who sat there were representatives of the elite class of great landowners who also dominated in all important avenues of society---as judges, magistrates and high officials and in the higher positions of the army and navy. Although the aristocrats sat in the H of L by virtue of noble birth alone, the members of the H of C were elected from the various county divisions as well as from the numerous (223) "boroughs" (hamlets and small towns mostly) throughout the kingdom. In all, the number of registered voters (i.e., male persons who satisfied the qualifications of property ownership) amounted to fewer than 440,000 in a British population of around 17 million by 1831.

The problem that the urban middle classes (more especially the politically-aware business elite) found with this system was that the allocation of parliamentary seats (658 of them, including 105 Irish seats) to the so-called boroughs (each mainly returning one or two members to the H of C ) bore little or no relation to the number of registered voters and, consequently, to the population in them. The system was an antiquated one that served the interests of the landed elite. It favored the agricultural (non-urban) areas of the country and took no account (before the 1832 Act) of the great demographic changes that had taken place in Britain since the advent of the industrial revolution, namely, the growth of towns and cities following the 18th c. rise in population as well as the continuing migration from the countryside to the urban centers where the new opportunities of an industrial job market became available.

For example, the tiny borough of Reigate with a mere 152 electors (not all of whom voted at election time) and a population of around 3,000 sent one member to parliament, exactly the same number as Wakefield borough with its 722 electors and 21,000 population. The contrast is more stark in the case of the industrial city of Liverpool in which two members were elected by 11,000 registered voters in a population of 165,000. There were scores of such disparities, all serving to maintain the political ascendancy of the landed element. After all, the majority of these borough constituencies retained a predominantly rural character and outlook. Little wonder, therefore, that the people of Liverpool and other industrial towns and cities launched the campaign for the reform of parliament via the re-allocation of seats in favor of the these centers. In effect, they sought to make the voice of the middle classes heard in parliament, to roll back the dominant influence of the landowners and ensure that the economic interests of the urban bourgeoisie would not be ignored.

After the Act was passed, some of the old disparities continued for it was not to be expected that the government would contemplate a total reversal of practices that served to maintain landlord influence. Nevertheless, over 50 of the boroughs were disfranchised (i.e., lost their right to send members to parliament ). And as one would expect, also, such anomalies as Reigate was among them. But what made the real difference in providing a better balance between rural and truly urban constituencies was the lowering of the voting qualifications in the boroughs that enabled a substantial increase in the number of electors, rising to 717,000 or nearly a 65% increase, most of whom, at least in the larger boroughs, were at one with the politics of the bourgeois liberals. However, it took two further Reform acts before real and effective change took place in favor of the urban constituencies. Under the culminating 1885 Act the total electorate numbered 4.4 million (the then pop. being around 30 million) . More importantly, the principle of equal electoral districts (i.e., dividing the country into constituencies of fairly equal population) was recognized and almost every adult male obtained the vote. This finally broke the political power of the landed gentry (which had not been achieved, but rather predicted in the 1832 Act). England had become a political democracy though with the important qualification that women continued to be denied the vote until 1918 when those over 30 could qualify (reduced to age 21 in 1928).

RETURN TO HomePage