Britain’s Reform Acts: Or the Expansion of Male Suffrage Adapted from parliament.uk

For centuries, Parliament consisted of a small landowning elite whose priorities were their own power and prosperity. From the 18th century onwards, the social changes brought about by industrial growth and the decline of agriculture meant that the demographic landscape of Britain was altered. With these changes came demands from the working and middle classes for equality and fairness. It took many years for a more representative Parliament to be achieved.

The ruling elite was challenged by calls for parliamentary reform and changes in legislation led to a fairer, more democratic system

Before the later 19th and early 20th century only a small minority of men were entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. Parliament was dominated by rich landowners and reflected their interests. Their priorities were to defend their property rights against taxation and state interference. Social disorder was not tolerated. Women did not have any right to vote at all.

The growth of industry in the 18th century brought great change to the country, its people and their aspirations. Towns and cities increased in population as factories grew in number and people were drawn to work in urban areas as agriculture declined. This led to further inequalities in representation in Parliament. Urban areas such as Birmingham and Manchester had no Members of Parliament while small villages which had once been important in the Middle Ages sometimes sent two representatives to Parliament.

A sense of injustice and a growing political consciousness outside the landed classes, as well as the influence of revolutions in America and France, contributed to a small but growing demand for parliamentary reform. The violence of the French Revolution entrenched the ruling elite's belief that the lower orders should be kept in their place but as the 19th century progressed, it was less easy for calls for change to be ignored.

As the 19th century progressed and the memory of the violent French Revolution faded, there was growing acceptance that some parliamentary reform was necessary. The unequal distribution of seats, the extension of the franchise and 'rotten boroughs' were all issues to be addressed. The Tory Prime Minister in 1830, Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington, was resolutely opposed to parliamentary reform. However, there was growing support for limited change within his party, primarily because partially extending the franchise would allow the wealth and influence of Britain's growing middle class to be exploited.

When the Tory government was ousted later in 1830, Earl Grey, a Whig, became Prime Minister and pledged to carry out parliamentary reform. The Whig Party was pro-reform and though two reform bills failed to be carried in Parliament, the third was successful and received Royal Assent in The Bill was passed due to Lord Grey's plan to persuade King William IV to consider using his constitutional powers to create additional Whig peers in the House of Lords to guarantee the Bill's passage. On hearing of this plan, Tory peers abstained from voting, thus allowing the Bill to be passed but avoiding the creation of more Whig peers.

The Representation of the People Act 1832, known as the first Reform Act or Great Reform Act: 1- disenfranchised 56 boroughs in England and Wales and reduced another 31 to only one MP 2- created 67 new constituencies 3- broadened the franchise's property qualification in the counties, to include small landowners, tenant farmers, and shopkeepers 4- created a uniform franchise in the boroughs, giving the vote to all householders who paid a yearly rental of £10 or more and some lodgers

Limited change had been achieved but for many it did not go far enough. The property qualifications meant that the majority of working men still could not vote. But it had been proved that change was possible and over the next decades the call for further parliamentary reform continued.

The 1832 Reform Act proved that change was possible. The parliamentary elite felt that they had met the need for change but among the working classes there were demands for more. The growth and influence of the Chartist Movement from 1838 onwards was an indication that more parliamentary reform was desired. The Chartist Movement had peaked by the 1850s but there was an acceptance among Members of Parliament that there was more work to be done to remove anomalies in the system that the first Reform Act had not addressed

However, the call for universal manhood suffrage or 'one man, one vote' was still resisted by Parliament and the second Reform Act, passed in 1867, was still based around property qualifications. There was no question of campaigning for the right to vote for women too. They were still excluded.

The 1867 Reform Act: granted the vote to all householders in the boroughs as well as lodgers who paid rent of £10 a year or more reduced the property threshold in the counties and gave the vote to agricultural landowners and tenants with very small amounts of land Men in urban areas who met the property qualification were enfranchised and the Act roughly doubled the electorate in England and Wales from one to two million men.

Parliament’s resistance to ‘one man, one vote’ was partly overturned in 1884 with the third Reform Act which: established a uniform franchise throughout the country brought the franchise in the counties into line with the 1867 householder and lodger franchise for boroughs

The following year, the Redistribution of Seats Act redrew boundaries to make electoral districts equal. As a result of this Act, most areas returned only one Member to Parliament, although 23 seats, including the City of London and Bath, continued to return two Members until Parliament and the political landscape changed greatly over the 19th century, beginning with a small ruling elite in Parliament and gradually increasing to be more democratic and representative.

However, one section of society was still completely excluded from the voting process - women. To be truly representative, Parliament still had changes to make.