BRITISH REFORM ACTS OF 1832 AND 1867 This resea

This research paper discusses the causes and consequences of the Reform Act of 1832 and the Reform Act of 1867 which were enacted by the Parliament of Great Britain.

The passage of the Reform Act of 1832 came about because of a combination of fundamental long-term political, economic and social changes related to the effects of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the Industrial Revolution on the expectations and structure of British society, the inability of postwar Tory governments to readjust political institutions to those effects, including rising social unrest, and an unusual set of immediate circumstances, some fortuitous, which enabled the Whigs to assume power in 1832 and to generate a strong political consensus for Parliamentary reform. The Reform Act of 1832 did not eliminate the political control of the established order, but by bringing the middle class into the governing process enabled Britain to avoid more violent change and set the stage for more extensive reforms later.

The Reform Act of 1867 was caused by rising prosperity and the growing power of the working classes and their trade unions, which were sufficiently strong to persuade centrist political leaders, especially Benjamin Disraeli, that they could safely and must politically broaden suffrage further and enact other reforms to make Parliament more representative. Those reforms were also incomplete, but together with later reforms, they made Briti

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30, the Whig magnates had begun, said Newbold, "to doubt the value of a system that was giving way to uncontrollable anarchy." Fearful of democracy, they supported reform insofar as it might "strengthen . . . rank, property, and authority." When the public rallied behind the Reform Bill through mass demonstrations, Woodward said that "the country would not have the tories, or anything less than the whole reform bill." The Whigs saw the Bill as a means of enlisting middle class support and thereby preserving their own political influence. Consequences. The final Reform Act of 1832 lowered property qualifications for voting, the basic feature being the enfranchisement of all householders in boroughs whose premises were assessed for a rental value of at least 10 pounds a year, which included primarily middle class voters, took representation rights away from unpopulated areas and increased representation in crowded cities. The Act increased the voter rolls by 217,000, of from one in a 100 to one in 32 adult males. Almost all industrial and farm laborers remained disenfranchised. Ward says that "elections remained expensive, sometimes corrupt, often violent and still subject to considerable influence by patrons." Black said "the
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Approximate Word count = 2347
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)