The Great Reform Act 1832

The Great Reform Act 1832

 The changes since 1783 meant there was the emerging manufacturing classes that wanted to challenge the aristocratic system of government. A lot of these people did not yet have the right to vote. This lead to when the Whigs came to power in 1830 under Charles Gray they went forward with the Great Reform Act 1832.  This Bill took a while to get through in October 1831 the bill was thrown out by the House of Lords.  In May 1832 after months of protests and unrest another bill was created which was rejected by the House of Lords. Grey asked the king to create 50 new peers to get the bill through. Gray resigned and Wellington tried to take over but he didn't have the support and Britain was on the verge of revolution. Gray return as PM and King William agreed to create the peers if the Lords failed to pass the bill. In June 1832 the Great reform act was created,


What did it do



  • The act increased the electorate from 435,000 to 652,000 an increased of 217,000.
  • The industrial North gained seats to become more representive with Lancashire gaining 11 seats.
  • The act decreased the number of rotten boroughs  and the number of seats rural south had with Cornwall losing 28 seats and Buckingham losing 3 seats.
  • Polling day was reduced from 15 days to 2 days to try and reduce corruption.
  • There was anyway still a lot of corruption as there was a lack of a secret ballot.
  • Register of electors was introduced was created by the act but many people did not check or bother looking.
  • This was the end of the monopoly of political power of landed aristocracy. 
  • Working class men still could not vote and the North was still under-represented.

Image result for the great reform act

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The British political system c1783 and William Pitt

Image
  Democracy and structure - Britain was for it's time a very liberal country. This was seen as their was a religous tolerance with a free press. The Franchise ( the people that could vote) was very limited to only three percent of the population could vote as you had to be a man with land and money and in some cases you had to be a potwalloper. The British constitution is broken down into three parts the Monarchy, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. By 1783 the King ( George III)  could not interfere with much legislation which was limited by the glorious revolution of 1689 the bill of rights. The king still had power to veto legislation. The House of Lords debated like the house of Commons and had the power to block measures from the House of Commons.  The House of Commons was full of wealth MPs and only 214,000 people out of 8 million could vote making the electorate very small. The America revolutionary war causes unemployment to fall as people joined the ...
Read more

Economic development between 1812-1832

Image
                                                                        Overview Between these years Britain continued to grow, This is backed up with the production figures in the three main industries of cotton,coal and iron. Between the years of 1815 to 1830 coal production rose from 16 million tons to just under 30 million tons, between 1815 to 1830 pig iron production doubled as at the start of the century it took 8 tons of coal to create 1 ton of pig iron but by 1830 this was only 3.5 tons which means the production became more efficient. With cotton production by the 1830s an estimated 30% of the industrial workforce was part of the cotton industry as 70% of all British exports were textiles which were mostly cotton. Raw cotton accounted for 20% of Britain's import. This makes sense that the export ma...
Read more