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Why was there an increasing demand for parliamentary reform from 19 century
listen to the new voters instead of the landowners and would introduce laws to help working people.
The people who introduced the reform were influenced by events in other countries, such as the United States Constitution and the French Revolution. Theses revolutions had given ordinary people in other countries more rights than those in Britain. Many members of the working class saw what had happened in France and the United States and took to the idea of political power and greater equality.
To begin with the government were alarmed by the demands fro reform but the situation soon began to change. There were a number of reasons for this. There was an increasing demand for reform from the middle and working classes, the working class now had a lot more support. Also in 1830 a Whig government came into power. The Whigs were more in favour of the demands for reform than the former conservative government because they wanted to win the vote and support of the new middle class voters. However they never intended to give the vote to the working class. For Parliament there was a fear that people might try to overthrow the government by attacking them unless the reform act was introduced.
Few changes were made due to the 1832 Reform Act, however many ‘Rotten Boroughs’ lost their Members of Parliament. New boroughs were created, giving growing industrial towns like Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham their own Members of Parliament. Also in both counties and boroughs, the right to vote was extended to a greater number of men, although the value of property they owned or rented still determined who could vote.
This meant that the wealthy industrialists and the middle class gained a lot because they were now able to vote. They now had a say in how the country was run and they could influence Parliaments decisions that were in their best interests. As the Duke of Wellington said ‘Power is transferred from one class of society, the gentlemen of England, to another class of society, the shopkeepers.’
The Aristocracy also gained because by introducing a small measure of reform they were saving the country from Revolution, which would have given power to the working class.
Thomas Macaulay speaking in a debate on the Reform bill said: ‘I support this measure, because I am sure that it is in our best security against a revolution. I support this measure as a measure of reform; but I support it still more as a measure as conservation.’
A passage form the Poor Man’s Guardian, a radical newspaper also supports this argument:
‘The Whigs know that the old system could not last, and desiring to establish another as like it as possible, they drew up the Act in the hope of drawing together the aristocrats and gentry with a large reinforcement of the middle class.’
Although a few changes had been made there were a lot [next page]