The Representation of the People Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4. c. 45), also known as the Reform Act 1832, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to reform the electoral system in England and Wales and to expand the franchise. The measure was brought forward by the Whig government of Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey.
The legislation granted the right to vote to a broader segment of the male population by standardizing property qualifications, extending the franchise to small landowners, tenant farmers, shopkeepers, and all householders who paid a yearly rental of £10 or more. The act also reapportioned constituencies to address the unequal distribution of seats. The act formally excluded women from voting, as a voter was defined in the Act as a male person; prior to 1832 there were occasional, rare, instances of women voting. The act of England and Wales was accompanied by the Scottish Reform Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4. c. 65) and Irish Reform Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4. c. 88).
The act was repealed by the Representation of the People Act 1948. The electoral system in the UK is now defined principally by the Representation of the People Act 1983 and the Electoral Administration Act 2006.
Before the reform, most members of Parliament nominally represented boroughs. However, the number of electors in a borough varied widely, from a dozen or so up to 12,000. The criteria for qualification for the franchise also varied greatly among these boroughs, from the requirement to own land, to merely living in a house with a hearth sufficient to boil a pot.
The Irish Reform Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4 c. 88) brought similar changes to Ireland, and the separate Scottish Reform Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4 c. 65) was revolutionary, enlarging the electorate by a factor of 13 from 5,000 to 65,000.
The historiography of the Reform Act is marked by longstanding debates over its causes, nature, and impact. Scholars have long grappled with whether it was a radical modernizing movement that expanded democracy by widening the franchise or a conservative measure intended to preserve aristocratic rule by making necessary concessions.
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After the Acts of Union 1800 became law on 1 January 1801, the unreformed House of Commons comprised 658 members, of whom 513 represented England and Wales. There were two types of constituency: counties and boroughs. County members were supposed to represent landholders, while borough members were supposed to represent mercantile and trading interests.
Counties
Counties were historical national subdivisions established between the 8th and 16th centuries. They were not merely parliamentary constituencies: many components of government (as well as courts and the militia) were organised along county lines. The members of Parliament chosen by the counties were known as knights of the shire. In Wales, each county elected one member, while in England, each county elected two members until 1826 when Yorkshire's representation was increased to four, following the disfranchisement of the Cornish borough of Grampound.
Boroughs
Parliamentary boroughs in England ranged in size from small hamlets to large cities, partly because they had evolved haphazardly. The earliest boroughs were chosen in the Middle Ages by county sheriffs, and even a village might be deemed a borough. Many of these early boroughs (such as Winchelsea and Dunwich) were substantial settlements at the time of their original enfranchisement, but later went into decline, and by the early 19th century some only had a few electors, but still elected two MPs; they were often known as rotten boroughs. Of the 70 English boroughs that Tudor monarchs enfranchised, 31 were later disfranchised. Finally, the parliamentarians of the 17th century compounded the inconsistencies by re-enfranchising 15 boroughs whose representation had lapsed for centuries, seven of which were later disfranchised by the Reform Act 1832. After Newark was enfranchised in 1661, no additional boroughs were enfranchised, and, with the sole exception of Grampound's 1821 disfranchisement, the system remained unchanged until the Reform Act 1832. Most English boroughs elected two MPs; but five boroughs elected only one MP: Abingdon, Banbury, Bewdley, Higham Ferrers and Monmouth. The City of London and the joint borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis each elected four members. The Welsh boroughs each returned a single member.
Statutes passed in 1430 and 1432, during the reign of Henry VI, standardised property qualifications for county voters. Under these Acts, all owners of freehold property or land with an annual value of at least forty shillings in a particular county were entitled to vote in that county. This requirement, known as the forty shilling freehold, was never adjusted for inflation of land value; thus the amount of land one had to own in order to vote gradually diminished over time. The franchise was restricted to men by custom rather than statute; on rare occasions women had been able to vote in parliamentary elections as a result of property ownership. Nevertheless, the vast majority of people were not entitled to vote; the size of the English county electorate in 1831 has been estimated at only 200,000 and 400,000 enfranchised Englishmen overall. Furthermore, the sizes of the individual county constituencies varied significantly. The smallest counties, Rutland and Anglesey, had fewer than 1,000 voters each, while the largest county, Yorkshire, had more than 20,000. Those who owned property in multiple constituencies could vote multiple times. Not only was this typically legal (since there was usually no need for a property owner to live in a constituency in order to vote there) it was also feasible, even with the technology of the time, since polling was usually held over several days.
In boroughs the franchise was far more varied. There were broadly six types of parliamentary boroughs, as defined by their franchise:
Boroughs in which the franchise was restricted to those paying scot and lot, a form of municipal taxation;
Boroughs in which only the ownership of a burgage property qualified a person to vote;
Boroughs in which only members of the corporation were electors (such boroughs were perhaps in every case "pocket boroughs", because corporation members were usually "in the pocket" of a wealthy patron);
Boroughs in which male householders were electors (these were usually known as "potwalloper boroughs", as the usual definition of a householder was a person able to boil a pot on his/her own hearth);
Boroughs in which freeholders of land had the right to vote.
Some boroughs had a combination of these varying types of franchise, and most had special rules and exceptions, so many boroughs had a form of franchise that was unique to themselves.
The largest borough, Westminster, had about 12,000 voters, while many of the smallest, usually known as "rotten boroughs", had fewer than 100 each. The most famous rotten borough was Old Sarum, which had 13 burgage plots that could be used to "manufacture" electors if necessary—usually around half a dozen was thought sufficient. Other examples were Dunwich (32 voters), Camelford (25), and Gatton (7).
Pocket boroughs
Many constituencies, especially those with small electorates, were under the control of rich landowners, and were known as nomination boroughs or pocket boroughs, because they were said to be in the pockets of their patrons. Most patrons were noblemen or landed gentry who could use their local influence, prestige, and wealth to sway the voters. This was particularly true in rural counties, and in small boroughs situated near a large landed estate. Some noblemen even controlled multiple constituencies: for example, the Duke of Norfolk controlled eleven, while the Earl of Lonsdale controlled nine. Writing in 1821, Sydney Smith proclaimed that "The country belongs to the Duke of Rutland, Lord Lonsdale, the Duke of Newcastle, and about twenty other holders of boroughs. They are our masters!" T. H. B. Oldfield stated in his Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland that, out of the 514 members representing England and Wales, about 370 were selected by nearly 180 patrons. A member who represented a pocket borough was expected to vote as his patron ordered, or else lose his seat at the next election. Voters in some constituencies resisted outright domination by powerful landlords, but were often open to corruption.
Movement for reform
Effects of the French Revolution
Support for parliamentary reform in Britain plummeted following the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. The revolution led many British politicians to become steadfastly opposed to major political change. Despite this, several radical groups were established in Britain to agitate for reform. A group of Whigs led by the Earl of Lauderdale and Charles Grey founded an organisation advocating parliamentary reform in 1792. This group, known as the Society of the Friends of the People, included 28 MPs. In 1793, Grey presented to the House of Commons a petition from the Friends of the People, outlining abuses of the system and demanding change. He did not propose any specific scheme of reform, but merely a motion that the House inquire into possible improvements. Parliament's reaction to the French Revolution was so negative that even this request for an inquiry was rejected by a margin of almost 200 votes. Grey tried to raise the subject again in 1797, but the House again rebuffed him by a majority of over 150.
Other notable pro-reform organisations included the Hampden Clubs (named after John Hampden, an English politician who fought on the Parliamentarian side during the English Civil War) and the London Corresponding Society (which consisted of workers and artisans). But the "Radical" reforms supported by these organisations (for example, universal suffrage) found even less support in Parliament. For example, when Sir Francis Burdett, chairman of the London Hampden Club, proposed a resolution in favour of universal suffrage, equally sized electoral districts, and voting by secret ballot to the House of Commons, his motion found only one other supporter (Lord Cochrane) in the entire House.
Despite such setbacks, popular pressure for reform remained strong. In 1819, a large pro-reform rally was held in Birmingham. Although the city was not entitled to any seats in the Commons, those gathered decided to elect Sir Charles Wolseley as Birmingham's "legislatorial representative". Following their example, reformers in Manchester held a similar meeting to elect a "legislatorial attorney". Between 20,000 and 60,000 (by different estimates) attended the event. The protesters were ordered to disband; when they did not, the Manchester Yeomanry suppressed the meeting by force. Eighteen people were killed and several hundred injured in what later became known as the Peterloo Massacre. In response, the government passed the Six Acts, measures designed to quell further political agitation. In particular, the Seditious Meetings Act prohibited groups of more than 50 people from assembling to discuss any political subject without prior permission from the sheriff or magistrate.
Reform during the 1820s
Since the House of Commons regularly rejected direct challenges to the system of representation by large majorities, supporters of reform had to content themselves with more modest measures. The Whig Lord John Russell brought forward one such measure in 1820, proposing the disfranchisement of the notoriously corrupt borough of Grampound in Cornwall. He suggested that the borough's two seats be transferred to the city of Leeds. Tories in the House of Lords agreed to the disfranchisement of the borough, but refused to accept the precedent of directly transferring its seats to an industrial city. Instead, they modified the proposal so that two further seats were given to Yorkshire, the county in which Leeds is situated. In this form, the bill passed both houses and became law. In 1828, Lord John Russell suggested that Parliament repeat the idea by abolishing the corrupt boroughs of Penryn and East Retford, and by transferring their seats to Manchester and Birmingham. This time, however, the House of Lords rejected his proposals. In 1830, Russell proposed another, similar scheme: the enfranchisement of Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham, and the disfranchisement of the next three boroughs found guilty of corruption; again, the proposal was rejected.
In 1829, support for reform came from an unexpected source – a reactionary faction of the Tory Party. The Tory government under Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, responding to the danger of civil strife in largely Roman Catholic Ireland, drew up the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829. This legislation repealed various laws that imposed political disabilities on Roman Catholics, in particular laws that prevented them from becoming members of Parliament. In response, disenchanted ultra-Tories who perceived a danger to the established religion came to favour parliamentary reform, in particular the enfranchisement of Manchester, Leeds, and other heavily Nonconformist cities in northern England.
Passage of the Reform Act
First Reform Bill
The death of King George IV on 26 June 1830 dissolved Parliament by law, and a general election was held. Electoral reform, which had been frequently discussed during the preceding parliament, became a major campaign issue. Across the country, several pro-reform "political unions" were formed, made up of both middle and working class individuals. The most influential of these was the Birmingham Political Union, led by Thomas Attwood. These groups confined themselves to lawful means of supporting reform, such as petitioning and public oratory, and achieved a high level of public support.
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey became prime minister in 1830, and his first announcement as prime minister was a pledge to carry out parliamentary reform. On 1 March 1831, Lord John Russell brought forward the Reform Bill in the House of Commons on the government's behalf. The bill disfranchised 60 of the smallest boroughs, and reduced the representation of 47 others. Some seats were completely abolished, while others were redistributed to the London suburbs, to large cities, to the counties, and to Scotland and Ireland. Furthermore, the bill standardised and expanded the borough franchise, increasing the size of the electorate (according to one estimate) by half a million voters.
On 22 March, the vote on the second reading attracted a record 608 members, including the non-voting Speaker (the previous record was 530 members). Despite the high attendance, the second reading was approved by only one vote, and further progress on the Reform Bill was difficult. During the committee stage, Isaac Gascoyne put forward a motion objecting to provisions of the bill that reduced the total number of seats in the House of Commons. This motion was carried, against the government's wishes, by 8 votes. The ministry lost a vote on a procedural motion by 22 votes. As these divisions indicated that Parliament was against the Reform Bill, the ministry decided to request a dissolution and take its appeal to the people.
Second Reform Bill
The political and popular pressure for reform had grown so great that in the 1831 general election pro-reform Whigs won as close to a landslide victory as the unreformed electoral system was capable of producing; Whig candidates won nearly every seat where there was a meaningful contest - the anti-reform Tories were reduced almost entirely to the members for the rotten boroughs. The Reform Bill was again brought before the House of Commons, which agreed to the second reading by a large majority in July. During the committee stage, opponents of the bill slowed its progress through tedious discussions of its details, but it was finally passed in September 1831, by a margin of more than 100 votes.
The Bill was then sent up to the House of Lords, a majority in which was known to be hostile to it. After the Whigs' decisive victory in the 1831 election, some speculated that opponents would abstain, rather than openly defy the public will. Indeed, when the Lords voted on the second reading of the bill after a memorable series of debates, many Tory peers did refrain from voting. However, the Lords Spiritual mustered in unusually large numbers, and of 22 present, 21 voted against the Bill in October 1831. It failed to pass by 41 votes.
Public violence ensued after the Lords rejected the Reform Bill. That very evening, riots broke out in Derby. A mob attacked the city jail and freed several prisoners. In Nottingham, rioters set fire to Nottingham Castle (the home of the Duke of Newcastle) and attacked Wollaton Hall (the estate of Lord Middleton). The most significant disturbances occurred at Bristol, where rioters controlled the city for three days. The mob broke into prisons and destroyed the palace of the Bishop of Bristol, the mansion of the Lord Mayor of Bristol, and several private homes. Violence also erupted in Dorset, Leicestershire, and Somerset.
Meanwhile, the political unions, which were operating as separate groups united only by a common goal, formed together into the National Political Union. Already wary that the riots earlier in the year might be the prelude to revolution, the government saw this new organisation as a threat, and issued a proclamation pursuant to the Corresponding Societies Act 1799 declaring the association "unconstitutional and illegal", and commanding all loyal subjects to shun it. The Union continued in defiance of the proclamation, but leaders of the influential Birmingham branch decided to co-operate with the government by discouraging activities on a national level.
Third Reform Bill
After the Reform Bill was rejected in the Lords, the House of Commons immediately passed a motion of confidence affirming their support for Lord Grey's administration. Because parliamentary rules prohibited the introduction of the same bill twice during the same parliamentary session, the ministry advised the new king, William IV, to prorogue Parliament. As soon as the new session began in December 1831, the Third Reform Bill was brought forward. The bill was in a few respects different from its predecessors; it no longer proposed a reduction in the total membership of the House of Commons, and it reflected data collected during the census that had just been completed. The new version passed in the House of Commons by even larger majorities in March 1832; it was once again sent up to the House of Lords.
Realizing that another rejection would not be politically feasible, opponents of reform decided to use amendments to change the bill's essential character; for example, they voted to delay consideration of clauses in the bill that disfranchised the rotten boroughs. The ministers believed that they were left with only one path to the bill's passage: to create a large number of new peerages, swamping the House of Lords with pro-reform votes but the prerogative of creating peerages rested with the king, who recoiled from so drastic a step and rejected the unanimous advice of his cabinet. Lord Grey then resigned, and the king invited the Duke of Wellington to form a new government.
Verge of revolution
The ensuing period became known as the "Days of May"; a wave of large pro-reform demonstrations, led by the political unions, swept the country. A minority of the protestors called for the abolition of the nobility; the most radical demanded the end of the monarchy. The protests were peaceful, but their massive scale nonetheless spooked many in Parliament. With the July Revolution in France still in recent memory, many thought that if the bill did not pass, revolution was all but inevitable. The Queen believed that "an English revolution [was] rapidly approaching, and that her own fate [was] to be that of Marie Antoinette". Whig MP Edward Littleton wrote that the nation was "in a state little short of insurrection". Though the National Political Union kept within the bounds of the law, its leader Thomas Attwood boasted that "the nation could be mobilized in an hour", making it clear to all involved that the Union was a powerful extra-Parliamentary force; if an uprising broke out, the government might be unable to suppress it.
Many protesters advocated tax resistance, and orchestrated a run on the banks. Signs appeared across London reading "Stop the Duke; go for gold!" £1.8 million was withdrawn from the Bank of England in the first days of the run (one-fourth of the £7 million in the bank's possession).
The National Political Union and other organisations sent petitions to the House of Commons, demanding that they withhold supply (cut off funding to the government) until the Lords passed the bill.
The social unrest caused some politicians to abandon the Duke of Wellington, a reactionary Tory and long an ardent opponent of parliamentary reform. Wellington could not summon a majority in the House of Commons, despite promising a modest reform package.
King William recalled Lord Grey to the post of prime minister and consented to create enough Whig peers to force the bill through the Lords. To avoid the appointment of Liberal peers, Wellington circulated a letter among Tory peers, encouraging them to desist from opposition, and warning them of the consequences of continuing. Enough Tory peers relented. By abstaining from subsequent votes, they allowed the legislation to pass in the House of Lords, and the Crown did not feel it needed to appoint additional peers.
The Reform Act received royal assent on 7 June 1832, thereby becoming law.
Results
Historiography
The extensive scholarship on the Reform Act is filled with debates over its causes, nature, and impact. Historians have long grappled with whether it was a radical modernizing movement that successfully introduced democracy or rather a conservative measure intended to preserve traditional upper class rule by making a few necessary concessions and thus blocking a revolution.
Provisions
Abolition of seats
The Reform Act's chief objective was the reduction of the number of nomination boroughs (election districts). There were 203 boroughs in England before the Act. The 56 smallest of these, as measured by their housing stock and tax assessments, were completely abolished. The next 30 smallest boroughs each lost one of their two MPs. In addition Weymouth and Melcombe Regis's four members were reduced to two. Thus in total the Act abolished 143 borough seats in England (one of the boroughs to be completely abolished, Higham Ferrers, returned only a single MP).
Creation of new seats
In their place the Act created new districts and 130 new seats in England and Wales:
