Lecture 1: the Great Reform Crisis, 1830-32

‘The Great Reform Crisis’ (2013)

Lecture 1: The Great Reform Crisis, 1830-32

The making of the First Reform Act, from 1831 to 1832, was the great political crisis of the Nineteenth Century. According to E.P. Thompson, Britain came ‘within an ace of revolution’; while the Whig clergyman Sydney Smith wrote of a ‘hand-shaking, bowel-disturbing passion of fear’.

Yet the effects of the Act can seem trivial. When the dust had settled, the electorate had increased from about 400,000 voters to 650,000 – less than 18% of adult men. So what was all the fuss about?

1. The Importance of the Constitution

Lord John Russell: a ‘matchless constitution’, the ‘most perfect’ ever devised.

Sir Robert Peel: it had raised the country over which it presided into ‘the freest, the happiest, the most powerful nation in the universe’.

2. The Case for Reform

Rotten boroughs: Gatton sold for £180,000 in 1830

Corporation boroughs: Edinburgh had 30 voters, Bath 33.

Uncontested elections

Thomas Macaulay: we ‘drive over to the side of revolution those whom we shut out from power’. ‘Reform, that you may preserve’. ‘The danger is terrible. The time is short’.

3. The Mood in 1830-32

French Revolution of 1830

Economic downturn – the politics of hunger. Agricultural riots and ‘Captain Swing’.

Catholic Emancipation in 1829

Cholera epidemic: killed 30,000 people.

4. The Reform Movement in the Country

Popular Patriotism

Religious Zeal: ‘God is our Guide!’ (see figures 2-3)

Enthusiasm for King William IV: “The Reform Bill” and “King Bill”.

Hopes for lower taxation

5. Reformers in Parliament

Tory ultra Protestants, infuriated by Catholic Emancipation.

Popular radicals

Whig grandees

‘[If] great changes accomplished by the people are dangerous, although sometimes salutary, great changes accomplished by an aristocracy, at the desire of the people, are at once salutary and safe’. Lord John Russell, 15 April 1822.

6. Religious responses to Reform

Gladstone called the reform bill a ‘Satanic’ measure, ‘the work of the Anti-Christ’; a ‘last and fiercest effort against the God of heaven’. Reformers were ‘banded with the enemies of God’.

‘Satan – Reformer’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 1832, after the riots in Bristol:

‘The Great Reform Crisis’ (2013)

Satan stood high upon Brandon Hill,

With his fiery eyeballs glowing;

He bang’d the ground with his swinging tail,

And the Demons came round him, and cried, All hail!

See, see how Reform is going!

Satan he stood in the blazing square,

In the midst of conflagration;

And shouted, Reform! – the day’s my own,

I’ve won me on earth another throne

And this is my Coronation.

‘The Great Reform Crisis’ (2013)

7. Imperial responses to Reform

Empire: 1/5 of MPs had a colonial connection in the 1820s. Who would represent the colonies now?

‘As to the unfortunate colonists, they know that, come what will, their doom is sealed’ (Fraser’s Magazine, 1832).

8. Patriotism and Reform

Macaulay: ‘The history of Englandis emphatically the history of progress’; a tale ‘of constant change in the institutions of a great society’. Reform a patriotic tradition.

See figures 1-3.

8. Speaking for the People

Lord John Russell: ‘the whisper of a faction’ should ‘not prevail against the voice of the nation’.

‘We assert that the people are not and never can be the legitimate source of power; that, on the contrary, this assumption cannot be made without impiety or arrogance by any mere creature; that this high authority is exclusively lodged in His hands who is “the Prince of the Kings of the Earth” … It is thus we are taught that “there is no power but of God”’. The Record, 10 November 1831.

Public opinion: ‘that sentiment … which is entertained by the best informed, most intelligent, and most moral persons in the community’; and ‘gradually … adopted by nearly all persons of any education’. Alexander Mackinnon, On the Rise, Progress and Present State of Public Opinion (1828).

‘we set as much store upon the opinion of such classes as we do upon the bellowing of the cattle in Smithfield. They are pretty much of the same grade of intellect, and are driven on to their destruction with as little foresight on their part, and as little remorse on the part of their drivers’. ‘Let the herd grunt – we contend not the way with a drove of swine’.The Age, 30 October 1831.

9. Anti-Reformers’ Successes:

The Chandos Clause

Preventing a reduction in the number of English members

Making reform difficult, so raising the bar to change

Sir Robert Peel, February 1832: ‘Why have we been struggling against the Reform Bill in the House of Commons? Not in the hope of resisting its final success … but because we look beyond the Bill … We want to make the descent as difficult as we can, to teach young, inexperienced men charged with the trust of government that, though they may be backed by popular clamour, they shall not override on the first springtide of excitement every barrier and breakwater raised against popular impulses … These are salutary sufferings’.

10. Why did the Reformers Win?

Advantages:

They were in government and had the support of the King (see figures 1-3, 5).

They had greater clarity of purpose than Anti-Reformers

Popular protest?

11. Popular Protest

Most political unions were founded by nonconformists and newspaper editors. At Manchester, the Political Union was founded by The Manchester Times; the Leeds Political Union by the Leeds Mercury; the Sheffield Political Union was associated with the Sheffield Independent.

Why did so many women participate, when the bill expressly barred women from voting?

What was the role of the protests?

Probably 18,000 fee-paying members of Political Unions. Largest demonstrations attracted ¼ million.

12. Consequences

Created a more vibrant electoral culture with more contested elections and more active party machines.
Accelerated the development of party organisation in the constituencies.
Increased the electoral muscle of non-conformity, laying the foundations for the religious politics of the 1830s and 40s.
Diminished the power of the Crown over Parliament.
Diminished the power of governments over the House of Commons.
Established ‘public opinion’ as the foundation of legitimate government.

‘The revolution is made, that is to say, that power is transferred from one class of society, the gentlemen of England, professing the faith of the Church of England, to another class of society, the shopkeepers, being dissenters from the Church, many of them Socinians, others atheists. … These are all dissenters from the Church, and are everywhere a formidably active party against the aristocratic influence of the Landed Gentry’. The Duke of Wellington, 1833.

Figure 1: ‘The Gathering of the Unions’ by Henry Harris (1832), depicting the Birmingham demonstration of 7 May 1832. About 200,000 people are thought to have taken part. Note the banners, tricolours and Union Jacks; and the large number of women intermingled in the crowd.

Figure 2: Reform Songs (as sung at the Birmingham meeting, 7 May 1832)

God Save the KingGod is our Guide

‘God save our noble King,‘Lo! we answer! see we come,

Long live our patriot King,Quick at Freedom’s holy call,

God save the King;We come! we come! we come! we come!

Thine arms, o Lord! outspread,To do the glorious work of all.

And on our WILLIAM’S headAnd hark! we raise from sea to sea,

Life’s choicest blessings shed,The sacred watchword Liberty.

God save the King.

God is our guide! from field, from wave,

…From plough, from anvil, and from loom,

We come, our country’s rights to save,

Vain are CORRUPTION’S boasts;And speak a tyrant faction’s doom;

Vainly would FACTION’S hostsAnd hark! we raise from sea to sea,

Vex our repose:The sacred watchword Liberty.

This is no Land of Slaves –

Planted on Heroes’ graves,God is our guide! no swords we draw,

Here FREEDOM’S Banner wavesWe kindle not war’s battle fires;

Proud o’er her foes.By union, justice, reason, law,

We claim the birthright of our sires,

No Swords around his throne,We raise the watchword Liberty.

Fond Hearts his guard alone,We will, we will, we will be free[1]’.

God save the King:

Scorning the Tyrant’s Wiles,

Rich in his People’s smiles,

Lord of the Ocean-Isles,–

Long live our King.

Oh! as his years increase,

Still with health, love, and peace,

Blest be our King:

Friend of our Rights and Laws,

Still giving Millions cause

To sing, with hearts-applause,

GOD SAVE THE KING’.

Figure 3: ‘A Memento of the Great Public Question of Reform’, author unknown (1832). William IV sits surrounded by his loyal Cabinet, while the British Lion and Britannia slay the dragon of Tory corruption. Note the angel assisting Britannia, signifying the union of patriotism and religion. The whole scene echoes classic representations of the ‘last judgement’, with the Whigs in Heaven and the Tories driven down into Hell.

Figure 4: ‘The Tree of Taxation’. A classic radical image, showing the producers (both middle and working class) providing nourishment for ‘the tree of taxation’. The fruits are collected by bishops, lawyers and military officers in the form of ‘sinecures’, ‘prebends’, ‘dividends’ and ‘windfalls’.

Figure 5: A poster issued by the Birmingham Political Union in 1831. Note the monarchical language: reformers are represented as the friends of the king in a ‘Holy League’ against corruption.

Appendix: The Constituency System Before and After 1832.

The ‘unreformed system’ had developed haphazardly over time, and constituencies came in a variety of different shapes and sizes. There were three basic types:

(1) Counties

(2) Boroughs (or “burghs” in Scotland)

(3) University Seats

Most constituencies returned two MPs, a relic of the days when it was unsafe to travel to London alone.

(1) Counties:

The whole of Britain is divided into counties – Lancashire, Oxfordshire etc.

Though varying in size, counties were usually too large to be under the control of a single patron.

They generally had large electorates, and were considered the most “popular” or “representative” seats.

All who owned a “freehold” worth 40 shillings a year could vote. This could be held in land, but also included office holders – church wardens, for example, or men who rented a pew worth 40s. a year.

Every borough lies within a county. A 40s. freeholder who lived in the borough of Oxford would qualify for the county of Oxfordshire.

(2) Boroughs:

In theory, these were towns of sufficient importance to deserve MPs of their own. In practice, many had long declined into insignificance, while others had never been of any importance at all. Notorious boroughs included East Dulwich, which had fallen into the sea, and a mound of earth at Old Sarum.

The borough system had barely been updated since the time of the Tudors, so great industrial towns like Manchester and Birmingham did not have MPs.

The franchise varied from one borough to another according to tradition. There were six main types:

(i) Corporation boroughs: MPs were chosen by members of the town corporation, which was usually self-elected. The corporation of Bath consisted of about 40 men.

(ii) Burgage boroughs: MPs were chosen by the occupier of certain pieces of property. In practice, this meant that they were chosen by one or two wealthy men, and were known as pocket boroughs.

(iii) Potwalloper boroughs: everyone with a fireplace large enough to hold a cooking pot could vote.

(iv) Freemen boroughs: all “freemen” could vote. “Freeman” status could be inherited, earned by apprenticeship, gained by marriage to the daughter of a freeman or granted by the corporation. Some “freemen” boroughs had very large electorates, and were notoriously corrupt. It was not uncommon to create large numbers of freemen from non-residents, who were then used to control the election.

(v) Freeholder boroughs: six boroughs used the freeholder franchise of the counties.

(vi) Scot-and-lot (or householder) boroughs: all who paid local taxes (known as “scot-and-lot”) could vote. These usually had large electorates.

The following terms were also widely used:

Nomination boroughs – seats where one or both MPs were effectively “nominated” by a single patron. These could include any of the above, if a patron was sufficiently wealthy or popular.

Rotten boroughs – seats like Old Sarum or East Dulwich, which had ceased to represent any interest or community whatsoever. These could be bought and sold on the open market.

(iii) University Seats:

Oxford and CambridgeUniversities both had two MPs of their own, elected by their MAs.

These were extremely prestigious seats – Sir Robert Peel and William Ewart Gladstone both sat for Oxford University – and bastions of the Church of England.

Three final points:

(a) Voting was not secret. Before casting a vote, an elector would be aware that his landlord, his customers, his neighbours, his mother-in-law and anyone with influence over him would know for whom he had voted.

(b) Though women were not explicitly barred from voting, female voting was extremely unusual.

(c) There was no limit to the number of constituencies in which an elector could vote. A graduate of Oxford University, who lived in rented accommodation on the High Street but owned a freehold in North Oxford could vote for the county of Oxfordshire, the borough of Oxford and the University.

Main Provisions of the Reform Acts

Redistribution:

143 seats abolished

130 new seats created, shared between the counties and new boroughs.

Borough Franchise:

Occupiers of premises worth £10 in rent, subject to residence and registration

County Franchise:

40s freehold franchise retained

£10 copyholders and leaseholders enfranchised

£50 tenants-at-will (ie tenants who could be evicted at any time): this was the Chandos Clause, a Tory amendment carried against the will of the government. It created more new voters than any other clause in the Reform Act, but these voters were extremely vulnerable to electoral pressure from their landlords. The clause was widely credited with ensuring Tory dominance of the counties after 1832.

Other key points:

‘Ancient right’ voters – ie those qualifying under ‘ancient’ franchises like the freemen – retained their votes for their own lifetime. Indeed, it remained possible to create new freemen voters, and this was widely done after 1832.

A residence requirement was imposed upon the boroughs. This was widely considered one of the most important clauses in the Reform Act, ending the practice of bringing in large numbers of ‘out-voters’ or ‘non-residents’ with no stake in the borough.

The bill introduced an electoral register for the boroughs. This proved an important spur to party organisation, as parties had to ensure that their own supporters were registered and that opponents who were not properly qualified were removed from the registers.

Scotland and Ireland:

Increased the Scottish electorate from about 5,000 to about 60,000 – a much greater transformation than in England.

Increased the Irish electorate from about 75,000 to 92,000. However, a franchise act in 1829 – passed alongside Catholic Emancipation, had reduced the Irish county electorate by 82%, so this marked only a partial recovery.