Reform Acts

Reform Act 1832

Main article: Reform Act 1832, Scottish Reform Act 1832, Irish Reform Act 1832

The Reform Act 1832 for England and Wales was the most controversial of the electoral reform acts passed by the Parliament. Similar acts were passed the same year for Scotland, and Ireland. They were put through Parliament by the Whigs. The acts reapportioned Parliament in a way fairer to the cities of the old industrial north, which had experienced tremendous growth. The act also did away with most of the "rotten" and "pocket" boroughs such as Old Sarum, which with only seven voters, all controlled by the local squire, was still sending two members to Parliament. This act re-apportioned representation in Parliament, thus making that body more accurately represent the citizens of the country geographically (although still with no party-proportional balance), but also gave the power of voting to those lower in the social and economic scale, for the act extended the right to vote (in the boroughs) to any long-term holders of tenements of at least £10 annual value, adding 217,000 voters to an electorate of 435,000. Annual value here refers to the income that the land could be expected to earn if let, in a year. As many as one man in five, though by some estimates still only one in seven, now had the right to vote.

The agitation preceding and following the First Reform Act made many people consider fundamental issues of society and politics. The bill allowed the middle classes to share power with the upper classes; for many conservatives, this was revolutionary. Some historians argue that this transfer of power achieved in Britain and Ireland what the French Revolution of 1848 eventually achieved in France.

Charles Dickens observed these events at first hand as a shorthand Parliamentary reporter. The novel Middlemarch, by Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) is set in the 1830s and mentions the struggle over the Reform Bills, though not as a major topic. Eliot's Felix Holt, the Radical, set in 1832, is a novel explicitly about the Great Reform Act.

Reform Act 1867

Main article: Reform Act 1867

The Chartists campaigned from 1838 for a wider reform. The movement petered out in the 1850s, but achieved most of its demands in the longer run. Legislative bills were introduced by the Conservatives under the urging of the Liberals. The 1867/8 acts for England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland extended the right to vote still further down the class ladder. In England and Wales, the reforms added just short of a million voters, including many workingmen, which doubled the electorate to almost two million.

Like the Great Reform Act before it, the Second Reform Act also created major shock waves in contemporary British culture. In works such as Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy and John Ruskin's The Crown of Wild Olive, contemporary authors debated whether the shift of power would create democracy that would, in turn, destroy high culture.

Reform Act 1884

Main article: Representation of the People Act 1884

A further Reform Bill was introduced in 1882 by the Liberals. The Conservative-dominated Lords passed it in 1884, opening the way for its royal proclamation, becoming the Third Reform Act. It was the first electoral reform act to apply to the United Kingdom as a whole. Only with this act did a majority of adult males gain the right to vote in parliamentary elections. Along with the Redistribution Act 1885, this tripled the electorate again, giving the vote to most agricultural labourers. (Women were still barred from voting.)

1918, 1928 and 1969 Reform Acts

Main article: Representation of the People Act 1918, Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928, Representation of the People Act 1969

By the end of the 19th century and in they early 20th century, voting was coming to be regarded as a right rather than the property of the privileged but the First World War delayed further reforms. After the War, women were granted voting rights with cross-party unanimity in the Act of 1918, the Fourth Reform Act, which enfranchised all men aged over 21 and women over 30. This last piece of gender discrimination was eliminated 10 years later by the Equal Franchise Act 1928, the Fifth Reform Act, passed by the Conservatives.

The voting age was lowered in 1969 by the Labour government in the Sixth Reform Act, making Britain the first major democratic nation to extend voting rights to all adults aged 18 or over.

Modern usage

The periodic redrawing of constituency boundaries is now dealt with by a permanent Boundary Commission in each part of the United Kingdom, rather than a Reform Act.

Some people in Britain, mostly associated with the Liberal Democrats political party, have called for a new "Great Reform Act" to introduce electoral changes they favour. These would include lowering the minimum voting age to 16 and introducing proportional representation, which are also supported by the Green Party of England and Wales.

Notes

References

References

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