Why was the reform act of 1832 passed?
Why was the reform act of 1832 passed?
There were several major factors involved in the build up to the reform act which all led to the government having to enforce the reform act to keep the people happy. The voting system was extremely out of date, having not been altered since the 18th century and the government had not taken into consideration the demographic changes with had taken place since then. There were many rotten boroughs (Areas which had low vote to high representation ratio) and yet many fast growing cities like Leeds and Manchester had little or no representation at all which meant that no proportional voting was in place. The swing riots was an explosion in Britain at the time as it was such a huge movement of industrial workers, unhappy at low wages, high unemployment and new labour saving devices led the workers to attack machinery and burn barns which was affecting the amount of work in the country. This put pressure on the government to change, something they were not used to and caused panic in parliament as they were worried about a revolution which were rife at that time throughout Europe e.g. France. Another major turning point was the passing of the catholic emancipation act (1829) which caused outrage in parliament and led to the break up of the Tory party, many of them outraged at the passing of this act. All of these are main factors which led to an angry and dis-contented country, fighting for their rights and the enforcement of a reform act.
Britain as a whole had not really moved forward with the industrial revolution which had swept over it in the last 100 years due to the fact that the government in power were the Tories who always had the policy of no change, maintaining everything in the country. However this led to the country being crippled and many things all rose together with a couple of main catalysts to the rise of the Whigs and the reform act in 1832. One of the main things which worried the government was the
There were several major factors involved in the build up to the reform act which all led to the government having to enforce the reform act to keep the people happy. The voting system was extremely out of date, having not been altered since the 18th century and the government had not taken into consideration the demographic changes with had taken place since then. There were many rotten boroughs (Areas which had low vote to high representation ratio) and yet many fast growing cities like Leeds and Manchester had little or no representation at all which meant that no proportional voting was in place. The swing riots was an explosion in Britain at the time as it was such a huge movement of industrial workers, unhappy at low wages, high unemployment and new labour saving devices led the workers to attack machinery and burn barns which was affecting the amount of work in the country. This put pressure on the government to change, something they were not used to and caused panic in parliament as they were worried about a revolution which were rife at that time throughout Europe e.g. France. Another major turning point was the passing of the catholic emancipation act (1829) which caused outrage in parliament and led to the break up of the Tory party, many of them outraged at the passing of this act. All of these are main factors which led to an angry and dis-contented country, fighting for their rights and the enforcement of a reform act.
Britain as a whole had not really moved forward with the industrial revolution which had swept over it in the last 100 years due to the fact that the government in power were the Tories who always had the policy of no change, maintaining everything in the country. However this led to the country being crippled and many things all rose together with a couple of main catalysts to the rise of the Whigs and the reform act in 1832. One of the main things which worried the government was the
Bibliography: I have used the following pieces of materials/resources to aid me in the production of this essay: * Modern British history * Reaction and reform - J W Hunt * www.britishhistory.co.uk/reform * history explored - K Dawson