What was wrong with Parliament before the Great Reform Act? | Why were radicals calling for reform?

the late 18th and early 19th centuries was a time of profound change as revolutions in industry agriculture and demography reshaped Britain what remained unchanged though was Parliament leading to growing calls for reform what was the problem with Parliament let's start with the fact that the House of Commons elected to represent the people was not representative of the people according to the 1831 census Britain had a population of 24 million and yet fewer than half a million people had the vote in the counties to vote you had to own land or property worth at least 40 shillings which rarely amounted to more than 10% of a County's population in the borough's there were several different sets of rules in effect ranging from the highly restrictive franchises of burgage and corporation boroughs to the more open pop water per boroughs these could in a small number of cases offer near universal male suffrage in England as a whole though only 7 out of the 202 borough constituencies had more than 5,000 voters 56 had less than 50 voters each this meant the number of electors in constituencies varied enormous Lee the county of Yorkshire had some 17,000 electors the borough of Gatton in sorry six boroughs with very small numbers of electors often controlled by a single or small number of landowners were called rotten boroughs Old Salem is the classic example where from 1820 the Alexander brothers owned all 11 vote yielding Birgit plots and Juli elected themselves as MPs meanwhile dunnage a once thriving port town returned MPs despite having largely fallen into the sea the same disparity was found across the UK growing industrial cities like Manchester population 144,000 lacked direct representation while 100 59 of the English parliamentary boroughs had fewer than 1000 inhabitants coral with a population of 300,000 returned 42 MPs to Lancashire is 14 despite the fact the latter had a population of over 1.3 million Scotland Ireland and Wales were also underrepresented in terms of their population Scotland had just 45 MPs to England's 489 as Lewis Nemea memorably explained politicians believed in weighing purses not counting heads adding to the problem of representation was the manner in which election campaigns were fought polling took place over 15 days during which votes were cast in the open meaning candidates could see who opposed them imagine your landlord or employer was running for office and could see how you voted not exactly a free vote in larger constituencies candidates also resorted to bribery or treating the electorate with offers of government contracts or jobs cash for votes and even free beer the sums spent in this fashion could be staggering with the Liverpool election in 1830 costing the candidates over 100 thousand pounds it was also not uncommon for cooping to take place this was where election agents arranged for their rival supporters to be kidnapped and detained during the campaign hired criminal gangs known as lambs to intimidate or attack them then there were the pocket boroughs controlled by a single or small number of land owning families for example MPs from Marlborough were elected by a nominated corporation that included the butler steward and footman of the Marquess of Aylesbury in these pocket boroughs it was not uncommon for leading families to simply put their own man in Parliament sometimes a family member or sell the seat to the highest bidder where two leading families or factions held sway it was also common to split the to seat constituency between them to avoid the ruinous cost of a campaign meanwhile the government controlled up to 200 pocket seats putting their own placement in Parliament this occurred where the electors were in the pay directly or indirectly of the crown they were known as the Kings friends which doesn't sound very democratic even in an already quite undemocratic system these pocket Warriors were rarely contested between 1815 and 1832 two thirds of MPs were returned to Parliament unopposed among the counties only nine were contested in 1807 and just two in 1812 if getting to vote for your MP was difficult standing for election was even harder members of parliament had to have an income of three hundred pounds a year from land for borough seats or 600 pounds a year for a county seat with this property qualification plus the cost of treating your electors in a contested campaign and the fact that there was no MP salary it is perhaps unsurprising that one-fifth of the members of the people's house of commons were the sons of lords [Music] you

Channel: History Hub

Views: 19,038

Keywords: Parliament, democracy, reform, Great Reform Act, British history, revision

Id: U_9PGNHd5Zs

Length: 5min 56sec (356 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 06 2020