As a result of the act, the electorate nearly doubled. It rose from approx. 495,000 to approx. 800,000 which subsequently increased political awareness and made the cost of trying to ‘manage’ elections in the traditional manner prohibitively expensive. The rates of actual participation in elections increased after 1832. Inflation proved to make the 40s. freehold gradually more accessible to people and therefore made it less of a guarantee of respectability as the government had intended.
Traditionally historians have argued that contested elections came about after 1832 but now some say that it has been calculated that only just over half of the elections that took place between 1832 and 1867 were actually contested, and the opportunities of corruption may have even increased. Grey’s refusal to introduce the secret ballot meant intimidation still occurred at election times, whole estates being coerced into voting for their landlords.
The act abolished the most notorious rotten boroughs, for example Old Sarum, closing many familiar doors to aristocratic influence. By disfranchising the rotten boroughs and redistributing seats (56 small boroughs lost both their seats in Parliament, 30 lost one seat and 40 new boroughs were created) the Reform act made the electoral system correspond more closely to the distribution of population and wealth in the country. It reduced the over-representation of the boroughs relative to the counties. However, the act did not ensure to correspond very closely to the population distribution. The rural south of England continued to be over represented compared to London and the industrial North.
As a result of the way in which the act was passed, i.e. William IV was forced to rely on Grey after Wellington’s failure to form a ministry, it meant that a ministry could now survive without the support of the Crown and Lords but not without the support of the Commons.
The reform act increased the possibility of a two party system. Both the Whigs and the Tories now had to organise themselves in a national basis and be acutely aware of public opinion by way of local party managers. General elections began to be the means by which governments were chosen and public opinion became a much more important factor in political calculations.
The reform act of 1832 was a turning point to the extent that it “it opened the floodgates of reform”. As the government had intended the electoral system was modified, not transformed, parliament was still representing the interests of the people and not the people themselves. The aristocracy retained its overall domination of politics, even if to the extent in which it did so had been decreased. However, it ended the worst abuses of the old system, prevented revolution, and reinvigorated the political system. It is said to have put Britain on the path of peaceful, democratic change, a welcome break to what was occurring in the rest of Europe at the time. The act began the long process of parliamentary reform in which, in the twentieth century, resulted in an approximately democratic system. Once the door was open, there was no hope of it ever closing.
