The most serious episode took place in July 1866. The National Reform League under Edmond Beales proposed to hold a large meeting in Hyde Park, Known as the Hyde Park Riots, and although the new Home secretary Spencer Walpole prohibited this, the League still went ahead with the arrangements. When they reached the gates to the Park, they found that they were locked and therefore decided to go to Trafalgar Square. Many of the followers were not exactly best pleased with this idea and decided to tare down hundreds of yards of railings and occupied the park until they were eventually ejected by the police and troops.
The working class press made a great deal of this act of defiance and it has been suggested that,” the Conservative decision to embark on further Parliamentary reform was inspired by the fear of revolution.”(WOOD) In fact, this was to be no repetition of the events in 1831. The unrest was due to parochialism and the leaders themselves were anxious to keep within the bounds of the law. Lord John Manners reckoned that Beales and his associates were “more frightened than those whom they had frightened” and on the whole, there is very little evidence that Conservative policy was particularly influenced n this way.
The most recent interpretations regard the Parliamentary reform of 1867 as the outcome of a series of cool tactics in the course of party warfare on the floor of the House of Commons. To Derby and Disraeli, it seemed clear that if the issue could be kept alive, this would continue to undermine the unity of the Liberals and would also help the Conservatives to create a new progressive image for themselves. As over Catholic emancipation and the repeal of the Corn Laws, a conservative government would have better chance of getting such a bill through the House of Lords, and in the Commons it would be an,” agreeable experience to outplay the opposition at their own game” (MARTIN). There remained the uncertainty over how the enlarged electorate would vote – “a leap in the dark”- explained Derby, but the PM, ”had backed worse horses in his life” (WOOD). Once they had made up their minds, Derby and Disraeli both decided to adopt a bold idea, the idea of household suffrage. This idea was one of many ‘fancy franchises’
and was jumped upon by the Liberals. Gladstone’s great onslaught in their defence was defeated, but the attack was kept up and eventually, in May, Disraeli gave way on the very principle over which he had brought Russell’s Liberal government.
When Palmerston died in 1865, Gladstone and Russell were faced with a splintering Liberal Party; on the one hand, they threatened to with draw their support and on the other side, the traditional Whigs allowed the elite to be drowned in, “ a sea of working class votes.” (MARTIN) Already 1in 4 had the vote, contempary surveys suggested. The Radicals were disappointed but saw that realistically, there was little chance of anything more getting through. The people were indifferent, the Liberal Radicals were fairly isolated. Indeed the 40- strong Adullamites, under, Lowe and helped by an aggressive Disraeli on the other side, were so anti-reform that they were prepared to cause the fall of their party on the issue.
The Conservatives took power and after a winter of procrastination, Disraeli sought to regain the initiative form Gladstone and make a name for himself. ladstone soon pulled himself together and took over the government again. Disraeli decided to risk everything and put forward a radical idea earning the support of the Liberal Radicals. He calculated that he would be gaining more than he lost in the Ultra Tories, by enough to push the Bill forward. The conservatives would, Disraeli gambled to form the initiative and form a lasting government as the Whigs had managed to do. Arguable, it would be a triumph over his archrival Gladstone, whose own effort had been scupper by Disraeli a few months earlier.Disraeli said that he wished to, “extinguish Gladstone and company.” Disraeli’s tactics were a surprise to everyone and still the eventual result, the second reform act of 1867 was a surprise.
The people , by their patchy participation in the extra-parliamentary campaign, had done little except give Disraeli an excuse to fight the Liberals and especially Gladstone and enhance his reputation as a politician and the one who passed the second reform act, which in essence was a party political game at which Disraeli gambled everything and came out for the 1st being victorious.
The whole Second Reform Act was motivated by several factors, which included bad harvests, a poor economy, public agitation, and inter party rivalry. The most important two factors were that to do with public agitation and the strong hatred between the Conservatives and the Liberals. This was emphasised throughout the period and eventually resulted in the passing of the 1867 Reform Act.
