Was 1832 the turning point in the growth of parliamentary democracy?

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Caroline Howard                                                        October 2005

Was 1832 the turning point in the growth of parliamentary democracy?

The impact of the 1832 Reform Act on the growth of parliamentary democracy is a greatly contested concept. It had long and short term consequences of varying importance but the interpretations of its effects have changed over time. Historically, Whig historians had named it the Great Reform Act and praised the changes it imposed. Whereas, post-1945 historians have argued that the 1832 Reform Act was merely a stepping stone to further reform in 1867, 1884/5, 1918 and 1928 when universal suffrage on equal qualifications was finally introduced.  

The 1832 Reform Act had a limited impact on the distribution of seats within the UK. One major change was that rotten boroughs were disenfranchised and 143 seats were redistributed. This was in attempt to make distribution correspond more closely with population distribution which had not even been an aim of the old system. The 1832 Reform Act also impacted on the over-representation of certain areas by redistributing 18 English seats to other areas of the UK, including 5 to Wales. However, representation still did not correspond with the population distribution. For example, there were some constituencies with less than 200 voters while Doncaster had a population of more than 10,000 and no representation. In addition, some areas were unrepresented such as London while the rural South still had too many seats. The regional imbalance was also still apparent as only 50% of the UK population lived in England at this time but it had 75% of the parliamentary seats as was the distortion against the counties, e.g. 50% of the population lived in counties but they only accounted for 1/3 of the seats. The Act did bring about but some changes in the distribution of seats but these were minimal as there was lots of continuity with the past.

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A big change created by the 1832 Reform Act was the introduction of a uniform franchise in parliamentary boroughs; the £10 householder. This gave the vote to all male householders or occupiers of property with £10 or more rentable value per annum as long as they had not been in receipt of poor relief in the previous year. In addition, people who had the vote previously but no longer qualified kept their rights during their lifetime if they lived within 7 miles of the borough, if it still was a constituency. This was a big change as pre-1832 there ...

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