

Reform Act 1832

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Representation of the People Act 1832
Act of Parliament
Long titleAn Act to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales
Citation2 & 3 Wm. IV, c. 45
Introduced byLord Grey, Prime Minister
Territorial extentEngland and Wales

In Scotland and Ireland, the Scottish Reform Act 1832 and Irish Reform Act 1832 applied, respectively.
Royal assent7 June 1832
Other legislation
Relates toReform Act 1867
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted
Start of parchment roll of the Reform Act 1832, with royal assent of King William IV marked above Le Roy le veult.
A painting by Sir George Hayter that commemorates the passing of the Act. It depicts the first session of the newly reformed House of Commons on 5 February 1833 held in St. Stephen's Chapel. In the foreground, the leading statesmen from the Lords: Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845), William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779–1848) and the Whigs on the left; and Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) and the Tories on the right. Currently in the National Portrait Gallery.

The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the 1832 Reform Act, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act to distinguish it from subsequent Reform Acts) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales. According to its preamble, the Act was designed to "take effectual Measures for correcting divers Abuses that have long prevailed in the Choice of Members to serve in the Commons House of Parliament".[1] Before the reform, most members nominally represented boroughs. The number of electors in a borough varied widely, from a dozen or so up to 12,000. Frequently the selection of MPs was effectively controlled by one powerful patron: for example Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, controlled eleven boroughs. Criteria for qualification for the franchise varied greatly among boroughs, from the requirement to own land, to merely living in a house with a hearth sufficient to boil a pot.

There had been calls for reform long before 1832, but without success. The Act that finally succeeded was proposed by the Whigs, led by Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey. It met with significant opposition from the Pittite factions in Parliament, who had long governed the country; opposition was especially pronounced in the House of Lords. Nevertheless, the bill was eventually passed, mainly as a result of public pressure. The Act granted seats in the House of Commons to large cities that had sprung up during the Industrial Revolution, and removed seats from the "rotten boroughs": those with very small electorates and usually dominated by a wealthy patron. The Act also increased the electorate from about 400,000 to 650,000, making about one in five adult males eligible to vote.[2]

The full title is An Act to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales. Its formal short title and citation is "Representation of the People Act 1832 (2 & 3 Wm. IV, c. 45)". The Act applied only in England and Wales; the Irish Reform Act 1832 brought similar changes to Ireland. The separate Scottish Reform Act 1832 was revolutionary, enlarging the electorate by a factor of 1300% from 5000 to 65,000.[3]

Unreformed House of Commons[edit]



After the Acts of Union 1800 became law on 1 January 1801, the unreformed House of Commons was composed of 658 members, of whom 513 represented England and Wales. There were two types of constituencies; counties and boroughs. County members were supposed to represent landholders, while borough members were supposed to represent the mercantile and trading interests of the kingdom.[4] Counties were historical national subdivisions established between the 8th and 16th centuries. They were not merely parliamentary constituencies; many components of government (including courts and the militia) were organised along county lines.[5] The members of Parliament chosen by the counties were known as Knights of the Shire. In Wales each county elected one member, while in England each county elected two members until 1826, when Yorkshire's representation was increased to four, following the disenfranchisement of the Cornish borough of Grampound.


The franchise[edit]

Statutes passed in 1430 and 1432, during the reign of Henry VI, standardised property qualifications for county voters. Under these Acts, all owners of freehold property or land worth at least forty shillings in a particular county were entitled to vote in that county. This requirement, known as the forty shilling freehold, was never adjusted for inflation; thus the amount of land one had to own in order to vote gradually diminished over time.[8] The franchise was restricted to males by custom rather than statute;[9] on rare occasions women had been able to vote in parliamentary elections as a result of property ownership.[10] Nevertheless, the vast majority of people were not entitled to vote; the size of the English county electorate in 1831 has been estimated at only 200,000.[11] Furthermore, the sizes of the individual county constituencies varied significantly. The smallest counties, Rutland and Anglesey, had fewer than 1,000 voters each, while the largest county, Yorkshire, had more than 20,000.[12] Those who owned property in multiple constituencies could vote multiple times; there was usually no need to live in a constituency in order to vote there.


  1. Boroughs in which freemen were electors;
  2. Boroughs in which the franchise was restricted to those paying scot and lot, a form of municipal taxation;
  3. Boroughs in which only the ownership of a burgage property qualified a person to vote;
  6. Boroughs in which freeholders of land had the right to vote.

Some boroughs had a combination of these varying types of franchise, and most had special rules and exceptions,[13] so many boroughs had a form of franchise that was unique to themselves.


By contrast, France in 1831 had a population of 32 million, about double the 16.5 million in England, Wales and Scotland.[16] But there were only 165,000 French voters, compared to 439,000 in Britain. France adopted universal male suffrage in 1848.[17]

Women's suffrage[edit]

The claim for the women's vote appears to have been first made by Jeremy Bentham in 1817 when he published his Plan of Parliamentary Reform in the form of a Catechism,[18] and was taken up by William Thompson in 1825, when he published, with Anna Wheeler, An Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and Thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery: In Reply to Mr. Mill's Celebrated Article on Government.[19] In the "celebrated article on Government", James Mill had stated:



Pocket boroughs, bribery[edit]




Movement for reform[edit]

Early attempts at reform[edit]

William Pitt the Younger was a prominent advocate of parliamentary reform.





Aftermath of the French Revolution[edit]




Reform during the 1820s[edit]



Passage of the Reform Act[edit]

First Reform Bill[edit]

The Duke of Wellington, Tory Prime Minister (1828–30) strongly opposed reform measures.[38]



He was fully convinced that the country possessed, at the present moment, a legislature which answered all the good purposes of legislation,—and this to a greater degree than any legislature ever had answered, in any country whatever. He would go further, and say that the legislature and system of representation possessed the full and entire confidence of the country. [...] He would go still further, and say, that if at the present moment he had imposed upon him the duty of forming a legislature for any country [...] he did not mean to assert that he could form such a legislature as they possessed now, for the nature of man was incapable of reaching such excellence at once. [...] [A]s long as he held any station in the government of the country, he should always feel it his duty to resist [reform] measures, when proposed by others.

The Prime Minister's absolutist views proved extremely unpopular, even within his own party. Less than two weeks after Wellington made these remarks, on 15 November 1830 he was forced to resign after he was defeated in a motion of no confidence. Sydney Smith wrote, "Never was any administration so completely and so suddenly destroyed; and, I believe, entirely by the Duke's declaration, made, I suspect, in perfect ignorance of the state of public feeling and opinion."[41] Wellington was replaced by the Whig reformer Charles Grey, who had by this time the title of Earl Grey.



Second Reform Bill[edit]





Third Reform Bill[edit]



Realizing that another rejection would not be politically feasible, opponents of reform decided to use amendments to change the bill's essential character; for example, they voted to delay consideration of clauses in the bill that disfranchised the rotten boroughs. The ministers believed that they were left with only one alternative: to create a large number of new peerages, swamping the House of Lords with pro-reform votes. But the prerogative of creating peerages rested with the king, who recoiled from so drastic a step and rejected the unanimous advice of his cabinet. Lord Grey then resigned, and the king invited the Duke of Wellington to form a new government.[48]

The ensuing period became known as the "Days of May", with so great a level of political agitation that some feared revolution. Some protesters advocated non-payment of taxes, and urged a run on the banks; one day signs appeared across London reading "Stop the Duke; go for gold!" £1.8 million was withdrawn from the Bank of England in the first days of the run (out of about £7 million total gold in the Bank's possession).[49] The National Political Union and other organisations sent petitions to the House of Commons, demanding that they withhold supply (cut off funding to the government) until the House of Lords should acquiesce. Some demonstrations called for the abolition of the nobility, and some even of the monarchy.[50] In these circumstances, the Duke of Wellington had great difficulty in building support for his premiership, despite promising moderate reform. He was unable to form a government, leaving King William with no choice but to recall Lord Grey. Eventually the king consented to fill the House of Lords with Whigs; however, without the knowledge of his cabinet, Wellington circulated a letter among Tory peers, encouraging them to desist from further opposition, and warning them of the consequences of continuing. At this, enough opposing peers relented.[51] By abstaining from further votes, they allowed the legislation to pass in the House of Lords, and the Crown was thus not forced to create new peers. The bill finally received the Royal Assent on 7 June 1832, thereby becoming law.[52]



Abolition of seats[edit]



Creation of new seats[edit]


  • Yorkshire, which was represented by four MPs before the Act, was given an extra two MPs (so that each of its three ridings was represented by two MPs).
  • 22 large towns were given two MPs.

Thus 65 new county seats and 65 new borough seats were created in England and Wales. The total number of English members fell by 17 and the number in Wales increased by four.[54] The boundaries of the new divisions and parliamentary boroughs were defined in a separate Act, the Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832.

Extension of the franchise[edit]



The Reform Act itself did not affect constituencies in Scotland or Ireland. However, there were also reforms there, under the Scottish Reform Act and the Irish Reform Act. Scotland received eight additional seats, and Ireland received five; thus keeping the total number of seats in the House of Commons the same as it had been before the Act. While no constituencies were disfranchised in either of those countries, voter qualifications were standardised and the size of the electorate was increased in both.


Local Conservative Associations began to educate citizens about the party's platform and encouraged them to register to vote annually, as required by the Act. Coverage of national politics in the local press was joined by in-depth reports on provincial politics in the national press. Grassroots Conservatives therefore saw themselves as part of a national political movement during the 1830s.[56]

The size of the pre-Reform electorate is difficult to estimate. Voter registration was lacking, and many boroughs were rarely contested in elections. It is estimated that immediately before the 1832 Reform Act, 400,000 English subjects[clarification needed] were entitled to vote, and that after passage, the number rose to 650,000, an increase of more than 60%.[57]

Tradesmen, such as shoemakers, believed that the Reform Act had given them the vote. One example is the shoemakers of Duns, Berwickshire. They created a banner celebrating the Reform Act which declared, "The battle's won. Britannia's sons are free." This banner is on display at People's History Museum in Manchester.[58]

Many major commercial and industrial cities became separate parliamentary boroughs under the Act. The new constituencies saw party conflicts within the middle class, and between the middle class and working class. A study of elections in the medium-sized borough of Halifax, 1832–1852, concluded that the party organisations, and the voters themselves, depended heavily on local social relationships and local institutions. Having the vote encouraged many men to become much more active in the political, economic and social sphere.[59]

The Scottish Act revolutionised politics in Scotland, with its population of 2 million. Its electorate had been only 0.2% of the population compared to 4% in England. The Scottish electorate overnight soared from 5000 to 65,000, or 13% of the adult men, and was no longer a private preserve of a few very rich families.[60]

Tenant voters[edit]

Most of the pocket boroughs abolished by the Reform Act belonged to the Tory party. These losses were somewhat offset by the extension of the vote to tenants-at-will paying an annual rent of £50. This clause, proposed by the Tory Marquess of Chandos, was adopted in the House of Commons despite opposition from the Government. The tenants-at-will thereby enfranchised typically voted as instructed by their landlords, who in turn normally supported the Tory party.[61] This concession, together with the Whig party's internal divisions and the difficulties faced by the nation's economy, allowed the Tories under Sir Robert Peel to make gains in the elections of 1835 and 1837, and to retake the House of Commons in 1841.

A modern historian's examination of votes in the House concluded that the traditional landed interest "suffered very little" by the 1832 Act. They continued to dominate the Commons, while losing a bit of their power to enact laws that focused on their more parochial interests. By contrast, the same study concluded that the 1867 Reform Act caused serious erosion of their legislative power and the 1874 elections saw great landowners losing their county seats to the votes of tenant farmers in England and especially in Ireland.[62]


The Reform Act did not enfranchise the working class since voters were required to possess property worth £10, a substantial sum at the time. This split the alliance between the working class and the middle class, giving rise to the Chartist Movement.



Further reform[edit]



An area the Reform Act did not address was the issue of municipal and regional government. As a result of archaic traditions, many English counties had enclaves and exclaves, which were mostly abolished in the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844. Furthermore, many new conurbations and economic areas bridged traditional county boundaries by having been formed in previously obscure areas: the West Midlands conurbation bridged Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire, Manchester and Liverpool both had hinterlands in Cheshire but city centres in Lancashire, while in the south Oxford's developing southern suburbs were in Berkshire and London was expanding into Essex, Surrey and Middlesex. This led to further acts to reorganise county boundaries in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.


Many historians credit the Reform Act 1832 with launching modern democracy in the United Kingdom.[67] G. M. Trevelyan hails 1832 as the watershed moment at which "'the sovereignty of the people' had been established in fact, if not in law".[68] Sir Erskine May notes that the "reformed Parliament was, unquestionably, more liberal and progressive in its policy than the Parliaments of old; more vigorous and active; more susceptible to the influence of public opinion; and more secure in the confidence of the people", but admitted that "grave defects still remained to be considered".[69] Other historians have argued that genuine democracy began to arise only with the Second Reform Act in 1867, or perhaps even later. Norman Gash states that "it would be wrong to assume that the political scene in the succeeding generation differed essentially from that of the preceding one".[70]

Much of the support for passage in Parliament came from conservatives hoping to head off even more radical changes. Earl Gray argued that the aristocracy would best be served by a cautiously constructive reform program. Most Tories were strongly opposed, and made dire predictions about what they saw as dangerous, radical proposals. However one faction of Ultra-Tories supported reform measures in the order to weaken Wellington's ministry, which had outraged them by granting Catholic emancipation.[71]

Historians in recent decades have been polarized over emphasizing or downplaying the importance of the Act.[72] However, John A. Phillips, and Charles Wetherell argue for its drastic modernizing impact on the political system:

England's frenzy over the Reform Bill in 1831, coupled with the effect of the bill itself upon its enactment in 1832, unleashed a wave of political modernization that the Whig Party eagerly harnessed and the Tory Party grudgingly, but no less effectively, embraced. Reform quickly destroyed the political system that had prevailed during the long reign of George III and replaced it with an essentially modern electoral system based on rigid partisanship and clearly articulated political principle. Hardly "modest" in its consequences, the Reform Act could scarcely have caused a more drastic alteration in England's political fabric.[73]


See also[edit]


  1. ^ Reform Act 1832
  2. ^ Phillips, John A.; Wetherell, Charles (1995). "The Great Reform Act of 1832 and the Political Modernization of England". The American Historical Review. 100 (2): 411–436. doi:10.2307/2169005. JSTOR 2169005.
  3. ^ Robert Allan Houston (2008). Scotland: A Very Short Introduction. p. 26. ISBN 9780199230792.
  4. ^ Blackstone (1765), pp. 154–155.
  5. ^ Blackstone (1765), p. 110
  8. ^ Blackstone (1765), pp. 166–167.
  11. ^ Phillips and Wetherell (1995), p. 413.
  14. ^ Thorne (1986), vol. II, p. 266.
  16. ^ There were an additional 7.8 million in Ireland.
  17. ^ Sherman Kent, "Electoral lists of France's July Monarchy, 1830-1848." French Historical Studies (1971): 117-127. p 120.
  18. ^ London: R. Hunter.
  19. ^ London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green.
  22. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 333.
  25. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 340.
  28. ^ Cannon (1973), cap. 1.
  29. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 394.
  30. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 397.
  32. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 402.
  37. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 412.
  39. ^ May (1896), vol. II, p. 384.
  40. ^ Edward Potts Cheyney, ed. (1922). Readings in English History Drawn from the Original Sources: Intended to Illustrate A Short History of England. Ginn. p. 680.CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)
  45. ^ Rudé (1967), pp. 97–98.
  47. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 452.
  48. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 312.
  52. ^ Mc?Kechnie, The reform of the House of Lords
  53. ^ Including Monmouth, considered part of Wales under sections 1, 20 and 269 of the Local Government Act 1972 (cap. 70). The Interpretation Act 1978 (cap. 30) provides that before 1 April 1974, "a reference to England includes Berwick-upon-Tweed and Monmouthshire".
  57. ^ Phillips and Wetherell (1995), pp. 413–414.
  58. ^ Collection Highlights, Shoemakers Banner, People's History Museum
  60. ^ Rab Houston (2008). Scotland: A Very Short Introduction. p. 26. ISBN 9780191578861.
  61. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 428.
  62. ^ David F. Krein "The Great Landowners in the House of Commons, 1833–85," Parliamentary History (2013) 32#3 pp 460–476
  66. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 449.
  67. ^ A. Ricardo López; Barbara Weinstein (2012). The Making of the Middle Class: Toward a Transnational History. Duke UP. p. 58. ISBN 978-0822351290.
  68. ^ Trevelyan (1922), p. 242.
  69. ^ May (1896), vol. I, p. 431.
  70. ^ Gash (1952), p. xii.
  71. ^ D. C. Moore, "The Other Face of Reform", Victorian Studies, (1961) 5#1 pp 7–34
  72. ^ For example W. A. Speck, A Concise History of Britain, 1707-1975 (1993) pp 72-76.
  73. ^ John A. Phillips, and Charles Wetherell. "The Great Reform Act of 1832 and the political modernization of England." American Historical Review 100.2 (1995): 411-436 online.


  • May, Sir Thomas Erskine. May, Thomas Erskine (1895). The Constitutional History of England Since the Accession of George the Third, 1760–1860. 1. pp. 263–364.

Further reading[edit]

  • Aidt, Toke S., and Raphaël Franck. "How to get the snowball rolling and extend the franchise: voting on the Great Reform Act of 1832." Public Choice 155.3–4 (2013): 229–250. online
  • Conacher, J.B. (1971)The emergence of British parliamentary democracy in the nineteenth century: the passing of the Reform Acts of 1832, 1867, and 1884-1885 (1971).
  • Doull, James (2000). "Hegel on the English Reform Bill" (PDF). Animus. 5. ISSN 1209-0689.
  • Ertman, Thomas. "The Great Reform Act of 1832 and British Democratization." Comparative Political Studies 43.8–9 (2010): 1000–1022. online
  • Maehl, William H., Jr., ed. The Reform Bill of 1832: Why Not Revolution? (1967) 122pp; brief excerpts from primary and secondary sources
  • Phillips, John A., and Charles Wetherell. (1995) "The Great Reform Act of 1832 and the political modernization of England." American historical review 100.2 (1995): 411-436. in JSTOR
  • Vanden Bossche, Chris R. (2014) Reform Acts: Chartism, Social Agency, and the Victorian Novel, 1832–1867 (2014) excerpt and text search
  • Whitfield, Bob. The Extension of the Franchise: 1832–1931 (Heinemann Advanced History, 2001), textbook

External links[edit]