Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vsgnj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-23T07:13:57.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Second Reform Movement, 1848-1867*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Thomas F. Gallagher
Get access

Extract

The fact that the reform bill of 1867 was the work of a Conservative government has always seemed paradoxical, although it became clear soon after its passage that the bill was less of a paradox than supposed at first. Like the great Reform Act of 1832, the Act of 1867 produced profoundly conservative consequences, and they were conservative with a large as well as a small “c,” conservative in a narrowly partisan as well as a broadly social sense. The Act was certainly conservative in that it was an early concession to public opinion, or what Burke would have called a timely Reformation. It postponed further reform for nearly 20 years, and as G. D. H. Cole said ironically, that was a considerable achievement. In the general election of 1874 there were already signs that the bill had produced a great deal of solidly Conservative voting in the suburbs that ringed the large English borough constituencies. Moreover, when reform did come again in 1884 and 1885, it shifted constituency boundaries to take in middle class Conservative suburbs, and by creating electoral districts that were more or less equal, it shifted representation in the direction of the southeast, a commercial region dominated by light industry and therefore eminently Conservative. After 1885 there were many more constituencies, and they were smaller and cheaper to contest. It is very likely also that they were more homogeneously middle or working class, and that more Conservative politicians were now coming from the middle class and more Liberals from the working class. The electorate and the parliament which it influenced were moving in a recognizably modern direction after 1885, without having suffered the dire democratic fate envisioned in 1867.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , Summer 1980 , pp. 147 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Richard W. Davis for very helpful criticisms of the earlier version of this paper, which I read at the 1979 meeting of the Southern Conference on British Studies.

References

1 Cole, G.D.H., British Working Class Politics, 1832-1914 (London, 1941), p. 8Google Scholar.

2 Harrison, Frederic, “The Conservative Reaction,” Fortnightly Review, 21 (March 1874): 297–309Google Scholar. Cornford, J.R., “The Transformation of Conservatism in the Late 19th Century,” Victorian Studies, 7 (1963): 52, 58–9Google Scholar.

3 Hanham, H. J., Elections and Party Management (London, 1959), pp. xvii, 251, 281Google Scholar. Petting, Henry, Social Geography of British Elections (London and New York, 1967), pp. 26–86Google Scholar. Jones, Andrew, The Politics of Reform; 1884 (Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar.

4 Dunbabin, J.P.D., “Parliamentary Elections in Great Britain, 1868-1900: a Penological Note,” English Historical Review. 81 (January, 1966): 87–92Google Scholar. Hanham, , English Historical Review, 79 (1964): 195–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 [Cecil, Roben, Cranborne, Lord,] “The Conservative Surrender,” Quarterly Review, 123 (October, 1867): 533–65Google Scholar.

6 Brodrick, G. C., “The Utilitarian Argument Against Reform as Stated by Mr. Lowe,” in Essays on Reform (London, 1867), pp. 22–3Google Scholar. On Lowe, see Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., 182 (13 March 1866): 142-43, 147–50Google Scholar. Briggs, Asa, Victorian People (New York, 1963), pp. 241–47Google Scholar.

7 Essays on Reform, pp. 31, 42, 174. 3 Hansard, 157 (19 March 1860): 859-60, 868, 1054-–57Google Scholar; ibid., 158 (23 April 1860): 380. For an important speech by W.E. Gladstone, see ibid., (3 May 1860): 632 ff. Ibid., 182 (12 March 1866): 52,86.

8 The authors of Essays on Reform, in particular, show little enthusiasm in a positive sense. See esp. G. C. Brodrick, pp. 24-25, R. H. Hutton, p. 31, L. Stephen, pp. 106-7.

9 Briggs, Asa, The Age of Improvement (London, 1959), p. 500Google Scholar.

10 Trevelyan, G. M., Life of John Bright (London, 1913), pp. 267–71Google Scholar. Gillespie, Frances, Labor and Politics in England, 1850-1867 (Durham, N.C., 1927), pp. 290–91Google Scholar.

11 Miss Gillespie, in particular, has greatly exaggerated the importance and the amount of provincial reformist activity.

12 Tyne and Wear County Record Office, Cowen MSS. 634/c. 6; Northern Reform Union Minute Book, 12 October, 13 October 1858; 634/c. 465, Henry Cooper to Cowen, 4 February 1859; 634/c. 6, circular letter by Jos. Cowen, d. Blaydon, Newcastle, 21 September 1858.

13 Cole, , British Working Class Politics, pp. 25–6Google Scholar.

14 Smith, F. B., The Making of the SecondReform Bill (London, 1966), pp. 161-84, 192–3Google ScholarPubMed. Cowling, Maurice, 1867: Disraeli, Gladstone and Revolution: The Passing of the Second Reform Bill (London, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Smith, , The Making of the Second Reform Bill, pp. 196–98Google Scholar. Cowling, 1867, pp. 279-85.

16 Himmdfarb, Gertrude, “The Politics of Democracy: the English Reform Act of 1867,” Journal of British Studies, 6 (November 1966): 111–13Google Scholar.

17 Cowling, 1867, pp. 157, 161-63, 171.

18 Moore, D. C., The Politics of Deference: a Study of the Mid-Nineteenth Century English Political System (Hassocks and New York, 1976), pp. 372-76, 403Google Scholar.

19 Seymour, Charles, Electoral Reform in England and Wales (New Haven, 1915, Newton Abbot, 1970), pp. 339–40Google Scholar.

20 Bodleian Library, Clarendon Deposit, MSS. of 4th Earl Clarendon, c. 530; C. C. Lewis to Clarendon, 11 April 1848.1 am grateful to the Bodleian Library for permission to consult these papers.

21 Mather, F. C., “The Government and the Chartists,” in Briggs, Asa, ed., Chartist Studies (London, 1959), pp. 395–99Google Scholar.

22 Gillespie, , Labor and Politics, p. 289Google Scholar.

23 3 Hansard, 99 (20 June 1848): 928–29Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., 100 (6 July 1848): 213-14.

25 Ibid., 99 (20 June 1848): 908-14, 948-50. vol. 100 (6 July 1848): 175, 196, 202.

26 Ibid., 99 (20 June 1848): 884, 889, 939-42; vol. 100 (6 July 1848): 166, 205-6,182. vol. 105 (5 June 1849): 1165-67.

27 Ibid., 99: 933-34; vol. 100: 212-13, 217-18, vol. 105 (6 June 1849): 1210-11.

28 Clarendon MSS., c. 530; Lewis to Clarendon, 25 June 1848.

29 British Library [hereafter cited as BL], Add. MSS., Bright MSS., 43, 383, f. 217; Bright to Richard Cobden, 24 October 1851.

30 Clarendon MSS., c. 530; Lewis to Clarendon, 18 April 1848.

31 BL Add. MSS., Bright MSS., 43, 383, f. 224; Bright to Cobden, 4 November 1851.

32 Prest, John, Lord John Russell (London, 1972), pp. 331–2Google Scholar.

33 Russell to Lansdowne, 8 December 1851, 26 October 1852; Gooch, O.P., ed., Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell, 2 vols. (London, 1925), 1: 215, 2: 109Google Scholar.

34 Clarendon MSS., c. 530; Lewis to Clarendon, 4 December 1851.

35 Minto to Russell, 14 November 1851, Russell to Lansdowne, 8 December 1851, Palmerston to Russell, 10 December 1851, in Later Correspondence of Russell, 1: 214–16Google Scholar.

36 Russell to Lansdowne, 13 December 1853, ibid., 2: 126-127.

37 Duke of Argyll to Russell, 18 December 1853, ibid., p. 128.

38 Prest, , Lord John Russell, p. 363Google Scholar. 3 Hansard, 132 (11 April 1854): 838–40Google Scholar.

39 BL Add. MSS., Bright MSS., 43, 383, f. 241; Bright to Cobden, 26 August 1852.

40 Walpole, Spencer, Life of Russell, 2 vols. (London, 1889), 2: 126Google Scholar.

41 3 Hansard, 105 (24 May 1849): 909-10, 917, 924Google Scholar.

42 Seymour, , Electoral Reform, pp. 226–27Google Scholar.

43 3 Hansard, 128 (14 June 1853): 155, 159, 164, 174-76, 183.

44 Ibid., 153 (21 March 1859): 785-86.

45 Ibid., 105 (5 June 1849): 1198-99.

46 BL Add. MSS., Bright MSS., 43,386, f. 249; CP. Villiers to Bright, 27 January 1859.

47 BL Add. MSS., Bright MSS., 43,388, ff. 247-48; Joseph Parkes to Bright, 27 May 1859.

48 BL Add. MSS., Bright MSS., 43,384, ff. 141-42; Bright to Cobden, 24 October 1858.

49 Bagehot, Walter, “Parliamentary Reform,” in The Works of Walter Bagehot, 5 vols. (Hartford, 1891), 4: 349–51Google Scholar. In the most famous of his anti-reform speeches, Lowe provoked an angry interruption from Bright when he quoted from a speech of Blight's at Bradford in 1859, in which the latter said redistribution was “‘the very soul of the question,’” 3 Hansard, 182 (13 March 1866): 150.

50 3 Hansard, 114 (20 February 1851): 857–58Google Scholar.

51 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Broadlands MSS., GC/AR/14/3-4; Duke of Argyll to Palmerston, 10 April 1857. I am grateful to the Broadlands Trustees for permission to quote from the Broadlands MSS.

52 Walpole, , Life of Russell, 2: 285Google Scholar.

53 BL Add. MSS., Gladstone MSS., 44,089, f. 255; Aberdeen to Gladstone, 3 April 1857. BL Add. MSS., Bright MSS., 43,384, ff. 94-5; Bright to Cobden, 16 April 1857. Broadlands MSS., GC/CL/1172/1; Clarendon to Palmerston, 29 October 1858.

54 Clarendon MSS., c. 525; Aberdeen to Clarendon, 2 November 1858.

55 Annual Register 1857 (London, 1858), pp. 92–93Google Scholar.

56 Clarendon MSS., c. 531; Lewis to Clarendon, 7 December 1858.

57 3 Hansard, 149 (1 March 1858): 41–43.

58 Jones, W.D., Lord Derby and Victorian Conservatism (Athens, Oa., 1956), pp. 247–48Google Scholar.

59 The Gladstone Diaries, ed. Matthew, H.C.O., 6 vols. (Oxford, 1978), 5: 381Google Scholar; entry of 21 March 1859. 3 Hansard, 153 (21 March 1859): 581.

60 Ibid., pp. 424-25; 432-33; 443, 450.

61 Ibid., pp. 473, 536, 767-71.

62 Broadlands MSS., GC/GR/1868/2,3; Granville to Palmerston, 22 December 1859.

63 3 Hansard, 153 (21 March 1859): 787.

64 Annual Register 1859 (London, 1860), p. 2Google Scholar.

65 Nottingham University Library, Newcastle MSS., NeC 12, 608; Duke of Newcastle to Palmerston, 15 June 1859.

66 For speeches on the apathy of the public and on the statistical dangers of the borough suffrage see esp. 3 Hansard, 157 (19 March 1860): 843, 839Google Scholar, (22 March): 1038, 1054, 1069-70, 1095; (23 April): 214-45, 2160-1, 2175-76, 2199, 2216-17; vol. 158 (26 April): 148; (27 April): 339, 351-52, and esp. 361-62, 382-83, and (3 May): 575.

67 Broadlands MSS., GC/BR/6/1; H.R. Brand to Russell, 30 May 1860. GC/BR/25/1; Brand to Palmerston, 5 May 1865.

68 Broadlands MSS., CAB/B/23/2,3; Cabinet Memorandum by Brand. 9 February 1861.

69 3 Hansard, 175 (11 May 1864): 324.

70 BL Add. MSS. Gladstone MSS., 44,273, ff. 13-14; Gladstone to Palmerston, 13 May 1864.

71 3 Hansard, 175 (11 May 1864): 324–25Google Scholar.

72 BL Add. MSS., Gladstone MSS., 44,210, ff. 321-2, 307-8; Gladstone to Herbert, 17 April 1857, same to the same 22 March 1857. BL Add. MSS. 44,089, ff. 255-6; Aberdeen to Gladstone, 3 April 1857.

73 BL Add. MSS. 44,089, ff. 255-6; Aberdeen to Gladstone, 3 April 1857.

74 BL Add. MSS. 44,089, ff. 249-50; Gladstone to Aberdeen, 31 March 1857.

75 The Gladstone Diaries, 5: 438Google Scholar.

76 Ibid., p. xxxvii. Gladstone's caution on the reform question can be seen even in his public statements. On an election platform in South Lancashire in 1868, he told his audience: “In the beginning of 1866 there was no great public undeniably popular manifestation with regard to the extension of the franchise. What we wished was that the extension of the franchise should be given by the Parliament without these popular manifestations—without those indications which might appear like attempts to override the free will of Parliament” (Liverpool Daily Post, 17 October 1868).

77 Vincent, J.R., The Formation of the Liberal Party (London, 1966), pp. 50-51, 224–27Google Scholar. Briggs, , The Age of Improvement, p. 493Google Scholar.

78 The Gladstone Diaries, 5: xlivGoogle Scholar.

79 [Croker, J.W.,] “Political Prospects of France and England,” Quarterly Review, 83 (June, 1848): 286Google Scholar.

80 Grey, Lord, Parliamentary Government, Considered with Reference to a Reform of Parliament (1864)Google Scholar, which is analyzed in Herrick, F.E., “The Second Reform Movement in England,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 9 (April 1948): 190–91Google Scholar. [Gladstone, W.E.,] “The Declining Efficiency of Parliament,” Quarterly Review, 99 (September 1836): 521–70Google Scholar.

81 Seymour, , Electoral Reform, pp. 304–7Google Scholar. Petting, , Social Geography, pp. 420, 422–24Google Scholar.

82 Hanham, , Elections and Party Management, pp. 191, 244 ff.Google Scholar For the more informal obstacles to democracy, see Davis, Richard W.. Political Change and Continuity: A Bucks. Study (Newton Abbot, 1972)Google Scholar, Nossiter, T.J., Influence, Opinion and Political Idioms in Reformed England (New York, 1974)Google Scholar, and Howarth, Janet, “The Liberal Revival in Northants,.” The Historical Journal, 12 (1969): 78–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 Bright's first great national speaking tour, in the autumn of 1858, provoked great opposition among M.P.s. Durham University Library, Grey of Howiek MSS.; Lord John Russell to Earl Grey, 25 December 1858. After the tour, Lewis wrote Clarendon, “Bright, by frightening all moderate men, has diminished their difficulties A smoothed their course.” Clarendon MSS., c. 531; Lewis to Clarendon, 7 December 1858.