Reform Act 1867

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Contemporary cartoon of Disraeli outpacing Gladstone.

The Reform Act 1867 (also known as the Second Reform Act, and formally titled the Representation of the People Act 1867), 30 & 31 Vict. c. 102, was a piece of British legislation that greatly increased the number of men who could vote in elections in the UK. In its final form, the Reform Act 1867 enfranchised all male householders and abolished compounding (the practice of paying rates to a landlord as part of rent). Due to this act working-class men gained suffrage for the first time in Britain. However, there was little redistribution of seats; and what there was had been intended to help the Conservative Party.

1 Background
2 Reduced representation
- 2.1 Disenfranchised and rotten boroughs
  - 2.1.1 Other disenfranchisements
- 2.2 Halved representation
3 Enfranchisements
- 3.1 One MP
- 3.2 Two MPs
4 Other changes
5 Scotland and Ireland
6 Effects of the Second Reform Act
7 Unintentional Effects
8 See also
9 References

Following the Great Reform Act of 1832, it was thought prudent to introduce further electoral reform. Lord John Russell attempted this in 1860, but the then Prime Minister Lord Palmerston was against any further electoral reform. When Palmerston died in 1865, however, the floodgates for reform were opened.

Now Prime Minister, Earl Russell (as he became) introduced a Reform Bill in 1866. It was a cautious measure, which proposed to enfranchise "respectable" working men, excluding unskilled workers and what was known as the "residuum", that is, the feckless and criminal poor. This was ensured by a £7 householder qualification, which had been calculated to require an income of 26 shillings a week. There were also two "fancy franchises", originating from measures of 1854, a £10 lodger qualification for the boroughs and a £50 savings qualification in the counties. Liberals claimed that 'the middle classes, strengthen'd by the best of the artisans would still have the preponderance of power.

When it came to the vote, however, this bill split the Liberals: this was partly engineered by Benjamin Disraeli, who incited those threatened by the Bill to rise up against it. On one side were the reactionary-conservative Liberals, known as the Adullamites; on the other were pro-reform Liberals who supported the Government. The Adullamites, though, were supported by Tories and the liberal Whigs were supported by radicals and reformists.

The Bill was thus defeated and the Liberal government of Russell resigned. The Conservatives formed a ministry on June 26, 1866, led by Lord Derby as Prime Minister and Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer. They were faced with the challenge of reviving Conservatism: Palmerston, the powerful Liberal leader, was dead and the Liberal Party split and defeated. Thanks to Disraeli's manoeuvring, the Conservatives had this one chance to prove that they were a viable party of government. However, there was still a Liberal majority in the Commons.

The Adullamites, at this point led by Robert Lowe, were persuaded to ally with the Conservative party. The Adullamites were anti-reform, as were the Conservatives but the Adullamites were not easy to work with and wanted to have too many of their number in the Cabinet. In response Disraeli ended the alliance and started his own bill for parliamentary reform. The Conservative Lord Cranborne resigned in disgust.

Disraeli who had a great rivalry with William Gladstone proceeded to accept any amendment to the reform bill as long as it wasn't Gladstone that proposed it. Consequently the bill was more far-reaching than anyone had thought possible or really wanted. An amendment tabled by the opposition trebled the new number eligible to vote under the bill, yet Disraeli simply accepted it because it was not proposed by Gladstone. The purpose of the bill had been to separate the responsible sober skilled working class from the drunken idle and stupid, considered to form the residuum. Instead it franchised most men who lived in urban areas.

Disraeli was able to persuade his party to vote for the bill, on the basis that the newly enfranchised electorate would be grateful and vote Conservative at the next election. Despite this prediction, in 1868 the Conservatives lost the first general election in which the newly franchised voted.

To succeed at this hurdle of reform at which Gladstone had just fallen would be a tremendous political victory, ensuring that Disraeli would succeed Derby as leader of the Conservative Party. There was yet another significant motive: to destroy the popular campaign for reform, led by the Reform League, Reform Union and the radical Bright. Their actions had culminated in the Hyde Park Demonstration of 1866. This demonstration was mainly peaceful, though the people broke down fences and hedges when the police denied them entry to the park.

The climate of the late 1860s, too, was conducive to reform. The increasing "respectability" of large portions of the working class had assuaged middle-class fears, and political views had moved closer to democracy. More people accepted that, eventually, most men should be enfranchised, not as a right but as a well-earned privilege. The question was, therefore, whether the time was right to enfranchise this or that group.

By making the Reform Bill that they introduced more moderate than the Liberals', the Tories had ensured that Adullamites and reactionaries would accept it. The proposals were as follows: a borough franchise for all who paid rates in person (that is, not compounders); and extra votes for graduates, professionals and those with over £50 savings. These last "fancy franchises" were seen by Conservatives as a weapon against a mass electorate. However, Gladstone attacked the Bill and, in a series of sparkling parliamentary debates with Disraeli, made the Bill much more radical. Ironically, having been given his chance by the belief that Gladstone's Bill had gone too far in 1866, Disraeli had now gone further. He lost his alliance with the Adullamites, but managed to get the Bill passed by allying with radicals, this was a tactical move, Disraeli used the radical support for the bill to undermine Gladstone's opposition.

Historians differ over the extent to which Disraeli was displaying a genius for flexibility and opportunism. Certainly, his commitment was not to the Bill itself, still less to the policies it embodied, but to scoring off Gladstone by succeeding where he had failed. It is this attitude which his critics have lambasted as unscrupulousness while his partisans have praised as political genius. In reality, of course, the one embraces the other. Alexander MacDonald would later say "the Conservatives had done more for the working classes in six years than the Liberals had done in fifty." Whether this is entirely cynical becomes a mere matter of judgement. Some historians have also noted that the act gerrymandered constituencies in favour of the Conservatives helping to the return the Conservative party to the 'natural party of government' after (almost) continuous 30 years in opposition.

The act enfranchised 1,500,000 people by giving the vote to all adult male urban householders and male lodgers paying £10 a year for unfurnished rooms. The Conservatives had virtually doubled the British electorate. Several towns that were previously unrepresented were given MPs, whilst places with a population of less than 10,000 lost an MP. 52 seats were thus redistributed from small towns to the new towns, the growing industrial towns, the northern counties and 1 to the University of London.

The bill ultimately aided the rise of the radical wing of the Liberal party and helped Disraeli to victory. The Act was tidied up with many further Acts to alter the electoral boundaries.

Two electoral Boroughs were completely disenfranchised by the Act:

Totnes, Devon
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk Meirion

Although not part of the Act, these are listed for continuity.

The following were disenfranchised individually for corruption:

Lancaster, 1867
Reigate, 1867

Seven English boroughs were disenfranchised by the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868 the subsequent year:

Arundel, Sussex
Ashburton, Devon
Dartmouth, Devon
Honiton, Devon
Lyme Regis, Dorset
Thetford, Norfolk
Wells, Somerset

The following Boroughs were reduced from electing two MPs to one:

Andover, Hampshire
Bodmin, Cornwall
Bridgnorth, Shropshire
Bridport, Dorset
Buckingham, Buckinghamshire
Chichester, Sussex
Chippenham, Wiltshire
Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Cockermouth, Cumberland
Devizes, Wiltshire
Dorchester, Dorset
Evesham, Worcestershire
Guildford, Surrey
Harwich, Essex
Hertford, Hertfordshire
Huntingdon, Huntingdonshire
Knaresborough, West Riding of Yorkshire
Leominster, Herefordshire
Lewes, Sussex
Lichfield, Staffordshire
Ludlow, Shropshire
Lymington, Hampshire
Maldon, Essex
Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Malton, North Riding of Yorkshire
Marlborough, Wiltshire
Newport, Isle of Wight
Poole, Dorset
Richmond, North Riding of Yorkshire
Ripon, West Riding of Yorkshire
Stamford, Lincolnshire
Tavistock, Devon
Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire
Windsor, Berkshire
Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

The following Boroughs were enfranchised:

Burnley, Lancashire
Darlington, County Durham
Dewsbury, West Riding of Yorkshire
Gravesend, Kent
Hartlepool, County Durham
Middlesbrough, North Riding of Yorkshire
Stalybridge, Cheshire
Stockton, County Durham
Wednesbury, Staffordshire

Salford was given 2 MPs instead of 1. Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester now had 3 MPs instead of 2.

The West Riding of Yorkshire was divided into 3 districts each returning 2 MPs.
Cheshire, Derbyshire, Devonshire, Essex, Kent, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Somerset, Staffordshire and Surrey were now divided into 3 districts instead of 2, each returning 2 MPs.
Lancashire was now divided into 4 2-MP districts instead of a three member district and a two member district.
University of London given one seat.
The Welsh constituency of Merthyr Tydfil was given 2 seats instead of one.
Parliament was allowed to continue sitting through a Demise of the Crown.

The reforms for Scotland and Ireland were carried out by two subsequent acts, the Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1868 and the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868.

In Scotland, five existing constituencies gained members, and three new constituencies were formed. Two existing county consitutencies were merged into one, giving an overall increase of seven members; this was offset by seven English boroughs (listed above) being disenfranchised, leaving the House with the same number of members.

The representation of Ireland remained unchanged

Traditionally, the changes resulting from the Second Reform Act were seen by most historians as being rather inferior to those made by the first. However, historians from a Gashite school would contend that the unprecedented extension of the franchise to all householders effectively gave the vote to the working classes, a quite considerable change. JH Parry described this as a 'borough franchise revolution'; the traditional position of the landed gentry in parliament would no longer be assured by money, bribery and favours; but by the whims and wishes of the public. However, to blindly consider the de jure franchise extensions would be fallacious. The franchise provisions were flawed; the act did not address the issue of compounding (Gladstone had to remove this practice in 1868) and the preparation of the register was still left to easily manipulated party organisers who could remove opponents and at supporters at will. The sole qualification to vote was essentially being on the register itself.

Increased amounts of party spending and political organisation at both a local and national level - politicians had to account themselves to the increased electorate.

The redistribution of seats actually served to make the House of Commons increasingly dominated by the upper classes. Only they could afford to pay the huge campaigning costs and the abolition of certain rotten boroughs removed some of the middle-class planter merchants that had been able to obtain seats.

extra pressure was added to the upper class and the lower and middle classes expected more. Also constituencies such as Leeds and Manchester became slightly more "upper class places".