Democracy and Reform, 1815-1885 by D.G. Wright

By 1885 all this had changed and this book examines why and how this transformation took place. As late as 1831 Cornwall, with its population of 300,000, was returning 42 to parliament while industrial Lancashire, with its population of 1,300,000 was returning only 14. Not only was franchise extremely limited but actual representation in parliament was very uneven.

The book opens with a brief examination of the eighteenth-century British political system which, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, was becoming increasingly anachronistic. Dr Wright shows how a combination of social, economic, and political pressures pushed successive administrations further than they originally intended to go, broke the monopoly of the propertied interests, and extended the franchise into the upper layers of the working class. Although the author stresses that many of the reform acts changed more in principle than in practice, their combined effect was a remarkable transformation of the British political system.

Further reform acts continued this process of extending the franchise and by 1884 one in seven men had the vote. In 1800 only three adult males in every hundred could vote but the Great Reform Bill of 1832 increased this figure to one in twenty-four.

This authoritative study analyses the bloodless revolution which transformed the oligarchic system of government of eighteenth-century England into something closer to modern democracy. Existing books are being re-presented in a larger, more reader-friendly format as they reprint and new books and new editions are being reset into an entirely new page design. Longman has now inaugurated a major programme of renewal and expansion for Seminar Studies, with many new titles and new editions in the pipeline. Works of scholarship in their own right, the books also provide a survey of current historical interpretations. All the books in the series are written by experts in the field who are not only familiar with the latest research but have often contributed to it. The text is supported by primary material in a Documents section, a full bibliography and an index where appropriate there are maps, chronologies and glossaries. This famous series examines key themes in British, European and World history in short, succinct volumes.

Democracy and Reform, 1815-1885 by D.G. Wright