104. Votes to the people. Freedom to the slaves. Up to a point...

104. Votes to the people. Freedom to the slaves. Up to a point...

Just how great was the Great Reform Act?

It was passed in an atmosphere that came close to being revolutionary. That drove the passage of the Act.

It didn’t, however, make it a revolutionary Act. On the contrary, its aim was much more to head off revolution. Indeed, its entrenchment of landowning interests in the counties, and its extension of the franchise to the middle class but not to workers, it can be seen as an aristocratic act, with only certain provisions taking Britain in a democratic direction.

Its immediate impact, though, was substantial. It forced the parties to work far more closely with voters, laying the foundation of the present party system.

In turn, that meant parliamentary candidates had to pledge themselves publicly to specific policies. The abolition of slavery was the major one at the first election after the Act. It was carried, the second great achievement of Grey’s government, though the its handling of compensation, specifically who received it and who didn’t, leaves rather a lot to be desired.

Illustration: Slaves cutting sugar cane in Jamais. Public Domain

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Jaksot(275)

250. Return of the crisis man

250. Return of the crisis man

When Harold Wilson formed his second government, he immediately faced a major crisis inherited from Heath’s administration: the coalminers were on strike, a state of Emergency (Heath’s fifth in four y...

6 Heinä 202514min

249. Who governs Britain?

249. Who governs Britain?

How did Heath end up calling an election on the question of who governed the country? Especially as the choice he seemed to be offering was between him and the minders. This episode traces the impact ...

5 Heinä 202514min

248. Withered Heath

248. Withered Heath

Ted Heath’s government had to deal with two problems drawn from Britain’s postimperial standing: • adapting to its loss of global status, by negotiating, at the third time of asking and for the first ...

22 Kesä 202514min

247. Hopes dashed

247. Hopes dashed

After talking last week about his government’s achievements in the social sphere, this episode looks at the difficulties Wilson faced in economics and foreign affairs.One way Wilson explored to addres...

15 Kesä 202514min

246. The sixties, swinging - high and low

246. The sixties, swinging - high and low

According to the English poet Philip Larkin, the sixties saw the invention of sexual intercourse. While that may not be quite the case, it was certainly a time when a lot of people decided that it was...

8 Kesä 202514min

245. Pressures preventing progress

245. Pressures preventing progress

The Wilson government got off to a pretty sticky start, with the new Prime Minister learning, more or less as he arrived at Downing Street in October 1964, that the trade deficit for the year was like...

1 Kesä 202514min

244. Harold gets Home

244. Harold gets Home

Here we’re focusing on the changes that took place in Britain after Supermac (Harold Macmillan) stood down as Prime Minister.A lot of how that went depended on the Opposition formed by the Labour Part...

25 Touko 202514min

243. Sex, spies and a slippery slope

243. Sex, spies and a slippery slope

Last time we looked at the continuing disintegration of the British Empire. In this episode we look at two other key aspects of Macmillan’s foreign policy, Britain’s relations with the US and with pot...

18 Touko 202515min

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