Abstract
Countless historians consider the 1832 reform bill one of Britain’s most pivotal legislations in transitioning into a modern representative democracy for its undeniable impact on the country’s electoral system. The same historians, however, vary on their determination of its causes mostly from comparing major developments surrounding the bill. Parliamentary speeches tend to be neglected or presupposed which causes valuable aspects of the development to be missed. This work demonstrates that fear of revolution, launched by France and catalyzed by Bristol, by the British elite was the primary motivator for reform. It does so by focusing specifically on parliamentary debate between the pro-reform party (Whigs) and the anti-reform party (Tories), supplemented by private correspondence and other public documents. Whig M.P.s insisted Britain reform or face revolution, but Tory M.P.s downplayed any immediate threat. When massive unrest materialized at Bristol, the conversation radically shifted. Bristol exploded because the House of Lords rejected an earlier form of the bill, giving the Whig’s argument substance. Direct resistance to the bill faded as Whig urgency increased. While some contemporary and modern historians doubt the reformers’ true fear of revolution, the speeches and letters reveal that preventing disaster was the sincere objective.
Highlights
Poet William Thomas Moncrieff wrote “REFORM or ruin—you must choose, Awake! Arouse! JOHN BULL!” to represent the emotion in Great Britain leading up to the year 1832.1 Similar to other nations, Britain’s citizens struggled to gain their voice through democracy
This work demonstrates that fear of revolution, launched by France and catalyzed by Bristol, by the British elite was the primary motivator for reform
The push for electorate expansion by the progressive Whig party, which culminated in the Great Reform Bill of 1832, served as a pivotal moment for the British democracy
Summary
Poet William Thomas Moncrieff wrote “REFORM or ruin—you must choose, Awake! Arouse! JOHN BULL!” to represent the emotion in Great Britain leading up to the year 1832.1 Similar to other nations, Britain’s citizens struggled to gain their voice through democracy. Fellow Whig MP Montague Gore expressed this reason for urgency, warning, “it requires no prophet to foretell that the days of the Peerage and Monarchy, and allow me to add, that the days of the Constitution are numbered.” Gore believed the British government would soon end if something did not change Gore supported his declaration with a comparison to Rome, the prime example of power and decline: “from the moment [Praetorian Guards of Rome] began to discuss the merits of their Emperors, the fate of the empire was sealed.” Gore saw middleclass leaders, who could wield the mob into a revolution and already questioned the legitimacy of the unreformed Parliament, comparable to the Roman guards. This view corroborated the remarks made by the later historians, i.e. Hobsbawm, Smith, and Dinwiddy.109 Seeing the reform’s representative shortcomings caused these detractors to retrospectively attribute surreptitious motivations onto the Whig reformers, missing the true intentions of these men
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