Some
Historical Terms Defined
The Corn Laws:
The Reform Acts:
“The
three Reform Acts, of 1832, 1867, and 1884, all extended voting rights to
previously disfranchised citizens.
The
1832 Reform Act reapportioned representation in Parliament in a way fairer to
the cities of the industrial north, which had experienced tremendous growth,
and did away with "rotten" and "pocket" (depopulated areas
that were still sending two members to Parliament). The act gave the power of
voting to those lower in the social and economic scale. Any man owning a household worth £10 could
vote, adding 217,000 voters to an electorate of 435,000. Approximately one man
in five now had the right to vote.
The
1867 Reform Act extended the right to vote still further down the class ladder,
adding just short of a million voters -- including many working men -- and
doubling the electorate, to almost two million in
The
1884 bill and the 1885 Redistribution Act tripled the electorate again, giving
the vote to most agricultural laborers.
By this time, voting was becoming a right rather than the property of
the privileged.
Women
were not granted voting rights until the Act of 1918, which enfranchised all
men over 21 and women over thirty. This last bit of discrimination was
eliminated 10 years later (in 1928) by the Equal Franchise Act.”
Chartism or the Chartist
Movements:
“The ‘People's
Charter,’ drafted in 1838 by William Lovett, was at the heart of a radical
campaign for parliamentary reform of the inequities remaining after the Reform
Act of 1832.
The Chartists' six
main demands were:
1.votes for all men;
2.equal electoral districts;
3.abolition of the requirement that
Members of Parliament be property owners;
4.payment for Members of Parliament;
5.annual general elections; and
6.the secret ballot.
The
Chartists obtained one and a quarter million signatures and presented the
Charter to the House of Commons in 1839, where it was rejected by a vote of 235
to 46. Many of the leaders of the movement, having threatened to call a general
strike, were arrested. When demonstrators marched on the prison at
A
second petition with 3 million signatures was rejected in 1842; the rejection
of the third petition in 1848 brought an end to the movement.”
More information
For
more general information on Victorian culture, an excellent place to start is
“Victorian Web: An Overview” at http://www.victorianweb.org.
Also helpful are:
Glenn Everett. “Chartism
or the Chartist Movement.”
___________.
“The Reform Acts.”