The Breakthrough of Liberalism in the West: Great Britain

Section 11.54, 11.56 & 57

McKay Ch 23 (772-775)

Great Britain 1815-1850

1815 1820 1825 1830 1835 1840 1845 1850

-Peterloo Massacre (1819)-Six Acts Passed

-Cato Street Conspiracy

-London Police Force formed

(1828)-Catholic

Emancipation Act (1829)

-Irish Potato Famine begins

-Corn Laws repealed

(1846)

Chartists issue Six Points (1836)

Ten Hour Act (1847

Great Exhibition in

Crystal Palace (1851)

Great Reform Bill (1832)

Corn Law passed

Factory Act of 1853

Mines Act

(1842)

Corn Laws• Landed classes feared an

onrush of imported agricultural goods and the collapse of farm prices

• Passed 1st in series of “Corn Laws” (1815-1846)

– tariff on imported (grain) that maintained high prices for domestic produce

• Stopped importation of cheaper foreign grains

• Helped Tory aristocrats• Wages could not keep up

with prices• Contributes to the spread

of radicalism

• riot broke out in London in Dec 1816, • In Feb, the Prince Regent was attacked in

carriage• Coercion Acts of 1817

– gov suspends habeas corpus and employ agents provocateurs (spies) to charge radicals

– Allowed arbitrary arrest and punishment– Curtailed freedom of press and assembly

• Manchester (1819)– Mass demonstration of 80 thousand at St.

Peter’s Fields– Reformers demanded

• Repeal of Corn Laws• universal male suffrage• annual elections of HOC

– Perfectly orderly protest– Government cavalry rushed the crowed

• fired on crowd• 11 killed, 400 wounded, including 113 women• called Peterloo Massacre in comparison to

Waterloo

Peterloo Massacre

Six Acts (1819)• Parliament laws

meant to repress political agitators – Outlawed seditions

and blasphemous literature

– Stamp tax on newspapers

– Search of private houses for arms

– Restricted the right of public meetings

Arthur Thistlewood

Cato Street Conspiracy (1820)• Revolutionaries planned to

blow up & assassinate the Tory cabinet

• Caught by police on Cato Street (1820)

• Five members of the Cato Street Conspiracy are hanged

• Reactionary policies dug in to stop the flood of revolutionary spirit

• Great Britain is on the verge of becoming a reactionary state

Catholic Emancipation Act• Act of Union (1800)• Made Ireland part of the United Kingdom

(Great Britain =England, Wales, & Scotland)– Now Irish Protestants (Anglicans) could

vote• Penal Laws had excluded Irish Catholics

from running for office or voting• Daniel O’Connell

– Irish nationalist was elected to Parliament in 1828 (but legally could not take a seat)

• Duke of Wellington feared nationalists revolt

• Pushed through Catholic Emancipation Act – Catholics could now run for office– Provision in it required substantial

property to vote

Reform in Great Britain• Sir Robert Peel• Initiates Gaols Act of 1823

– Prison reform bill• Capital punishment eliminated for about

100 offenses• Novel idea of a policed state• Paid professionals who were visible to

help prevent crime• Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850)• Sponsored law for police on London

streets (1829)• Known as “bobbies” or disparagingly as

Peelers• But Liberal Tories could NOT:

– question the Corn Laws– reform the House of Commons

(representation)Robert Peel

Problems of Representation• House of Commons does not

represent the population or economy• Rotten Boroughs

–Some boroughs were empty and had representation

–one was under water in the North Sea

• New factory towns were un-represented (Manchester)

• Whigs propose reform bill on elections• Tories under Wellington (victor of Waterloo

was most extreme conservative) refuse to act

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

1830 Whigs take over the ministryIntroduce a reform bill that is rejectedWhigs resign and Tories fail to take up leadershipWhigs return an reintroduce the bill and it passes the HOC but is rejected by the House of LordsUproar throughout the country and revolution seems eminentWhigs get the king to threaten to increase the peerage in the HOLHouse of Lords yields and Reform Bill of 1832 becomes law

Reform Bill of 1832• Little impact on who voted

(increased from about 500 to 800 thousand

• Redistributed the seats in the HOC to include the industrial cities (Manchester)– Got rid of “rotten” boroughs

• The rising middle class is gaining political representation

• England sidesteps a revolution through the existence of Parliament

Read Thomas Babington Macaulay defends the Great Reform Bill.

(685)

• Be prepared to discuss the corresponding questions.

Britain after 1832• Reform Bill of 1832 did have some lasting

effects• New business interests stand alongside the

old aristocracyLiberal Party develops• Aristocratic Whigs, radical industrialists,

and liberal ToriesConservative party• Tories, few old Whigs, and a few former

radicals• Classic era to two party politics in England• 1833 Slavery is abolished• 1834 New Poor Law is passed

– Provided relief for sick and aged (not able bodied)

Municipal corporations act• Helped cities manage urban life problems• Reforms in the Church of England• Redistribution of Church income in more

equitable terms

Tory counteroffensive• Tories become champions of the

industrial workers• Publicized the social evils of rapid and

ruthless industrialization• Humanitarian industrialists were

sympathetic• Factory Act 1833 forbade child labor

(under 9)– Paid inspectors to insure compliance

• 1842 underground mine work was forbidden for women, girls, and boys under 10

• 1847 the Ten Hours Act– limited the labor of women and children to

10 hours• eventually men only worked ten hours

also• Liberal cotton magnate John Bright

called Ten Hours Act a “delusion practiced on the working class”

• it was against laissez-faire

Anti-Corn Law League (1838)• Anti-Corn Law Whigs argued

against high prices for food• Causes high wages and make

manufactures more expensive, high food prices

• Pro-Corn Law Tories argued that Britain should avoid becoming too exclusively dependent on imported food

• Modern political practices were employed by the Anti-Corn Law League to pressure the government

• Headquartered in Manchester• it sent out lecturers, agitated

newspapers, held political teas, open-air meetings

Anti-Corn Law League (1838)• 1846 the Tory ministry under Robert Peel

yields and the Corn Law is repealed• Symbolizes the change in England’s

government• Industrial interests are now firmly seated

in government• Free trade is to become the rule• England becomes dependant on foreign

imports of food• Industry became the mainstay of the

British economy• workers transitioned to industrial jobs• manufactures, coal, shipping, and

financial services become the basis of the new economy

• Importing vital necessities from the rest of the world was the fuel for the system

• Britain depended on the maintenance of free trade and naval power

Coalbrookdale at night, 1801 :Artist: Philipp Jakob Loutherbourg the Younger

Over London by Rail Gustave Doré c 1870. Shows the densely populated and polluted environments created in the new industrial cities

• Chartist Movement (1838-48)• movement for political and social reform in the

United Kingdom during the mid-19th century between 1838 and 1848

• Reform Act 1832– gave the vote to a section of the male middle

classes, but not to the "working class" – Six Points

• universal male suffrage for all men aged 21 and over.

– Contradicts ‘stake in society’ and property qualifications

• A secret ballot. • No property qualification for elected

members of Parliament (• Payment of MPs (• Equal constituencies i.e. the same number

of voters in each constituency. • Annual Parliaments so that MPs could be

held to account by their constituents.

Early Labor Movement

Chartism continued• June 1839 Members

presented petition to House of Commons

– voted not to even hear the petitioners

– Rioting ensued

• 1848 presented a petition to Parliament

– claimed to have only 1,957,496 signatures

– Some were forgeries

• Queen Victoria

• Movement faded away

Great Exhibition• 1851 London was site of

industrial fair

• Held in Crystal Palace

• Constructed of glass/iron

• Visited by 6 million

• Symbol of “workshop of the world”

• 20% of entire world manufactured goods