First Reform Act Passed in Britain

By the early nineteenth century, Britain's electoral system had grown badly outdated. Many newly populous industrial cities such as Manchester and Birmingham lacked representation, while depopulated rotten boroughs returned members to Parliament for tiny electorates. Mounting public pressure, reform agitation, and fear of unrest drove a sustained campaign to overhaul the unequal distribution of parliamentary seats.

After bitter political struggle, the Whig government under Earl Grey secured passage of the Representation of the People Act in 1832. The bill cleared the House of Lords only after the king agreed, under pressure, to threaten the creation of new peers. The act redistributed seats from rotten boroughs to growing towns and counties and broadened the franchise, raising the electorate to roughly one in five adult men.

The Reform Act roughly increased the number of eligible voters substantially, extending the vote chiefly to the propertied middle classes while still excluding the working class and all women. Though limited, it broke the old system's monopoly and established the principle that representation could be reformed by legislation. It opened the way to further reform acts later in the century that progressively widened suffrage.