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The Reform Act of 1832 (known also as the Great Reform Act and The Parliamentary Reform Act 1832) introduced wide-ranging changes to electoral franchise legislation in the United Kingdom. The main motor for change was concern about the state of parliamentary representation in England and Wales, as it had developed, or had failed to develop, during the previous 150 years, but reform extended also to Scotland and Ireland.

It was not properly a single Act, but consisted of several linked statutes, passed by Parliament in 1832. The formal short titles and citations of the Acts are as follows.

• Representation of the People Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 45).
• Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 64).
• Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1832 (2& 3 Will. 4, c. 65.
• Corporate Property (Elections) Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 69).
• Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 88).
• Parliamentary Boundaries (Ireland) Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4, c.89).

The legislation met strong opposition from the Tories, who had defeated earlier bills, and it required pressure on William IV and the temporary resignation of Earl Grey's Whig government to pass. During the third reading in the Commons, the motion was carried with a government majority of one vote.

Historically, certain English boroughs were entitled to send MPs to parliament, while the remaining bits of each county (all except these boroughs) voted as a whole. Although certain individual boroughs had been added or removed over the years, the Reform Act's most important consequence was the first ever wholesale review and revision of the list of enfranchised boroughs. Many new-grown towns gained the right to elect their own MPs and many famous rotten boroughs lost it.

The Act also addressed the question of who would have the right to vote in parliamentary elections, extending the franchise considerably. Propertied male adults paying an annual rent of £10 or more (£2 in the rural counties) could vote. The vote was also extended to those with copyhold tenure of £10 or more and leaseholders or tenants-at-will paying £50 in rent. These changes increased the electorate from 435,000 to 813,000 (1 in 7 males) and gave greater political influence to urban centres in the north while leaving the rural areas under aristocratic control. The Act also abolished 56 rotten boroughs and removed one MP from boroughs with fewer than 4,000 inhabitants.

However, the influence of the gentry was still strong in the Parliamentary composition and there was still great disparity between the population of constituencies. Indeed some argue that the power of the rich had been increased. Some working men who had previously held the vote were disenfranchised when some less common (and generous) franchisement systems were abolished after the standardisation of such systems nationwide.

Despite the hopes of Lord John Russell that further reform would never be necessary, later changes did occur.

England

Reduced representation

Disenfranchised and rotten Boroughs

The following 56 Parliamentary Boroughs, in England, were completely disenfranchised by the Act. They had all returned two members except for Higham Ferrers, which was a single member constituency. The disenfranchised Boroughs lost all independent legislative representation; instead the inhabitants could vote only as part of the county electorate.

Halved representation

The following 30 Boroughs were reduced from 2 MPs to 1. The applicable County or well-recognised part of a County in 1832 (in the case of the Ridings of Yorkshire and the Isle of Wight, which was part of Hampshire) is given. Some places were moved to other administrative counties in the 1973-74 local-government changes -- e.g., Christchurch moved from Hampshire to Dorset.

Weymouth & Melcombe Regis, Dorset had jointly elected 4 MPs; this was reduced to 2.

New enfranchisements in England

The following Boroughs were enfranchised:

English Boroughs given 1 MP (19)

English Boroughs given 2 MPs (22)

English Counties given two divisions (26)

The following county constituencies were divided into two districts, each with 2 MPs:

Other changes to English counties

The Isle of Wight, having had its three small boroughs disenfranchised, was given its first single MP for the whole area. The island had previously formed part of Hampshire.

Yorkshire, which had 4 MPs, was given 2 MPs for each of the 3 Ridings, East Riding of Yorkshire, North Riding of Yorkshire and West Riding of Yorkshire.

Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire were now to have 3 MPs instead of 2.

Wales

Carmarthenshire, Glamorganshire and Denbighshire increased from 1 seat each to 2.

Swansea and Merthyr Tydfil became new 1 member Boroughs.

Scotland

The architects of reform in Scotland were Francis Jeffrey and Henry Cockburn.

In Scotland, there was not a substantial change in the way counties were represented; as a general rule the counties each continued to elect one member. However before the Act six small counties elected only an MP in alternate Parliaments. This arrangement was ended, but a different solution was adopted for each pair of counties. Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire became a single constituency. Buteshire and Caithness-shire were given a separate MP in every Parliament. Cromartyshire and Nairnshire were each united with a different neighbouring county, to form Ross and Cromarty, and Elginshire and Nairnshire.

Edinburgh and Glasgow now had two MPs; Aberdeen, Dundee, Greenock, Paisley and Perth one each. The remaining burghs combined in districts to elect 18 MPs, much as before; but now individual votes were added up among burghs across the constituency — in the past the MP had been elected at a meeting of representatives from each burgh. Boundary changes meant that a burgh for parliamentary elections might not have the same boundaries as the burgh for other purposes.

The change in the size of the electorate was much more dramatic in Scotland than in England and Wales. In terms of proportions of adult male populations; however, Scotland only caught up with the pre-reform level in England and Wales. In Scotland the proportion changed from one in 125 to one in eight, while in England it changed from one in eight to one in five.

Ireland

In Ireland changes were made, by the Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4, c.88) and the Parliamentary Boundaries (Ireland) Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 89).

From 1 January 1801, Ireland had been represented in the House of Commons by 100 members. Each of the thirty-two counties returned two MPs as did the Boroughs of Dublin City, County Dublin and Cork City, County Cork. Thirty-one other Boroughs and Dublin University sent one MP to Westminster.

The 1832 legislation slightly changed some boundaries of Borough constituencies. More significantly it conferred a second seat on the Boroughs of Belfast, County Antrim; Galway Borough, County Galway; Limerick City, County Limerick and Waterford, County Waterford as well as Dublin University. The total number of seats in Ireland was therefore increased to 105.

From 1801–29 the possession of freehold land worth at least 40 shillings conferred a county vote, as in England and Wales in this period. Catholics, who had been permitted to qualify as Irish voters only since 1793, were excluded from serving in Parliament until 1829. When further Catholic emancipation in 1829 allowed Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament, a more restrictive county franchise was introduced simultaneously, requiring possession of freehold land worth at least £10 (a fivefold increase from the previous 40 shillings), as the qualification for a county vote.

The 1832 legislation left the Irish county electorate much the same, but some new qualifications added to the electorate. From 1832 the qualifications were £10 freeholders, leaseholders for lives and copyholders of estates of £10, leaseholders for at least 60 years and the assignees of the same or leaseholders for at least 14 years of £20 estates.

Before 1832 each Borough constituency had its own qualification for voting. In some, only the members of the corporation (the Borough Council) had the vote. In others a wider group of freemen and 40 shilling freeholders could vote.

The number of Borough voters before the Reform Acts varied considerably. A by-election took place in Bandon, County Cork. On 22 July 1831, the by-election was decided by only 11 voters (divided 5, 4 and 2 amongst three candidates). A by-election was held for the two seats of Dublin City, County Dublin, on 18 August 1832. It involved 4,550 votes (each voter could cast one or two votes as they pleased). This last vote was the final pre-reformed Parliamentary election in Ireland.

In 1832 the Irish Boroughs were given a more uniform franchise. In addition to those who qualified under the previous rules, all occupiers of property worth at least £10 and resident freemen by birth or servitude became electors. The freemen were members of trade guilds, either because they had inherited membership or because they had served an apprenticeship to become members.

The franchise for the University had been held by the provost, fellows and scholars of Trinity College Dublin. From 1832 all Dublin University graduates holding M.A. degrees could vote.

The introduction of electoral registration in Ireland in 1832 confirms that there continued to be considerable differences in electorates after the Reform legislation. The range in number of registered voters was as follows.

County constituencies (2 seats each): Sligo County 695; Cork County 3,835

Borough constituencies: Lisburn, County Antrim 91 (1 seat); Dublin City, County Dublin 7,008 (2 seats)

Registration of voters

To be a voter, from 1832, it was necessary to be included in an annual register of electors in one or more constituencies. Registration of electors had not previously existed, except for Scottish counties.

It was common for people, with qualifications in different constituencies, to register and vote in each. As general elections took place on different dates over a period of several months plural voting was not too difficult to do.

All registered voters had to be male, over the age of 21, to meet a voting qualification for the constituency (which in some cases included a period of residence and the payment of certain property taxes as well as the appropriate property or occupation qualification) and not to be disqualified (for example as a peer or a lunatic).

The system was immensely complicated. One of the major reasons for the development of party organisations in the Victorian period was the need to locate and register qualified supporters and challenge the eligibility to vote of opposition supporters.

Footnotes

1. By 1707 the Parliament of England, representing both England and Wales, had been merged into the Parliament of Great Britain, representing England, Wales and Scotland. By 1801 the Parliament of Great Britain had been merged into the Parliament of the United Kingdom, representing England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The last new seats to have been created in England and Wales had been Newark (in 1673), Durham County (1675) and Durham City (1678).

See also

• Unreformed House of Commons
• Official names of United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies for names of constituencies provided for by this Act

• The Reform Bills, the Reform Act 1867 and the Representation of the People Act 1884.

External links

• Text of the Act
• The Parliamentary Archives holds the original of this historic record

• Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
• 1832 in law
• Representation of the People Acts