The recent Russian aggression in the Ukraine sees an autocracy threaten a small democracy. History is indeed repeating itself on old battlefields. Democracy it seems is something very fragile and can often be taken for granted. The recent pandemic has as a side effect created new and resurrected old conspiracies theories about the precarious and illusory state of democracy in Britain and the rest of the world. This has manifested itself in peaceful and not so peaceful ways. This article is not to challenge the veracity of these claims but traces the history of Britain’s own democratic journey.
Stephen Prout explains.
Emmeline Pankhurst, a very prominent suffragette, in 1903.
Few may realise that democracy is relatively new to Britain when considering the nation’s long existence in the world. It took a long frustrating journey in some instances met with brutal suppression that would altogether be considered unthinkable today. Britain was not always the land of hope and glory or the green and pleasant land.
The Beginnings
The earliest recorded discussion around the subject of electoral rights although brief took place in the middle 1600s in the form of the Putney debates. These were discussions on the British constitution with officers, soldier, and civilians of Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army during the English Civil War. These talks were limited in in terms of audience, and nothing was achieved.
Between 1793 and 1797, Charles Grey politician and future Prime Minister, brought this idea of reform before parliament but received two rebuffs and risible support from his political peers. The apprehension was largely due violence of the French Revolution that was fresh in the minds of the frightened ruling classes who feared a repeat in Britain. This reaction also could be seen when at the same time Thomas Paine published his work The Rights of Man which was immediately judged as revolutionary incendiary material. The nation was in a frightened and paranoid state.
A Pro-Reformist organisation was formed called The Society for the Friends of the People. The government’s immediate response was resistance and suppression. Consequently, the progress made by the reformists was limited and so were their achievements.
The timing of its formation was unfortunate any attempt to challenge the established order at this time was viewed as treasonous so much so that William Pitt introduced numerous laws such as the Sedition Acts, Treason Acts, and the Newspaper Publications Act that made such the existence of any reformist very difficult. Britain was now an authoritarian and repressive state and things would get worse, but the determination of the movement continued.
The 1832 Reform Act
Over thirty years from Grey’s first attempts, the first steps to electoral reform would begin in the form of the First Reform Act in 1832 but in that time the British people would experience a very tragic and bloody event that would be known as the Peterloo massacre.
When events started to gather momentum in 1817 only 11% of the male population were entitled to vote. The picture of the lack of fairness in the political system remains unchanged. There was a meagre amount of support in political circles, lone voices such as Henry Hunt, MP made representations but was making scant progress.
An impatient population began a series of mass gatherings, but the most famous and significant event was at a political gathering at Peterloo, Manchester in 1819. Freedom was still very much constrained by William Pitt’s repressive laws from the late 1700s. The events of the French Revolution were still fresh and so in panic the Royal Hussars were dispatched in brutal cavlary fashion. The crowd was dispersed with the use of sabres killing a reported fifteen demonstrators. The action was counter intuitive as the reformists were more determined than ever following the “bloodiest political event in the nineteenth century on English soil”. Despite the severity and loss of life ten years would pass before voting rights were remotely reviewed. The first reform act was presented to parliament but only after three challenging attempts.
The Reform Act (Or Representation of the People Act) 1832 was the eventual output. It would be limited in its scope, disappointing the expectations of the campaigners but would not be the end of the matter. It only marginally expanded the electorate, keeping power largely in the hands of the same status quo. The criteria required a male eligible to vote to be living in a property or land worth an annual £10 per year, which was substantial in 1832 terms and was deliberately out of reach of the working man. As a side effect the law now formally excluded women from the vote removing the very tiny minority that already existed.
Measurement of the effect of the act is frustrated by unreliable statistics. Some statistics state that prior to the 1832 Reform Act, 400,000 English subjects (people who lived in the country) were entitled to vote and then the number rose to 650,000 after its introduction. Rodney Mace estimates that before, 1 percent of the population could vote and that the Reform Act only extended the franchise to 7 percent of the population. Despite how varied the statistics maybe they all point to the same conclusion and that was the impact of the act still was not enough to satisfy the Reformist movement. More would follow but another thirty years would pass.
The 1867 Reform Act
Slow steps and a determined populace eventually led to a further reform over thirty years later in 1867. Again, it would be limited in scale as the resistance of the privileged classes remained, even though perceptions were changing. The revolutionary scare they feared would be exported from France now seemed very unlikely in Britain and the masses that demanded reform were not of that same violent fervour.
The Chartist Movement was formed in 1838 and they made their motives and aims clear - they would use only peaceful methods and would pursue several objectives, namely complete male suffrage, salaried MPs, sensible voting demarcation lines, and secret ballots. This of course still did not sit comfortablly with the anti-reformists who felt that they had done enough in 1832. However, a new act was passed in 1867 by Disraeli’s government.
The 1867 Act would now allow the vote all male heads of households in what was called a borough constituency. To accompany this change there would be various additions such as academics and professional classes that had savings of over £50 (a significant sum of the time). Despite all this the Act still excluded a vast number of males and all females. The act added an additional one and a half million males to the electorate, but large numbers of the population remained marginalised and excluded.
Disraeli believed that these reforms would win him a grateful electorate and another Conservative victory in the imminent election; however his judgement would turn out wrong. By 1869 his government was defeated and the drive for further reform continued. Another fifteen years would elapse before any further changes would be brought before parliament.
The 1884 Reform Act
This 1884 Reform Act was by far the most interesting. This saw a pro-reformist government itself challenging the House of Lords, the remaining resistance in the opposition political parties and the Monarchy itself, who even in this late progressive age were entrenched in their old-fashioned ways.
There was a real appetite for change that suited the character of the Gladstone government. Remaining written evidence of the exchanges and sentiments of this period of the two sides show how deep the divisions still were in this progressive age of reform.
William Gladstone was the Prime Minister in office and one of his formidable obstacles was the British Monarchy, namely Queen Victoria, who was especially vocal and resistant to any reform especially on women’s rights.
Written records about Gladstone’s reforms show how deep the antipathy and fierce disagreement was expressed in the language of the time. “Let me express hope that you will be very cautious not to say anything which could bind you to any particular measure” was her warning to Gladstone before a Leeds Banquet on the topic of Gladstone’s seemingly radical views. Gladstone was after all challenging the very establishment himself, seeing it as outdated and obstructive to the calls of the modern age that had arrived.
A lengthy memorandum from himself to the Queen stated "The House of Lords has for a long period been the habitual and vigilant enemy of every Liberal Government... I wish (a hereditary House of Lords) to continue, for the avoidance of greater evils... Further organic change of this kind in the House of Lords may strip and lay bare, and in laying bare may weaken, the foundations even of the Throne."
The Queen wrote numerous other letters to Gladstone complaining about left wing speeches made by Liberal MPs. Victoria saw Gladstone’s policies as unsettling, but he was undeterred. It was summed up by an article in the Spectator in 1882 by John Gorst, a Conservative, showing that even the opposition benches in Parliament were coming round to the idea of electoral reform. The fears that the working classes would radically upset the status quo were seen as unfounded.
“If the Tory party is to continue to exist as a power in the State, it must become a popular party. A mere coalition with the Whig aristocracy might delay but could not avert its downfall. The days are past when an exclusive class, however great its ability, wealth, and energy, can command a majority in the electorate.”
Gorst commented further on his party’s anti reformist elements. “Unfortunately for Conservatism, its leaders belong solely to one class; they are a clique composed of members of the aristocracy, landowners, and adherents whose chief merit is subserviency. The party chiefs live in an atmosphere in which a sense of their own importance and of the importance of their class interests and privileges is exaggerated, and to which the opinions of the common people can scarcely penetrate”. The old ways were slowly eroding.
The London Trades Council quickly organized a mass demonstration in Hyde Park. On July 21, an estimated 30,000 people marched through the city to merge with at least that many already assembled in the park. Thorold Rogers, compared the House of Lords to "Sodom and Gomorrah" and Joseph Chamberlain told the crowd: "We will never, never, never be the only race in the civilized world subservient to the insolent pretensions of a hereditary caste". The Third Reform act was in motion and would be passed by Parliament in 1884 with some compromise.
The act now allowed the vote to all adult male householders and lodgers who paid £10 in rent annually in rural areas and towns and increased the electorate by a further six million, the biggest impact so far. There was still far more to go as and women were still not eligible to vote and a large proportion of males. The queen constantly referred to the “mad folly of women’s rights” and was a constant barrier. Gladstone found that to push any harder would put the passing of his bill at enormous risk. Maybe that battle would be fought later. However, that campaign would now have to wait until the next century and a devastating war.
Women’s Suffrage and the final Reform Acts
The campaign for women’s voting rights continued into the twentieth century, but the political climate could not digest any more reforms. The disenfranchised female population quite justifiably were growing more impatient. Already by the end of the nineteenth century the vote had been extended to women in other areas of the British Empire, New Zealand and Australia. There was also a large portion of the male population that still did not have the right to vote.
Organised campaigns for women’s rights had been in running since 1867 with the women’s suffrage committee and the National Union Women’s Suffrage Society. Their methods were to work with the new Independent Labour Party, but anti-reformers inhibited any advancement. After Gladstone’s Reformist Liberal Party failed to gain any leverage on the matter more drastic action would be adopted by some factions of the movement.
By 1903 this faction, soon to be termed suffragettes, adopted a more aggressive and violent approach that departed from the more constitutional methods that were still adopted by the majority. It was not actually until much later in 1906 the movement’s members were termed suffragettes by a journalist in the Daily Mail. This moniker was adopted by that militant faction headed by the famous Pankhurst family.
The militant actions included the disruption of high-profile political meetings, one being in attendance by Winston Churchill. There were outbreaks of property damage, bombings and in one case fatally as Emily Davidson tragically threw herself under King’s Horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby. This in today’s currency caused £90m of damage, over 300 arson attacks and 1,300 arrests according to records.
Whilst the frustration can be understood there is a view that these tactics did more to harm the campaign. These violent actions were not supported by all females (members and non-campaigners) and were simultaneously viewed by the authorities as criminal and terrorist acts and provoked harsh retaliatory measures such as lengthy prison terms. This was made infamous by brutal treatment to the suffragettes who took to hunger strikes. The response by the government was force feeding being anxious not to create martyrs.
How long this would have been sustained or tolerated we will not know because the First World War brought a halt to these activities. This truce, support for the war effort, and the general horrific sacrifice brought new thinking, a challenge to the existing social order after the war ended, and ultimately change. George Cove, Conservative MP and Home Secretary summed up the mood well in 1917 in support of the fourth reform Bill that would be passed in 1918.
“War by all classes of our countrymen has brought us nearer together, has opened men’s eyes, and removed misunderstandings on all sides. … I think I need say no more to justify this extension of the franchise.”
In 1918 the Representation of the People Pact was passed that gave all males the vote over the age of 21 and all women over the age of thirty (over eight million women). It was still not entirely equal in all aspects (the age disparity and as women still needed a property qualification), but it was a further positive step forward and in 1919 Nancy Astor became the first female MP. A further act was passed in 1928 to lower the age for women to that of men and in 1929 Margaret Bondfield became the first female minister.
No further changes would come until late in the twentieth century when the voting age was lowered to 18 for both sexes in 1969. There are circles active today that seek to reduce that to the age of 16. The debates and demands for reform continue to evolve. Will there be further change, who can tell?
It took over century of resistance, repression, the gradual enlightenment to cause the changing of attitudes to finally achieve democracy. One could argue that as we know it democracy was a concept introduced to Britain only in the twentieth century.
A Word of Warning
Democracy is a fragile and it has experienced changing fortunes. It is hard and costly to win and so quick and more costly to lose as recent history warns. Germany and Italy in the 1930s succumbed to brutal dictatorships, but then redeemed themselves. Greece and Turkey were until the late twentieth century military dictatorships, Spain only became democratic shortly after the fall of Franco in 1975 and in the Far East we have witnessed the tragic fortunes of Myanmar. More poignant and topical is that the Russians have reverted to an autocratic rule after a fleeting dalliance with democracy in the 1990s. We see in 2022 that Ukrainian democracy is in a perilous state due to the Russian invasion.
Democracy requires vigilance and should not be taken for granted, even in Britain.
What do you think of democracy in Britain? Let us know below.
Now read Stephen’s article on Britain’s relationship with European dictators in the interwar years here.
Sources
Parliament Archives – HM Government
Women’s, Suffrage in The British Empire – Christopher Fletcher, Laura E Nym Mayhall, Phillipa Levine – Routledge 2012
Gladstone and Disraeli -BH Abbott – 1972 – Collins Educational
Chris Day – Peterloo Massacre – National Archives “Blog” 2018
C J Bearman – various articles referenced:
An Examination of Suffragette Violence
Confronting the Suffragette Mythology'
Nottingham Castle field trip – exhibition of the Reform Acts
