On the Second Reform Act, 1867

Read this article about the Second Reform Act, which promoted more significant reform than its predecessor. It was responsible for complicating the political landscape by moving Britain toward universal male suffrage.

Abstract

The Second Reform Act, arguably the signal political event of the 1860s, enfranchised large numbers of working-class men by setting a new financial standard for the suffrage. It became law only after members of Parliament vigorously debated the failed reform measure proposed by the Liberal party in 1866 and the successful, though much amended, Conservative bill of 1867. The law created new problems when it terminated compounding, the customary practice by which landlords added to their tenants' rent the sums that covered the poor rates and other taxes that those tenants owed.

The Second Reform Act therefore exemplifies the way in which one piece of reforming legislation in the mid-Victorian period often created the need for another. Completing at least some of the work that the 1867 act had been expected to do, the Assessed Rates Amendment Act in 1869 reinstated compounding; in doing so, it liberalized the qualifications for voting in the boroughs of England and Wales in a way that moved Britain toward the goal of universal (manhood) suffrage.


Source: Janice Carlisle, http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=janice-carlisle-on-the-second-reform-act-1867
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