tradesman, working man, or other person, to serve a
constituency, when taken from his business to attend
to the interests of the Country.
Equal Constituencies, securing the same amount of
representation for the same number of electors,
instead of allowing small constituencies to swamp the
votes of large ones.
Annual Parliaments, thus presenting the most effectual
check to bribery and intimidation, since though a
constituency might be bought once in seven years
(even with the ballot), no purse could buy a
constituency (under a system of universal suffrage) in
each ensuing twelve-month; and since members, when
elected for a year only, would not be able to defy and
betray their constituents as now.
By the “ballot,” they meant the secret ballot and the end of
open voting, which had facilitated the buying of votes and
the coercion of voters.
The Chartist movement organized a series of mass
demonstrations, and throughout this period Parliament
continually discussed the potential for further reforms.
Though the Chartists disintegrated after 1848, they were
followed by the National Reform Union, founded in 1864,
and the Reform League, which was founded in 1865. In July
1866, major pro-reform riots in Hyde Park brought reform
right to the top of the political agenda once more. This
pressure bore dividends in the form of the Second Reform
Act of 1867, in which the total electorate was doubled and
working-class voters became the majority in all urban
constituencies. Shortly afterward the secret ballot was
introduced and moves were made to eliminate corrupt
electoral practices such as “treating” (essentially buying
votes in exchange for which the voter received a treat,
usually money, food, or alcohol). The electorate was
doubled again by the Third Reform Act of 1884, when 60
percent of adult males were enfranchised. Following the
First World War, the Representation of the People Act of
1918 gave the vote to all adult males over the age of
twenty-one, and to women over the age of thirty who were
taxpayers or married to taxpayers. Ultimately, all women
also received the vote on the same terms as men in 1928.