140 years ago today (06/12/2024), the 1884 Representation of the People Act gained royal assent. Following the Chartist movement in the 1830s, parliament accepted that the electoral system was in need of reform. Chartism was a working-class mass movement. It aimed to gain political reform and representation for the working classes. This culminated in the 1884 Representation of the People Act. This Act built upon the 1867 Representation of the People Act, which had granted greater voting rights to urban working-class men. The 1884 Representation of the People Act extended these rights to rural areas, establishing a uniform franchise system across the country.[1] Thus the 1884 Act expanded the electorate to include almost two thirds of the male population.[2]
The 1884 Representation of the People Act marked a significant change in the system of political representation in the United Kingdom. Yet one third of English men remained unable to vote.[3] Elsewhere, the proportion of men represented was even lower — three fifths of men remained unable to vote in Scotland and only half of the male population could in Ireland.[4]
In the eyes of suffragists the reform was limited. In 1866 John Stuart Mill called for women to have the vote through a petition submitted to parliament.[5] Evidently, this petition had little effect on the 1884 Act, as it did not grant women the vote.[6] The Representation of the People therefore perpetuated gender inequality.
Although the 1884 Act did not bring about radical change, it was vital in terms of paving the way for future legislation. The fight for universal suffrage eventually resulted in the 1928 Representation of the People Act. This brought about a significant increase in the percentage of the British population that was eligible to vote as it extended this right to men and women on equal terms. This development owed much to the 1884 Representation of the People Act.
[1] Jo Eric Khushal Murkens, “Unintended Democracy: Parliamentary Reform in the United Kingdom”, in Constitutionalism, Legitimacy, and Power: Nineteenth-Century Experiences, ed. Kelly L. Grotke and Markus J. Prutsch (Oxford: Oxford Academic, 2014), 368.
[2] Chris Cook. The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Nineteenth Century, 1815–1914 (London: Routledge, 2005), 68.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] A. P. W. Robson, "The Founding Of The National Society For Women’s Suffrage 1866-1867", Canadian Journal of History 8, no. 1 (1973), 6.
[6] Colin Pilkington, The Politics Today Companion to the British Constitution (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 134.