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How far did popular unrest contribute to political reform? The pressure supplied by large numbers of people and many different lobby groups at the time of early industrialisation, did to a large extent, help forge a way for political reform, however it was not the only factor. In the metamorphosis period of industrialisation where British industry went from cottage to factory styles of production, the working classes suffered a huge fall in living and working conditions. Disease was out of control, sanitation was non-existent and child and women labour were the flavour of the day. These deplorable conditions awakened a social consciousness in the lower gentry that had such an intimidating effect on the aristocracy that change was imminent. Ideas such as Marxism, socialism, Chartism, liberalism, utilitarianism and humanitarianism were grafted into the bourgeoisie psyche.
The period 1760 - 1830 saw an increased concern for human unhappiness, and especially for that of the young. It was Peel who, stimulated by a Manchester physician, Thomas Percival, pressed on Parliament the need for regulation of the factories. His Act of 1802, the Health and Morals of Apprenticeships Act, limited hours of work and prescribed minimum standards of hygiene and education. Also the emergence of a middle class, suppressed with little to no political power also contributed to political reform. Thus with prevailing melancholy over the working and middle classes political reform was recognised by the oligarchy as a way of appeasing social agitation and accordingly a way of maintaining power. The fear of a people s revolution was foremost on the minds of the landed aristocracy in Britain during industrialisation.
The French Revolution in 1789 saw people power topple the hierarchy due to calamitous living conditions and hunger. These events in France made the British aristocracy make sure that if change was going to happen, then it was going to be dictated from the top. Conditions that led the French to revolt were also becoming increasingly present in the new urbanized Britain. With the best will in the world, the transformation from farms and cottages to factories and cities could never have been smooth. If the legislative machine had turned out reform at the same pace as the mules turned out yarn there still would have been social disorder. The fall in living conditions into slums and squalor was the result of scientific progress, which then as is now was much more rapid than in administration.
Thus the fall in living and working conditions which led to irritated attitudes towards the governing class took some fifty odd years to curb. It was not until the whole apparatus of government had been drastically reformed and a body of qualified public servants had been called into being could life in urban areas be other than ramshackle. Many of the lower and middle classes began to take liberalised and humanitarian views towards this fall in living and working conditions. They wanted serious political reforms made to improve the deplorable conditions and they wanted them quickly. It was in 1811, and again in 1816, when political events and bad harvests had led to depression, that the Luddites destroyed the stocking-frames in the Midlands and the power-looms in the North and in 1817 the hungry and wireless Blanketeers set off on their dismal march from Ardwick Green in Manchester. It was as a consequence of actions like these that change to a working democracy was slowly implemented, piece by piece, and only improved to appease public anger.
Thus perhaps in this sense, it wasn t popular unrest that contributed to political change but it was the fear of it. Popular unrest had its part in changing and guiding political reform. Riots and public disturbances were not uncommon during the time of 1811 to 1842. A new social consciousness towards liberalism in the work place made many workers form unions and lobby groups.
These groups often organised strikes and demonstrations that sometimes ended in full-blown riots. In 1819 some sixty thousand-cotton workers meet at Peterloo to discuss poor working conditions and pay increases. The government had passed the Seditious Act to stop large groups of people congregating and therefore the army was deployed to break the meeting up. It ended in tragedy with eleven people killed and many injured. Likewise three years earlier in 1816 in Spa Fields a planned meeting addressed by Orator Hunt turned into a serious uprising when workers broke into a gunsmith s store. Soldiers too broke up this large disturbance.
With many more riots and disturbances around this time it served as a warning to the nobility and social reform was implemented to appease the masses. Acts such as the Factory Act in 1833 saw a system of inspection set up to maintain higher levels of working conditions. It also forbade the employment of children less than nine years of age from working. Also the Poor Laws Act was passed in 1834 which meant that housing was built for the destitute.
These changes helped improve strands of living but also emphasised the dramatic effect that popular unrest had on political change. The government was virtually left with no other choice but to reform social conditions or face the guillotine. Among the emerging middle class a need for political power soon produced non-violent methods of swaying parliament. The entrepreneurs, factory owners and risk takers who structured the middle class were becoming increasingly wealthy, some even exceeding the wealth of the upper class. The middle class who were largely disenfranchised now wanted some representation in politics.
This lust for power was just what William Lovett needed for support of his book the Peoples Charter. It was best known for its Six Points, which proposed: universal manhood suffrage, equal electoral districts, vote by ballot, payment of members of parliament, removal of the property qualifications for Members of parliament and annual elections. Chartism originated in the lower classes. However it found most of its support in the industrial middle class.
Chartists pushed for political changes by mainly peaceful methods, most of which were petitions. Along with the Chartists many trade unions were formed and to begin with largely supported by the middle class, their weapon of political change was industrial workplace strikes. Organised strikes could bring the entire British economical machine to its knees. This passive method used by unions produced many social and political reforms. The government did have to take notice now and make the changes required because the unions, Chartists and other organised groups weren t going away and support for them was only growing stronger. The working and middle class now had peaceful ways of producing political change and once they realised their power a true democracy was looming.
In the time of British industrialisation the political reforms and changes that took place were the result of many different factors. Public unrest was one of the major driving forces behind the changes. However it wasn t the only one. The fear of revolution sparked from the French Revolution some fifty odd years before contributed greatly and just as important were the unionism and lobby groups which were formed at this time.
Chartists, Marxists and the many other groups were prevalent and strong in number. They challenged the aristocracy with more civilised methods than straight out violence and therefore played by their rules which perhaps made them a strong movement of political progression. Thus popular unrest played its part in political reform, and it was a large part, but many other factors contributed as well.
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