1831 reform riots

Last updated January 31, 2024

The 1831 reform riots occurred after the Second Reform Bill was defeated in Parliament in October 1831. There were civil disturbances in London, Leicester, Yeovil, Sherborne, Exeter, Bath and Worcester and riots at Nottingham, Derby and Bristol. Targets included Nottingham Castle, home of the anti-reform Duke of Newcastle, other private houses and jails. In Bristol, three days of rioting followed the arrival in the city of the anti-reform judge Charles Wetherell; a significant portion of the city centre was burnt, £300,000 of damage inflicted and up to 250 casualties occurred.

Background

The British parliament consists of two houses: the House of Lords and the House of Commons. In the early 19th-century the House of Lords was populated by hereditary peers and the House of Commons by Members of Parliament (MPs) elected to represent constituencies. The areas covered by the constituencies had not been amended to reflect population change and so there were many so-called rotten boroughs, returning one or two MPs from only a small number of voters, while some new urban centres such as Manchester had no MPs. The franchise was small with only 5% of the British populace able to cast a vote at a general election.^[1]^[2]

In March 1831, an attempt was made by the Whigs to introduce a Reform Bill to address the matter. This was defeated in parliament and the prime minister, Earl Grey, resigned. Grey was returned to office with a majority in the subsequent general election and introduced a second Reform Bill. This passed in the House of Commons, but was defeated in the Lords on 8 October 1831.^[3]

The rejection of the bill and the second resignation of Grey resulted in a period of political upheaval which has since been characterised as "the closest that Britain came to revolution".^[3] Inhabitants of cities and towns were angry at the failure to pass the bill and there were serious disturbances in London, Leicester, Yeovil, Sherborne, Exeter, Bath and Worcester.^[1]^[4] The disturbances in Birmingham were so severe that the British Army's Scots Greys cavalry regiment was deployed to the city.^[3] Full-scale riots erupted in Bristol, Nottingham and Derby.^[5]

Nottingham and Derby

Rioting broke out in Nottingham on 9 October upon learning of the defeat of the bill. This was initially directed against the private houses of known opponents of reform. On 10 October a public meeting turned to violence, the attendees marched on Colwick Hall, home of John Musters, which was damaged.^[6] The same day the mob burned Nottingham Castle, home of anti-reform peer Henry Pelham-Clinton, 4th Duke of Newcastle, who was away at parliament.^[6]^[7] Jails in Derby and Markeaton were also attacked and Lowe's Silk Mill in Beeston was burnt on 11 October, the same day the riots ceased.^[6] The Duke was able to gather yeomanry and his own tenants to successfully defend his residence at Clumber Park.^[7]

On 4 January 1832, 26 men arrested during the riots were tried by a special commission, the local magistrates being suspected of having possible sympathies with the defendants.^[7] Eight of these men were found guilty, though none were brought to justice for the attack on the castle, and three were hanged on 25 January.^[6]^[7] The Duke accused the Nottingham magistrates and the Home Office of failing to prevent the riots and, after a lengthy dispute, was awarded £21,000 in damages in August 1832. In protest at the event the Duke refused to restore the castle and the burnt shell stood on the site for some time afterwards.^[7] He also halted works on The Park Estate, a housing development described as "the Belgravia of Nottingham".^[8]

Bristol

Rioting took place in Bristol after the arrival of anti-reform judge Charles Wetherell in the city for the annual assizes on 29 October. Wetherell's carriage was attacked and civic and military authorities lost control of the situation. There followed two days of rioting and looting in which much of the city centre was burned and prisoners freed from the jails.^[2] The riots were brought to an end on 31 October by which time £300,000 of damage had been caused and up to 250 casualties incurred.^[9]^[1]

The Bristol Corporation, the local authority, was criticised for its handling of the riots. Its mayor, Charles Pinney was tried for neglect of duty and found not guilty.^[9] The military commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Brereton, was court-martialled for his actions in the event though killed himself before he could be sentenced.^[2]^[10] A royal commission found the corporation incapable of controlling the city and it was subsequently reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.^[11]

Passing of the Reform Act

Grey resigned after the loss of the vote and King William IV called upon the Duke of Wellington, leader of the Tory party, to form a government. Wellington was unable to secure the support necessary during a period of political uncertainty known as the Days of May and so Grey's government was recalled.^[3]^[4] The Whigs voted a Third Reform Bill through the House of Commons and it was sent to the House of Lords. The king, who had previously been opposed to reform, now agreed to use his powers to create enough new pro-reform peers to overcome the Tory majority in the upper house. This action did not need to be carried out as the Tory lords, threatened with an influx of Whigs, abstained on the vote and the bill passed.^[1] The bill, afterwards known as the Great Reform Act, received royal assent on 7 June 1832.^[3]

The act removed many of the rotten boroughs and granted new seats to the industrial towns and cities. The franchise was, on the whole, extended being granted to any man who owned property worth £10 or more. In some boroughs, the so-called potwallopers, this actually reduced the electorate as they had previously granted the vote to any man with a hearth big enough to boil a cauldron.^[1] Local government was investigated by the Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations in 1833 and the subsequent Municipal Corporations Act 1835 applied reforms to many, including Bristol.^[11]

Related Research Articles

The Whigs were a political faction and then a political party in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and the 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs merged into the Liberal Party with the Peelites and Radicals in the 1850s. Many Whigs left the Liberal Party in 1886 to form the Liberal Unionist Party, which merged into the Conservative Party in 1912.

The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that introduced major changes to the electoral system of England and Wales. It reapportioned constituencies to address the unequal distribution of seats and expanded franchise by broadening and standardising the property qualifications to vote. Only qualifying men were able to vote; the Act introduced the first explicit statutory bar to women voting by defining a voter as a male person.

The Tories were a loosely organised political faction and later a political party, in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. They first emerged during the 1679 Exclusion Crisis, when they opposed Whig efforts to exclude James, Duke of York from the succession on the grounds of his Catholicism. Despite their fervent opposition to state-sponsored Catholicism, Tories opposed exclusion in the belief inheritance based on birth was the foundation of a stable society.

The 1832 United Kingdom general election, the first after the Reform Act, saw the Whigs win a large majority, with the Tories winning less than 30% of the vote.

"Unreformed House of Commons" is a name given to the House of Commons of Great Britain before it was reformed by the Reform Act 1832, the Irish Reform Act 1832, and the Scottish Reform Act 1832.

The 1831 United Kingdom general election saw a landslide win by supporters of electoral reform, which was the major election issue. As a result, it was the last unreformed election, as the following Parliament ensured the passage of the Reform Act 1832. Polling was held from 28 April to 1 June 1831. The Whigs won a majority of 136 over the Tories, which was as near to a landslide as the unreformed electoral system could deliver. As the Government obtained a dissolution of Parliament once the new electoral system had been enacted, the resulting Parliament was a short one and there was another election the following year. The election was the first since 1715 to see a victory by a party previously in minority.

The 1830 United Kingdom general election was triggered by the death of King George IV and produced the first parliament of the reign of his successor, King William IV. Fought in the aftermath of the Swing Riots, it saw electoral reform become a major election issue. Polling took place in July and August and the Tories won a plurality over the Whigs, but division among Tory MPs allowed Earl Grey to form an effective government and take the question of electoral reform to the country the following year.

Events from the year 1831 in the United Kingdom.

The 1812 United Kingdom general election was the fourth general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Days of May was a period of significant social unrest and political tension in the United Kingdom in May 1832, after the Tories blocked the Third Reform Bill in the House of Lords, which aimed to extend parliamentary representation to the middle and working classes as well as the newly industrialised cities of the English Midlands and the North of England.

The Ultra-Tories were an Anglican faction of British and Irish politics that appeared in the 1820s in opposition to Catholic emancipation. The faction was later called the "extreme right-wing" of British and Irish politics.

The Bristol riots refer to a number of significant riots in the city of Bristol in England.

East Retford was a parliamentary constituency in Nottinghamshire, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons for the first time in 1316, and continuously from 1571 until 1885, when the constituency was abolished. Although East Retford was technically a parliamentary borough for the whole of its existence, in 1830 its franchise had been widened and its boundaries had been extended to include the whole Wapentake of Bassetlaw as a remedy for corruption among the voters, and from that point onward it resembled a county constituency in most respects.

Michael Thomas Sadler was a British Tory Member of Parliament (MP) whose Evangelical Anglicanism and prior experience as a Poor Law administrator in Leeds led him to oppose Malthusian theories of population and their use to decry state provision for the poor.

Penryn was a parliamentary borough in Cornwall, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of England from 1553 until 1707, to the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and finally to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832. Elections were held using the bloc vote system.

William Duncombe, 2nd Baron Feversham, was a British peer with a large estate in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He was prominent in the affairs of the Royal Agricultural Society and owner of a prize-winning herd of short-horn cattle. He served as a Tory Member of Parliament (MP) for the Riding from 1832 to 1841, after which he sat in the House of Lords, having succeeded to the title on the death of his father. From 1826 to 1831 he had sat as an Ultra-Tory MP. He was the first MP to support Richard Oastler's campaign for Factory Reform, and gave it unwavering support for the rest of his life; in 1847 he seconded the Second Reading in the Lords of the Factory Act of that year.

John Calcraft the Younger, of Rempstone in Dorset and Ingress in Kent, was an English landowner and Member of Parliament.

The 1831 Bristol riots took place on 29–31 October 1831 and were part of the 1831 reform riots in England. The riots arose after the second Reform Bill was voted down in the House of Lords, stalling efforts at electoral reform. The arrival of the anti-reform judge Charles Wetherell in the city on 29 October led to a protest, which degenerated into a riot. The civic and military authorities were poorly focused and uncoordinated and lost control of the city. Order was restored on the third day by a combination of a posse comitatus of the city's middle-class citizens and military forces.

Charles Pinney was a British merchant and local politician in Bristol, England. He was a partner in a family business that ran sugar plantations in the West Indies and owned a number of slaves. Pinney was selected as mayor of Bristol in 1831 and within weeks had to manage the response to major riots. Public order was lost for a number of days and significant damage caused to the city centre. Pinney was charged with neglect of duty over his actions but was acquitted at trial. He returned to local government as an alderman, holding the position until 1853.

A 1831 by-election was held in the Parliament of the United Kingdom constituency of Londonderry City between 28 March and 2 April 1831. It was held after the 1830 general election in the constituency was declared void by the House of Commons following an election petition. The grounds for the petition were that the election's winner Sir Robert Ferguson, 2nd Baronet, was also the constituency's returning officer by virtue of his position as mayor of the city. Ferguson and his 1830 opponent Captain John Richard James Hart both stood in the 1831 by-election. The result was similar to that of the preceding year and Ferguson was returned. Less than a month after the by-election, Parliament was dissolved and the 1831 United Kingdom general election was called, in which Ferguson also won.

References

1 2 3 4 5 "The Great Reform Act". Power, Politics and Protest. The National Archives Learning Curve. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
1 2 3 "The 1831 Reform Riots in Bristol". Bristol Museums. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
1 2 3 4 5 "Reform and the Birmingham connection". UK Parliament. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
1 2 Williams, Chris (2006). A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain. John Wiley & Sons. p. 156. ISBN 978-1-4051-5679-0.
↑ Caple, Jeremy (1990). The Bristol Riots of 1831 and Social Reform in Britain. E. Mellen Press. p. vi. ISBN 978-0-88946-224-3.
1 2 3 4 "Two documents concerning the Nottingham reform riots of 1831, comprising affidavit regarding damage to the property of Dr A. Manson, and warrant to the Sheriffs of the town and county of Nottingham, 1831 - Archives Hub". Archives Hub. University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
1 2 3 4 5 "Riots and Reform". Manuscripts and Special Collections. University of Nottingham. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
↑ Beckett, J. V.; Brand, Ken (1997). Nottingham: An Illustrated History. Manchester University Press. p. Colour Plate 6. ISBN 978-0-7190-5175-3.
1 2 "Pinney, Charles (1793–1867), mayor of Bristol" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22303 . Retrieved 15 May 2020.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
↑ Thomas, Susan (1974). The Bristol Riots (PDF). Bristol University: The Historical Association (Bristol Branch). p. 8.
1 2 Thomas, Susan (1974). The Bristol Riots (PDF). Bristol University: The Historical Association (Bristol Branch). p. 12.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[tna-1] 1 2 3 4 5 "The Great Reform Act". Power, Politics and Protest. The National Archives Learning Curve. Retrieved 11 May 2020.

[museum-2] 1 2 3 "The 1831 Reform Riots in Bristol". Bristol Museums. Retrieved 6 May 2020.

[parl-3] 1 2 3 4 5 "Reform and the Birmingham connection". UK Parliament. Retrieved 11 May 2020.

[williams-4] 1 2 Williams, Chris (2006). A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain. John Wiley & Sons. p. 156. ISBN 978-1-4051-5679-0.

[5] Caple, Jeremy (1990). The Bristol Riots of 1831 and Social Reform in Britain. E. Mellen Press. p. vi. ISBN 978-0-88946-224-3.

[uon-6] 1 2 3 4 "Two documents concerning the Nottingham reform riots of 1831, comprising affidavit regarding damage to the property of Dr A. Manson, and warrant to the Sheriffs of the town and county of Nottingham, 1831 - Archives Hub". Archives Hub. University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections. Retrieved 6 May 2020.

[man-7] 1 2 3 4 5 "Riots and Reform". Manuscripts and Special Collections. University of Nottingham. Retrieved 6 May 2020.

[8] Beckett, J. V.; Brand, Ken (1997). Nottingham: An Illustrated History. Manchester University Press. p. Colour Plate 6. ISBN 978-0-7190-5175-3.

[odnb-9] 1 2 "Pinney, Charles (1793–1867), mayor of Bristol" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22303 . Retrieved 15 May 2020.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

[thomas8-10] Thomas, Susan (1974). The Bristol Riots (PDF). Bristol University: The Historical Association (Bristol Branch). p. 8.

[thomas12-11] 1 2 Thomas, Susan (1974). The Bristol Riots (PDF). Bristol University: The Historical Association (Bristol Branch). p. 12.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]