The Birmingham Political Union (General Political Union) was a grass roots pressure group in Great Britain during the 1830s. It was founded by Thomas Attwood, a banker interested in monetary reform. Its platform called for extending and redistributing suffrage rights to the working class, of the kind set out in the Reform Bill of March 1831 which when passed became the Reform Act 1832. It included both middle-class and working-class members.
The Union was founded at the end of 1829; its first public meeting was on 25 January 1830 and was attended by a large number of people, variously estimated as anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 people. [1] Its stated aim was to campaign for reform of the House of Commons, politically combining "the efforts of the two "industrious classes" of the nation, that is, the middle and lower… who had been deceived into attacking and blaming each other for their sufferings". [1]
Other manufacturing towns in Britain began to follow Birmingham's example and over 100 Political Unions were formed.The Birmingham Political Union was looked upon as a model ‘due to its size, its good organisation, its unified class structure and Attwood’s articulate and sincere leadership’. [2] The Political Unions' demands were:
Unlike some other radical political organisations of the period, the Birmingham Political Union used mainly law-abiding, non-violent methods. However, the organisation had a large membership, and the government of the time feared the consequences if it took up arms; during the Days of May in 1832, when 200,000 people attended a meeting of the Union, rumours that the Union would take up arms contributed to the pressure on the House of Lords to pass the 1832 Reform Act.
After the successful passage of the Reform Act, the Birmingham Political Union disbanded. The Union’s working class supporters "felt betrayed and frustrated by the Reform Act's failure to give them the vote". [3] The proceedings of the fourth annual meeting of the Union in September 1833 show clear signs of this frustration: "The Council are...compelled to acknowledge that the Reformed Parliament has disappointed the expectation of the people...The Reform Bill has had its trial, but what has been the fruit which it has produced?". [4] The Union demands would soon thereafter be picked up in the six points of the People’s Charter. [4]
Although there were attempts to get it going again in relation to various campaigns, in April 1839 the Union's council was suspended indefinitely. [1]
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.
Edward Baines (1774–1848) was the editor and proprietor of the Leeds Mercury, politician, and the author of historical and geographic works of reference. On his death in 1848, the Leeds Intelligencer described his as "one who has earned for himself an indisputable title to be numbered among the notable men of Leeds".
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The Radicals were a loose parliamentary political grouping in Great Britain and Ireland in the early to mid-19th century who drew on earlier ideas of radicalism and helped to transform the Whigs into the Liberal Party.
Thomas Attwood was a British banker, economist, political campaigner and Member of Parliament. He was the leading figure of the underconsumptionist Birmingham School of economists, and, as the founder of the Birmingham Political Union, the leading figure in the public campaign for the Great Reform Act of 1832.
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Joseph Parkes was an English political reformer.
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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.
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