A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

Crisis and Compromise in Great Britain 609

Britain’s emerging industrial society. In the early 1840s, 1 5 percent of the
members of the House of Commons were businessmen, and 35 percent had
some other connection to commerce and industry, such as serving on the
board of directors of enterprises. A larger percentage of men could now vote
in Britain than in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, or Spain.
The new electorate, as the Tories had feared, increased Whig strength.
Commons passed two reforms in 1833 influenced by the Reform Act. In part
a response to growing opposition to slavery by religious Dissenters, Evangel­
ical Protestants, and political radicals, anti-slavery societies launched a
nationwide campaign against slavery in the British Dominions. Britain had
withdrawn from the slave trade in 1808, and six years later 750,000 people
had signed petitions in Britain calling for the abolition of slavery. However,
in 1830 there were still 650,000 slaves in the British West Indies, and slaves
in British colonies in Africa and Asia (as well as in the United States).
Ladies’ associations distributed campaign literature and organized a boycott
of sugar produced by slaves in the West Indies. The campaign was success­
ful. In 1833, Parliament abolished slavery in the British Empire.
The second reform measure, also passed in 1833 (see Chapter 14), prohib­
ited work by children under nine years of age, limited the workday of children
from nine through twelve years to eight hours a day (and a maximum of forty­
eight hours per week), and that for “young persons” ages thirteen to eighteen
to twelve hours a day (to a maximum of sixty-nine hours per week).
The Poor Law followed in 1834. Able-bodied individuals would no longer
receive assistance from parishes, but would be incarcerated in “well­
regulated” workhouses. And the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 elimi­
nated the old, often corrupt borough governments, creating elected
municipal corporations responsible for administration. This again reflected
the growing political influence of the English middle classes, particularly in
industrial areas. These reforms allowed many more Whigs, including Dis­
senters, to assume positions of responsibility in local government, another
blow to the domination of public life by the old aristocratic oligarchy and the
Established Church.

Chartism and the Repeal of the Corn Laws

The Chartist movement reflected the strength of reformism in Britain.

Whereas some French and German workers dreamed of revolution, their

English counterparts took out their quill pens. In 1836, William Lovett

(1800-1877), a cabinetmaker, founded the London Workingmen’s Associa­

tion for Benefiting Politically, Socially, and Morally the Useful Classes. Two

years later, Lovett and Francis Place, a London tailor, prepared the “Great

Charter.” It called for the democratization of political life, including universal

male suffrage, annual elections, equal electoral districts, the secret ballot,

and salaries for members of Parliament, so that ordinary people could serve if