Crisis and Compromise in Great Britain 607backdrop of hardship, industrial disputes, demonstrations, and the wave of
food riots and machine breaking that spread in 1829-1830 through south
ern England.
Religious and Electoral Reform
However, there would be no revolution in nineteenth-century Britain. The
landed elite, which dominated Parliament, supported by manufacturing
interests, enacted reforms that defused social and political tensions by bow
ing to middle-class demands. Even if many Tories believed that electoral
reform would be a dangerous precedent, the fear of popular protest and per
haps even revolution led them to compromise. Reforms passed by Parlia
ment contributed to the emergence of a liberal consensus in Victorian
Britain that lasted throughout the century. Religion, too, may have played a
part. The government allocated funds for the construction of more Anglican
churches in working-class areas. At the same time, Methodism, along with
other churches within the “New Dissent,” won many converts, arguably
reducing social tension. Bible societies and other evangelical associations
interested in the plight of the poor increased dramatically in number.
In 1828, despite vociferous opposition from the Established Church, Par
liament repealed the Test and Corporation Acts, which had forced anyone
holding public office to take communion in the Anglican Church. Catholic
emancipation had emerged as a major political issue at least partly because
it was linked to the problem of Catholic Ireland. There a reform movement
had begun and organized protests against English Protestant domination.
Insurgency seemed endemic. Catholics of means had not been able to vote
until 1793 in Ireland (and the franchise was subsequently made even more
restrictive). The Irish Parliament had been eliminated in 1800, although Ire
land was represented in British Parliament. Finally, in 1829, Parliament
passed the Catholic Emancipation Act, which removed the legal restrictions
that had kept Catholics from holding office or serving in Parliament.
In Britain, political liberalism continued to be closely linked to the move
ment led by Whigs, the party most attached to constitutional monarchy and
the rights of Parliament, for electoral reform. Only one of fifteen men in
Britain had the right to vote. Businessmen resented being underrepresented
in the House of Commons. The electoral system remained a patchwork that
reflected the interests of local elites and particular communities that had
gradually developed in England since the fourteenth century. The industrial
north sent few men to Parliament because electoral districts had not
changed since before the Industrial Revolution. No one represented the
industrial centers of Manchester and Birmingham in Parliament. Wealthy
merchants in those cities were no longer content with indirect, “virtual rep
resentation” through members of Parliament who claimed to have their
interests in mind. In contrast, some sparsely populated rural districts still
were represented in Parliament. Dunwich, the most notorious of these