Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867

A historically important step on the road to universal suffrage in Britain was the passage of the Reform Act of 1867. At possibly the peak of the British Empire, the franchise was quite limited. Half the population, women, could not vote. Of the men, you had to own property worth above a certain amount, or you had to pay above another amount in annual rent. Plus the district in which you could vote might be of vastly different size in electorate compared to another district.As Britain industrialised, the cities grew, as did the educated populations therein. By the 1860s, a thriving educated working and middle class had arisen. This book describes their increasing awareness of their disenfranchisement and their consequent struggles to get the vote. The ratcheting up of social tensions and their manifestations in Parliament and on the streets is recounted. But unlike a history text written in, say, 1910, there is more analysis made of the role of the women's movement, the Free Irish, and the class tensions between the skilled artisans and the middle class. All these were factors which publicly preceded and culminated in the passage of the Reform Act. The authors give an eloquent analysis of events that most Americans are unfamiliar with, inasmuch as the contemporary events here were the Civil War and Reconstruction.