Reform Act 1832

The Reform Act 1832 was a British law that redistributed parliamentary seats and broadened the electorate in England and Wales, changing representation in the House of Commons.

Rotten borough: A parliamentary constituency with very few voters, often controlled by a landowner or patron. The Act removed representation from many such constituencies.
Parliamentary constituency: A defined electoral area that chooses representatives to a legislature. The Act altered which places held seats and how voters qualified within them.
House of Commons: The elected lower chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act changed its membership by redistributing seats and expanding the electorate.
Women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom: The movement and legal changes that secured voting rights for women in British parliamentary elections. The Act's electorate remained male, leaving women's political exclusion untouched.
Industrial Revolution: A period of major economic and technological change that began in Britain in the eighteenth century. Fast-growing industrial towns lacked representation proportionate to their populations.
Schedule A of the Reform Act 1832: The part of the Act listing English boroughs whose parliamentary representation was abolished. It specified boroughs losing both members or one of their two members.
Chartism: A British working-class movement that campaigned for political reforms set out in the People's Charter of 1838. Its supporters regarded the Act's limited franchise as insufficient democratic reform.
Household suffrage: A voting qualification based on occupying a household, usually subject to property or rental conditions. The Act's borough franchise extended voting through household status without granting universal male suffrage.
Peterloo Massacre: The 1819 killing and wounding of protesters at a reform meeting in Manchester by cavalry. The massacre intensified public demands for political reform.
Schedule B of the Reform Act 1832: The part of the Act listing English boroughs that retained one parliamentary seat instead of two. It reduced representation in selected smaller boroughs.

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