English History Made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable by Lacey Baldwin Smith

Author:Lacey Baldwin Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2007-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Angry Path to Political Democracy (1832–1913)

The current of political change became a torrent when, first in 1867, the electorate was doubled (1.3 to 2.4 million) by enfranchising urban workers, and then doubled again in 1884 when agricultural laborers received the vote. Universal suffrage, however, was not approached until 1918 when women over 30 received the ballot. Only in 1928 did the Kingdom accept the principle of one vote, one citizen, irrespective of age, sex, education or wealth; but it took a Labor Government in 1948 to finally finish off the last vestige of the old electoral system going back to James I: Oxford’s and Cambridge’s two seats in the House of Commons were abolished and with them the right of Oxbridge graduates to two votes in a general election.

Commons adapted to the democratic tide, but the House of Lords allowed the current of economic and social change to pass it by until the constitutional crisis of 1909–11, when it risked its very existence by vetoing what it regarded as the Liberal Government’s socialistic budget. The Lords had changed in size and character after 1832. More and more peers of ancient lineage were investing in industry and their ranks were being swollen by an influx of factory owners, bankers, shippers and brewers in search of social respectability. The 630 members of the upper house had by 1909 not only become a bastion of the Conservative Party, but also such a blatant anachronism in an era of increasing democracy that W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan wrote an entire operetta satirizing blue blood. In Iolanthe, a pride of haughty lords sing with gusto that they are “paragons of legislation, pillars of the British nation,” but wisely fly off to fairyland with their new fairy brides, fearful lest the peerage be thrown open to competitive examinations. In real life they were far less adept, blundering into a power struggle with a House of Commons controlled by the Liberals and were badly worsted.

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