To What Extent Did the Great Reform Act Achieve the Aims of the Reformers? [50]

1826 Words8 Pages
The Great Reform Act of 1832 achieved the majority of the key reformers’ concerns yet largely ignored the aims and in many instances wilfully suppressed the aims of the less important factions within it. The most important faction of the Reformers was the revitalised Whig Party as its’ necessity to regain power in government and the derived need to alienate Peel and the Tories from such a Reform bill was one of the main reason why the Great Reform Act was actually so ‘radical’. By extension of this factor and also the fact that the Great Reform Act was directly passed by the Whig party it is only logical to describe them as the most important faction within that of the Reformers. It was largely due to the factor that the Great Reform Act was directly passed by the Whigs that it achieved so many of their aims. The Great Reform Act also achieved the majority of the middle classes’ aims by giving them the vote and by protecting their property although the benefits to the middle class were certainly less pronounced than those enjoyed by the Whigs. The Working class and radicals however, would have seen the act as a great betrayal to all that they had actively campaigned for in the period of excitement for reform leading up to 1832 as it actually decreased their political power in most instances. The Radicals and the Working class would have felt moved towards indignation and would have been deeply disillusioned by the Great Reform Act which was passed in 1832. It was described as ‘a trick’ by Felix Holt in a contemporary novel in which the middle class who had so championed the principle of reform in their effective leadership of the working class yet had been appeased and bought off by the Great Reform Act in the eyes of the working class. Some of the changes introduced by the act may have at first seemed extremely significant and progressive yet at a
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