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Early Modern Parliament

During the reign of Charles the First, on the eve of the Civil War, Parliament split into two opposing factions. Parliament had been united in pressing the King to accept its authority. But once Parliament started demanding control of the armed forces, the Church, and the King's Ministers, there were some who thought things had gone too far. A King's Party began to form, and this is the first major split of Parliament into two parties. You might say that the King's Party, the Tories, is a distant relation of today's Conservatives. The rebellious Parliamentarians became, late in the reign of Charles the Second, the Whigs, who under Gladstone in the ninteenth century became the Liberals. Around the turn of the century a few Labour MPs took refuge in the much more powerful Liberal party. These were the Lib Labs who were eventually to go on to form the Labour Party. So you might say the Whigs are the distant relations of today's Liberal and Labour Parties.

After the advent of party politics, the next major milestone in the history of Parliament came about during the rule of George the First (1714 - 1727), when Sir Robert Walpole combined his twenty year long position as First Lord of the Treasury with his hold over the House of Commons. Walpole in 1721 became in effect, if not name, Britain's first Prime Minister. He was the first leader to occupy the residence at 10 Downing Street, which is only a five minute walk from Parliament. This proximity has been a suggested reason for the extent of Walpole's influence, which continued until 1742. Walpole was always at the House while other MPs only made the trip to London infrequently.

Parliament was determined to maintain its power, and did all that was necessary to make sure that the Catholic Stuart line, deposed by Parliament in 1688, could not return to power. Parliament had installed the compliant, and protestant Hanoverian monarchs on the throne, and they were determined to protect this arrangement. People who supported the Stuarts were known as jacobites, and draconian laws were passed to suppress any possible jacobite rebellion. Once local magistrates had read the Riot Act to an unauthorised assembly of twelve or more people, and they had been given the statutory sixty minutes to disperse, all lingerers could be killed on the spot. The impact of these powers has led to the Riot Act entering the language: the phrase "reading the riot act" describes any kind of final dressing down.

The struggle against the jacobites reached its culmination in 1745. The deposed James the Second had continued to live as "The Old Pretender" on the continent. His son Charles, "The Young Pretender" or Bonnie Prince Charlie, was put ashore in Scotland by a French ship in 1745 to see what would happen. An army of Highland Scots gathered around him, and they eventually met government forces at Culloden. The government army led by the Duke of Cumberland quickly defeated the Highlanders, and ruthlessly killed all the wounded afterwards. Charles fled to the Isle of Skye disguised as Flora McDonald's servant girl, and from there made it to France.

Walmer Castle

Parliament at this time was well known for corruption. Bribery of MPs was common, with the necessary money coming out of the Secret Service fund. Two hundred "place men" were kept in the commons by the government. This was done through the creation of "rotten boroughs", non-existent constituencies being represented by carefully selected MPs. Dunwich in Suffolk returned an MP despite the fact that Dunwich had been washed out to sea by coastal erosion. Old Sarum near Salisbury returned an MP even though the village had been abandoned and didn't have a single inhabitant. For Parliament to evolve towards its present form things had to change, and this began to happen in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The government was struggling with war against France, and the threat of revolution at home. The pressure for reform was great. William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister 1783 - 1801, and 1804 - 1806, showed in the pattern of his career the beginning of the changes. He was elected to Parliament in a typically corrupt way, securing the patronage of powerful aristocrat James Lowther, who controlled the voting rights in a constituency in Westmoreland. As Pitt's career developed, however, he became known for the opposition to the kind of practices that won his his seat in the first place. A collection items relating to Pitt can be seen at Walmer Castle in Kent. The dramatist Richard Sheridan was an MP during this period, and his most famous play School For Scandal is a fitting memorial to the strange morality fo these times.

Apsley House - London home of the Duke of Wellington

Lord Liverpool's Tory government which ruled from 1812 - 1827 put much effort into counter revolutionary measures. The usual, admittedly simplified view, is that between 1815 and 1821 a reactionary course was taken led by Sidmouth and Castlereagh, while from 1822 ministers such as William Huskisson, Frederick Robinson, George Canning and Robert Peel began to introduce reforms to improve the way Parliament was run. Liverpool abruptly resigned in 1827, and was replaced by the authoritarian Canning, who died soon after taking office. He was replaced by Frederick Robinson, who wasn't authoritarian enough, his government collapsing in 1828. The Duke of Wellington then took over. Some historians describe him as a disastrous leader, at least in political terms. Wellington was a military leader, and did not really believe in party politics at all. He was "sincerely attached" to the Tory party, but had a stronger feeling that "factious opposition to the government" was harmful to the country. Wellington leaned towards the military dictatorship end of the political spectrum, and went against the grain of the times in opposing reform. In 1819 he had written to the magistrates who had ordered troops to restore order at the Peterloo meeting in Manchester, an action in which eleven people had been killed and over five hundred, some of them women and children. His support of catholic emancipation was brave, but Wellington was unable to control the divisions this measure caused. In 1831 rioters burnt down the mansion at Nottingham Castle when the Duke of Newcastle opposed reform, which demonstrates the prevailing mood. The Whigs took advantage of the disarray and formed a government under Earl Grey in 1830. (A collection of items relating to Wellington can be seen at Apsley House and Walmer Castle.)

The Whig government led by Grey introduced the famous Reform Act of 1832, ending many Parliamentary abuses. Grey and his colleagues should not be thought of as progressive idealists. The main aim of instituting reform was to head off revolution. Grey said of his reforms: "There is no one more decided against annual parliaments, universal suffrage and the ballot than I am. My object is not to favour, but to put an end to such hopes and projects." Grey was reforming "to preserve not to overthrow." However, the reforming pattern that would eventually lead to Parliament as it is now known, was set in motion, and in commoration of the historic turning point of Grey's government, a monument to him can be seen in Grey Street, Newcastle. The Reform Club in London's Pall Mall was founded in 1836. Membership of the club was restricted to those who supported the Reform Act.

Government, even after the reforms of 1832 remained much less involved with life than it is today. The policy of the time was laissez faire, in economic and social matters. Sir Robert Peel revoked the Corn Laws, which were the only protective tariffs in place to protect British agriculture or industry. Britain was unique in this policy of non-intervention, and this policy was taken to extremes. 1858 saw the abolition of the General Board of Health, a government body set up to try and improve sanitation and public health generally. The Times newspaper was partly responsible, having led a campaign which found it preferable "to take its chance of cholera" than be "bullied into health." This kind of attitude only changed slowly, but its beginnings can be seen during the ministries of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister 1855 - 1858, 1859 - 1865. Palmerston appealed to ordinary people. His appeal did not so much lie in what he did for ordinary people, but rather in his talent for stirring up nationalist feeling. He had the kind of populist instincts now found in the editors of tabloid newspapers, and had a foreign policy to match. Nevertheless he did begin to expand the influence of government towards legislation to ease the workings of laissez faire business practice. Palmerston considered that laissez- faire in the economy could only be fully effective if it were accompanied by a measure of social reform. He was convinced by the reports of Chadwick and Shaftsbury on sanitary conditions and mines that the poor health resulting from unregulated working conditions reduced efficiency and wasted human potential.

The grand house of Broadlands, where Palmerston lived can be visited in Hampshire. There is a display here illustrating his life and career.

When Palmerston died in 1865 the age of William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli began. These two men, leading the Whigs and Tories respectively, both represented governments that administered continuing reforms. Historians have argued over who was the greater reformer, whether Disraeli was the champion of change in the Reform Act of 1867, or whether Gladstone in opposition forced Disraeli's actions upon him. In many ways the case for both men is unconvincing. Governments followed votes. Governments would increase the range of people who could vote, and then hope that the people enjoying their vote for the first time would vote for the administration which had given them the opportunity. The biographer of Disraeli, R. Blake, has written: "It was like a moonlight steeple chase. In negotiating their fences few of them saw where they were going, nor much cared so long as they got there first. " (Disraeli - Ch21) In this way slowly increasing numbers of people were brought into the voting system, although full democracy was not achieved until the franchise acts of 1918 and 1928, by which time Britain was lagging behind most of Europe.

Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich

Gladstone was MP for Greenwich, and it is still possible to visit the Trafalgar Tavern where he and his colleagues ate whitebait suppers. Benjamin Disraeli's house, Hughenden Manor near High Wycombe, survives and can be visited.

Although moves to widen democracy made steady headway between 1868 and 1880 under Gladstone and Disraeli's ministries, the modern conception of government regulating society was still not fully developed. Gladstone had promoted reform, but he had insisted that the individual was ultimately responsible for their own well-being. Disraeli seemed more open to the idea of a wider role for government. He said: "The first consideration of a minister should be people's health... pure air, pure water, the inspection of unhealthy habitations, the adulteration of food, these and many kindred matters may be legitimately dealt with by the legislature." Public works were already complete in London to deal with sewerage. This kind of wider social role of government would be taken up by future leaders.

As for wider social representation, Keir Hardie's presence in Parliament in the 1890s was a milestone. Hardie the illegitimate son of a Lanarkshire farm servant, began work at age eight in a Glasgow printing works, and became a miner at the age of ten. He remained a collier until he was twenty three, and then entered politics through trade unionism. His actual political positions were fluctuating, eccentric and enigmatic. He was probably right to see himself as a primarily symbolic presence as he sat amongst the overwhelmingly upper class Tory and Liberal MPs. The collectivist solutions offered by his Labour party did not in the end find wide resonance amongst voters. A sense of individualism remained, and this had to be incorporated into the new social vision. in 1910 the then Liberal Chancellor David Lloyd George argued that his party "has not abandoned the traditional ambition of the Liberal Party to establish freedom... but side by side with this effort it promotes measures for ameliorating the conditions of life for the multitude." (Better Times By David Lloyd George) Lloyd George saw it as a fundamental task of government to redistribute wealth by taxation to improve social conditions. The modern pattern of parliamentary government was now clear. Governments would be elected by almost all the adult population of a country, and would legislate society and redistribute wealth to provide social services and welfare . The balance of intervention would ebb and flow, but the basic pattern would remain.

In Criccieth north Wales the Lloyd George Museum presents displays illustrating the life of David Lloyd George. His boyhood home has been recreated here, along with his uncle's shoe making shop.

Statue of Emmeline Pankhurst outside the Houses of Parliament

The final, and shamefully overdue widening of social representation involved women's suffrage. Women such as Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel struggled over many years to win the vote for women against entrenched attitudes. Some of them, Annie Kenny for example were imprisoned. In Australia women were given the vote in 1902, but in 1908 Emmeline Pankhurst found herself in jail for trying to achieve the same goal. It wasn't until 1928, with the "Flappers Bill," that women gained the same voting rights as men. The first woman MP to sit in the house of Commons was the American Nancy Astor, who took her seat on the 1st of December 1919.