PROTEST MOVEMENTS

• Democracy


  The belief in freedom and equality between people or a system of government based on this belief where the people vote for members to represent them
• Britain becoming more democratic 1851-1928

  1. Industrialization and urbanisation increased

  2. Pressure groups were changing political attitudes

  3. Parliamentary parties realised the power of political advantage
• Political system in early 19th century Britain


  • Most of the British population was still excluded from voting so they had no influence over members of parliament making the laws that affected their lives
  • MPs were from Britain's richest families and represented towns and boroughs where they had major control
  • Bribery was rife
  • Voting took place publicly so those with the vote could be bullied into voting a certain way
  • Working class people often worked for and lived in a property owned by their MP but still had no say
• Distribution of power


  • Too many constituencies in rural areas and not enough in industrial towns and cities where more people lived
• Reasons for reform


  1. Middle and working classes had started to form political groups in most of the major industrial areas

  2. Working class people were unhappy because of their working conditions and low wages

  3. MPs became scared that a revolution may occur in Britain as it had in France and that the working class would execute the nobility

  4. Giving people the vote is seen as a way to prevent revolution
• Parliament passed the Great Reform Act which changed the electoral system and allowed more people to vote


  1832
• Luddites


  British weavers and textile workers who objected to the increasing use of machines to produce material
• Luddite riots 1811-1813


  1. First major riot in Nottingham with weavers burning mills and destroying factory equipment

  2. Hundreds of machines were broken

  3. Further riots in Yorkshire and Lancashire

  4. British government sent 14,000 soldiers to the area

  5. Some Luddites were shot

  6. Punishment changed to execution or being sent to Australia
• Spa Field Riots


  • Incidents of public disorder that took place during two mass meetings in November and December 1816
  • A group called the Spenceans planned to take control of the government and the Tower of London and the Bank of England
• Spa Field Riots


  1. First meeting was peaceful and led to a petition to the government

  2. Second meeting led to riots with gunshots between rioters and soldiers

  3. Rioters failed to take control of the Tower of London
• Blanketeers


  Working class men who organised a protest march in March 1817 to draw attention to spinners and weavers losing their jobs due to machines in factories
• Blanketeers March


  1. Around 10,000 people started the march in Manchester

  2. Leaders were arrested and the protesters were attacked by cavalry, with one man shot dead
• Peterloo


  A large meeting in Manchester in August 1819 where the army attacked the crowd, killing 11 people and injuring 400
• Cato Street Conspiracy


  A small group in 1820 that made plans to overthrow the government by assassinating the entire cabinet
• Cato Street Conspiracy


  1. Government received information about the conspiracy and stormed the room where the group was meeting

  2. 13 members were arrested, 5 transported to Australia, 5 including Thistlewood publicly hanged
• Bristol Riots


  Riots in Bristol in October 1831 where a large crowd gathered and burnt down over 100 houses, released prisoners from the jail, and looted and destroyed the houses of unpopular wealthy people
• Only 6,000 people out of a population of 104,000 in Bristol had the right to vote