did people get more of a say by the start of 20th cent?

• The rapid movement of people meant that the old system of constituencies was quickly out of date
• This resulted in rotten boroughs (like Old Sarum) where very low populations had the right to send two MP's to parliament while cities like Manchester had no MPs
• Only 2% of the population had the right to vote and voting was done publicly so was very open to corruption
• In the early 18th century protests like the peaceful gathering at Petersfield's in Manchester were violently supressed in the famous Peterloo massacre – this made it hard for people to campaign
• In 1832 the government started to be more sympathetic to calls for reform and passed the Great Reform Act
• It got rid of some rotten boroughs and gave an extra 250,000 people the vote
• It was not until 1918 that some women and all men over 21 got the vote but there was steady change as livening in cites encouraged more people to protest