How Democratic Was Britain by 1918?

The Great Reform Act of 1832 had brought some democratic reform to Britain. This act was an essential first step to British reform in the future as it had extended the franchise, however, it was limited to one in seven men. A fair democracy should consist of a balanced voting system with no corruption as well as politicians being accountable to the electorate. Also, all people should have the ability to vote for whichever party they would like and have access to office and information. In order to determine how democratic Britain was by 1918 it is necessary to examine how far Britain had met these requirements.

Between 1852 and 1860 many Reform Bills were presented to the commons, however, all of these failed. Leading figures such as future PM Gladstone who supported reform soon became popular heroes. Although, even those in favour of reform intended the reform to be limited, when the Liberals came to power in 1865 they attempted to address the reform question but the PM Russell and Gladstone were aware that they had to proceed with caution. A Reform Bill was introduced to the Commons in March 1867 and became law in August 1867, this is known as the Second Reform Act. The Act increased the electorate to approximately 2.5 million voters, one in three men now had the right to vote, however, women were still not permitted. The most important change was giving the vote to occupiers in the boroughs, as a result of this the electorate in some of the newer towns and cities increased dramatically. Democracy in Britain had begun to slowly expand as more people were allowed to vote than ever before.

Fairness in elections had also begun to make an impact on voting. Before 1872 bribery and intimidation during and between elections was extremely common. Secret voting was criticized

because parties were attempting to bribe people into voting for them. In 1872 the Fairness in Election Ballot Act was brought into practice, however, it did not completely stop corruption. Voting was now done almost fully in secret. But between 1867 and 1885 4 towns were disenfranchised due to corrupt parties. All remaining corruption was stopped after the 1885 Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act was released. This limited how much candidates could spend during election time - therefore stopping them from bribing voters - and outlined what money could be spent on. Breach of the law would have candidates disqualified for seven years. The 1885 Redistribution of Seats Act also aimed to make elections fairer by constructing constituencies of roughly equal size and introducing a recognizably modern system of electoral representation. This helped by ending the old problem of having too many MPs from the South of England therefore giving other areas in the country a fair vote.