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The Reform League
The Reform League was established in 1865 to press for manhood suffrage and the ballot in Great Britain. It collaborated with the more moderate and middle class Reform Union and gave strong support to the abortive Reform Bill 1866 and the successful Reform Act 1867. It developed into a formidable force of agitation at the very heart of the country. Origins During the autumn and winter of 1864–65 members of the Universal League for the Material Elevation of the Industrious Classes planned to form a new organisation which would concentrate solely on manhood suffrage. As a result, the Reform League was established on 23 February 1865 and the Universal League for the Material Elevation of the Industrious Classes became defunct. The leadership of the League, which was to remain consistent throughout its life, drew heavily on personalities from the International Working Men's Association, including George Howell, George Odger, William Cremer and Benjamin Lucraft. The father of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmond Beales
Edmond Beales (1803–1881) was the President of the Reform League and was a central figure in the 19th century British reform movement. Biography Edmond Beales was the son of Samuel Pickering Beales, a merchant of Newnham, Cambridgeshire and was born on 3 July 1803. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, gaining a B.A. in 1825 and an M.A. in 1828. He became a barrister in 1830. He married Elizabeth, the daughter of James Marshall, manager of the Provincial Bank of Ireland. Beales is best known as the President of the Reform League who campaigned for representation of the working classes in parliament and whose efforts culminated in the Reform Act 1867. The League is principally remembered for two great demonstrations in Hyde Park both of which were banned by the Government. At the first, on 23 July 1866, the League resolved to assemble at Marble Arch outside the Park and attempt to enter. A massive crowd assembled at the Arch and Beales attempted to enter the P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Lucraft
Benjamin Lucraft (28 November 1809 – 25 September 1897) was a famous craftsman chair-carver in London where his radical inclinations led him to be involved in many political movements. Lucraft was a public advocate of Chartism and a founder member, and sometime chairman, of the "General Council of First International" of the International Workingmen's Association. He was the only working-class man elected to the first London School Board in 1870 where he campaigned for free education for all, among other issues. He was a member, or officer, in a wide number of radical political movements of the 19th century. In 1874 he stood for election in Finsbury and in 1880 for Tower Hamlets; in both elections he was unsuccessful but was one of the forerunners of the Lib-Lab candidates who had their first electoral success in 1874. He died in 1897. Early life Benjamin Lucraft's family had settled in Broadclyst, Devon, in 1781 when his grandfather William Lucraft married Esther Newton in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commemorating the victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. The battle of 21 October 1805, established the British navy's dominance at sea in the Napoleonic Wars over the fleets of France and Spain. The site around Trafalgar Square had been a significant landmark since the 1200s. For centuries, distances measured from Charing Cross have served as location markers. The site of the present square formerly contained the elaborately designed, enclosed courtyard of the King's Mews. After George IV moved the mews to Buckingham Palace, the area was redeveloped by John Nash, but progress was slow after his death, and the square did not open until 1844. The Nelson's Column at its centre is guarded by four lion statues. A number of commemorative statues and sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh (; 26 September 1833 – 30 January 1891) was an English political activist and atheist. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866, 15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851. In 1880, Bradlaugh was elected as the Liberal MP for Northampton. His attempt to affirm as an atheist ultimately led to his temporary imprisonment, fines for voting in the House of Commons illegally, and a number of by-elections at which Bradlaugh regained his seat on each occasion. He was finally allowed to take an oath in 1886. Eventually, a parliamentary bill which he proposed became law in 1888, which allowed members of both Houses of Parliament to affirm, if they so wished, when being sworn in. The new law resolved the issue for witnesses in civil and criminal court cases. Early life Born in Hoxton (an area in the East End of London), Bradlaugh was the son of a solicitor's clerk. He left school at the age of eleven and then worked as an office ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Bright
John Bright (16 November 1811 – 27 March 1889) was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies. A Quaker, Bright is most famous for battling the Corn Laws. In partnership with Richard Cobden, he founded the Anti-Corn Law League, aimed at abolishing the Corn Laws, which raised food prices and protected landowners' interests by levying taxes on imported wheat. The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846. Bright also worked with Cobden in another free trade initiative, the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty of 1860, promoting closer interdependence between Great Britain and the Second French Empire. This campaign was conducted in collaboration with French economist Michel Chevalier, and succeeded despite Parliament's endemic mistrust of the French. Bright sat in the House of Commons from 1843 to 1889, promoting free trade, electoral reform and religious freedom. He was almost a lone voice in opposing the Crime ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke
Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke, GCB, PC (4 December 1811 – 27 July 1892), British statesman, was a pivotal conservative spokesman who helped shape British politics in the latter half of the 19th century. He held office under William Ewart Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1868 and 1873 and as Home Secretary between 1873 and 1874. Lowe is remembered for his work in education policy, his opposition to electoral reform and his contribution to modern UK company law. Gladstone appointed Lowe as Chancellor expecting him to hold down public spending. Public spending rose, and Gladstone pronounced Lowe "wretchedly deficient"; most historians agree. Lowe repeatedly underestimated the revenue, enabling him to resist demands for tax cuts and to reduce the national debt instead. He insisted that the tax system be fair to all classes. By his own main criterion of fairness — that the balance between direct and indirect taxation remain unchanged — he succeeded. Even ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known by his courtesy title Lord John Russell before 1861, was a British Whig and Liberal statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1852 and again from 1865 to 1866. The third son of the 6th Duke of Bedford, Russell was educated at Westminster School and Edinburgh University before entering Parliament in 1813. In 1828 he took a leading role in the repeal of the Test Acts which discriminated against Catholics and Protestant dissenters. He was one of the principal architects of the Reform Act 1832, which was the first major reform of Parliament since the Restoration, and a significant early step on the road to democracy and away from rule by the aristocracy and landed gentry. He favoured expanding the right to vote to the middle classes and enfranchising Britain's growing industrial towns and cities but he never advocated universal suffrage and he opposed the secret ballot. Russe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-consecutive terms (the most of any British prime minister) beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times, serving over 12 years. Gladstone was born in Liverpool to Scottish parents. He first entered the House of Commons in 1832, beginning his political career as a High Tory, a grouping which became the Conservative Party under Robert Peel in 1834. Gladstone served as a minister in both of Peel's governments, and in 1846 joined the breakaway Peelite faction, which eventually merged into the new Liberal Party in 1859. He was chancellor under Lord Aberdeen (1852–1855), Lord Palmerston (1859–1865) and Lord Russell (1865–1866). Gladstone's own political doctrine—which emphasised equalit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1865 United Kingdom General Election
The 1865 United Kingdom general election saw the Liberals, led by Lord Palmerston, increase their large majority over the Earl of Derby's Conservatives to 80. The Whig Party changed its name to the Liberal Party between the previous election and this one. Palmerston died in October the same year and was succeeded by Lord John Russell as Prime Minister. Despite the Liberal majority, the party was divided by the issue of further parliamentary reform, and Russell resigned after being defeated in a vote in the House of Commons in 1866, leading to minority Conservative governments under Derby and then Benjamin Disraeli. This was the last United Kingdom general election until 2019 where a party increased its majority after having been returned to office at the previous election with a reduced majority. Corruption The 1865 general election was regarded by contemporaries as being a generally dull contest nationally, which exaggerated the degree of corruption within individual consti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Morley (MP)
Samuel Morley (15 October 1809 – 5 September 1886), was an English woollen manufacturer and political radical. He is known as a philanthropist, Congregationalist dissenter, abolitionist, and statesman. Background He was the youngest son of John Morley, a hosiery manufacturer with premises in Nottingham who opened offices in Wood Street, London; his mother was Sarah Poulton of Maidenhead. Born in Homerton, from an early age he worked for his father's business in London. When his father and brothers chose to retire, he was left in managerial control. By 1860 he was sole owner of both the London and Nottingham parts of the business, and as it grew rapidly into the largest of its kind in the world he became very wealthy, and a model employer. Morley took a large residence in Stamford Hill, Stoke Newington when not living at his City of London address. He was a member of Thomas Binney's King's Weigh House Congregational Chapel in Fish Street Hill, London. He ventured into pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Alfred Taylor
Peter Alfred Taylor (30 July 1819 – 20 December 1891) was a British politician, anti-vaccinationist and radical. Biography Taylor was born in London. He was the son of another Peter Alfred Taylor, a silk merchant, and the nephew of Samuel Courtauld. He was educated at a school in Hove, Sussex, run by J. P. Malleson, his uncle and the Unitarian minister for Brighton. Here he met Clementia Doughty, whom he married in 1842. In the late 1830s he joined the family company of Samuel Courtauld & Co, later becoming a partner. The wealth from the company was what allowed him to develop and fund his radical interests, something which he conducted in concert with his wife. Taylor was an anti-vaccinationist. He commented that vaccination was a "delusion-a baseless superstition; that it afforded no protection from smallpox".Ross, Dale L. (1968)''Leicester and the Anti-Vaccination Movement 1853–1889'' ''Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society'' 43: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
