The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 (48 & 49 Vict., c. 23) was an
Act of the
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...
. It was a piece of
electoral reform
Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems which alters how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of:
* Voting systems, such as proportional representation, a two-round system (runoff voting), instant-ru ...
legislation that redistributed the seats in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
, introducing the concept of equally populated
constituencies
An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...
, a concept in the broader global context termed
equal apportionment, in an attempt to equalise representation across the UK.
It was associated with, but not part of, the
Representation of the People Act 1884
In the United Kingdom under the premiership of William Gladstone, the Representation of the People Act 1884 (48 & 49 Vict. c. 3, also known informally as the Third Reform Act) and the Redistribution Act of the following year were laws which ...
.
Background
The first major reform of Commons' seats took place under the
Reform Act 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the 1832 Reform Act, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an Act of Parliament, Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced major chan ...
. The second major reform of Commons' seats occurred in three territory-specific Acts in 1867–68:
*the
Reform Act 1867
The Representation of the People Act 1867, 30 & 31 Vict. c. 102 (known as the Reform Act 1867 or the Second Reform Act) was a piece of British legislation that enfranchised part of the urban male working class in England and Wales for the first ...
applied to English and Welsh constituencies
*the
Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868
The Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict c 48) was an Act of Parliament, Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It carried on from the Representation of the People Act 1867, and created seven additional Scottish se ...
applied to Scottish constituencies and gave Scotland an additional quota of seats
*the
Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1868
The Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict c 49) was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom.
The Act did not alter the overall distribution of parliamentary seats in Ireland. It was originally proposed to merge twelve ...
applied to Irish constituencies.
The latter United Kingdom set of Acts had fallen short of the
Chartist aim to enfranchise and to equalise the electorates. Electoral quotas diverged and the gap by 1885 widened; most starkly in the retention of boroughs of dubious size and a limited attempt at creation of new urban boroughs. In reductions these previous reforms had rather merged into their surroundings those boroughs (historic towns) having fewer than 10,000 inhabitants as at the 1861 census. In a de-radicalising move a few of largest cities were given three MPs, whereby "no person shall vote for more than two candidates". As a result, the net partisan impact of these cities tended to be counterbalanced: for example, a borough formerly represented by two Liberals was now usually represented by two Liberals and one Conservative. In a Commons vote on party lines, the Conservative neutralised one of the Liberals, so that the borough counted for one party-based vote albeit having greater and slightly more equalised non-partisan local issue representation. By contrast the mid-size boroughs with two members such as the new creations – wherever they so happened to have two MPs of the same party – produced twice the voting power in the House as such cities.
By the 1880s, continued industrial growth and resulting population movements had resulted in an increased imbalance between the constituencies in terms of the numbers of MPs and the population.
The Third Reform Bill
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-conse ...
, leading a
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
government, introduced a
Representation of the People Bill in 1884, which sought to greatly extend the franchise but not to alter the boundaries of constituencies. The Liberals had a large majority in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
, and the measure passed through the House easily. The
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
, on the other hand, was dominated by the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
. The Conservative leader,
Lord Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times for a total of over thirteen y ...
, was opposed to the bill. The majority of the Conservative party's MPs were elected by the counties, with the Liberals being electorally strong in the boroughs. He realised that the bill's extension of household suffrage into the counties would enfranchise many rural voters such as coalminers and agricultural labourers who were likely to vote for the Liberals. This, he claimed, would lead to "the absolute effacement of the Conservative Party". Salisbury hoped to use the Conservative majority in the Lords to block the bill and force Gladstone to seek a dissolution of Parliament before the reforms could be enacted. The Lords duly rejected the bill and returned it to the Commons, provoking outrage among the Radical wing of the Liberals. A campaign organised around the slogan "The Peers Against the People" called for reform or abolition of the Lords if they rejected the bill a second time.
The "Arlington Street Compact"
During October 1884
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...
intervened in what was rapidly becoming a constitutional crisis, urging the party leaders to meet and break the deadlock. Negotiations duly started at Salisbury's London home in Arlington Street,
Westminster
Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster.
The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...
, between the Conservative leader and
Sir Charles Dilke
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet, PC (4 September 1843 – 26 January 1911) was an English Liberal and Radical politician. A republican in the early 1870s, he later became a leader in the radical challenge to Whig control of the Liber ...
, a member of Gladstone's cabinet. Lord Salisbury agreed to allow the reform bill to pass on condition that a bill to redistribute parliamentary seats was also enacted; the two parties reached an agreement, the "Arlington Street Compact", whereby the bulk of MPs would be elected in single-member constituencies. He calculated that this would minimise the adverse effect on the Conservatives of the extension of the vote: dividing the counties would allow Liberal-voting and Conservative-voting districts to be separated. The division of boroughs would allow the suburban areas of towns to be represented separately from the inner cities, allowing the growth of "Villa Toryism".
Dilke, a member of the Radical (socially progressive) wing of the Liberal Party, also favoured the division of boroughs to weaken the influence of the Whig faction in the party. Before 1885 many existing two-member boroughs one Whig and one Radical were nominated by agreement, often leading to uncontested elections.
The Boundary Commissions
Three boundary commissions were appointed in late 1884, one for England and Wales, one for Scotland and one for Ireland.
Each commission was given similar instructions.
In dividing the counties they were to use
Ordnance Survey
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maps and other documents in order to determine the boundaries of divisions. In doing so they were to ensure that each division of a county was to have an equal population "so far as practicable". In addition they were instructed "in all those cases where there are populous localities of an urban character to include them in one and the same division, unless this cannot be done without grave inconvenience, and involving boundaries of a very irregular and objectionable character". Subject to these rules, the divisions were to be as compact as possible and should be based on "well known local areas" such as
petty sessional division
A petty sessional division was, in England and Wales, the area that a magistrates' court had jurisdiction over (before the abolition of quarter sessions, specifically the petty sessions). Petty sessional divisions were gradually consolidated in ...
s or other aggregations of parishes. If necessary, an individual parish or parishes could be added to existing areas in order to equalise population, but under no circumstances was a parish to be divided. The county divisions were to be named after an "important town or place" within it, "preference being given to any merged borough or boroughs, or when it consists mainly of a well-known area, from that area". When the commissioners had devised a scheme of divisions for a county the details were to be advertised in the local press. A date would then be announced when one of the commissioners would attend at "a principal town" in the county to hear objections or proposed alterations.
[
The procedure for boroughs (or ]burgh
A burgh is an autonomous municipal corporation in Scotland and Northern England, usually a city, town, or toun in Scots. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burg ...
s in Scotland) was similar. Firstly the commissioners were to determine whether the present boundaries, or the boundaries proposed in the bill, embraced "the whole of the population which ought to be included within the borough". They could decide if an area formed a "community of interest" with the town and should be included within the borough boundaries. Where suburban areas had a sufficiently large population and distinct identity they might form a county division rather than be included in the borough. If boroughs were extended, existing "well-established" boundaries were to be used if possible. Where boroughs were to be divided, the population of each division was to be approximately equal, and "special regard" was to be had to the "pursuits of the population".[ This was clearly understood as meaning that ]working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
and middle class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Commo ...
parts of towns were to be separated where possible.
Passage through parliament
The Bill was introduced to the House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
by the Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
William 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-conse ...
on 1 December 1884. The Bill was seen as a compromise measure, and did not include proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
. This led to unrest among the Liberals. Leonard Courteney, Financial Secretary to the Treasury
The financial secretary to the Treasury is a mid-level ministerial post in HM Treasury, His Majesty's Treasury. It is nominally the fifth most significant ministerial role within the Treasury after the First Lord of the Treasury, first lord of th ...
, felt forced to resign his post and the party whip. Gladstone had held a meeting with Liberal MPs earlier in the day at the Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* Unit ...
, where he defended the bill. He stated that far from being a compromise it was very much a government bill, and that the discussions with the opposition had been conducted with "no party bias". The bill received its second reading on 4 December 1884, and was then sent forward to the committee stage, which was to commence on 19 February 1885. The delay was to allow the boundary commissions to complete their work, with the boundaries and names of the new constituencies to be included as the schedules of the final Act.
In committee few changes were made to the boundaries recommended by the commissioners. However the committee felt that the proposed names for many of the divisions were unfamiliar, and preferred to use what they termed "geographical" names incorporating a compass point. A compromise was made where both were incorporated in the names of many of the constituencies: thus the seat officially called the "Northern or Biggleswade Division of Bedfordshire" was informally referred to as "Biggleswade", the "Biggleswade Division", "Northern Bedfordshire" or "North Bedfordshire".
The act received Royal Assent
Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...
on 25 June, and the provisions of both the redistribution and representation
Representation may refer to:
Law and politics
*Representation (politics), political activities undertaken by elected representatives, as well as other theories
** Representative democracy, type of democracy in which elected officials represent a ...
acts first came into use at the 1885 general election.
Provisions
The committee's work coupled with the Arlington Street Compact resulted a major redistribution under the Act as follows:
*Parliamentary boroughs (later known as borough constituencies):
**All these units with a population of 15,000 or less ceased to have separate representation and were merged into a wider division (constituency) of their county – namely 79 constituencies were disenfranchised.
**Six other boroughs were also merged into the county divisions: four that included large extents of countryside (Aylesbury
Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, South East England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery, David Tugwell`s house on Watermead and the Waterside Theatre. It is in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wy ...
, Cricklade
Cricklade is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in north Wiltshire, England, midway between Swindon and Cirencester. It is the first downstream town on the Thames. The parish population at the 2011 census was 4,227.
History
Cricklade ...
, East Retford
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
, Shoreham) and two that had been disenfranchised for corruption (Macclesfield
Macclesfield is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Bollin in the east of the county, on the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east ...
and Sandwich
A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
).
**Those with populations between 15,000 and 50,000 were to have their representation reduced from two MPs to one, namely 76 constituencies.
**Those with populations of more than 50,000 (23 in all) continued to be a set of two-member constituencies
**The City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
would have its representation reduced to two MPs and remain undivided
**The Universities of Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, and Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
would each return two MPs.
*Two low-population English counties lost an MP: Rutland
Rutland () is a ceremonial county and unitary authority in the East Midlands, England. The county is bounded to the west and north by Leicestershire, to the northeast by Lincolnshire and the southeast by Northamptonshire.
Its greatest len ...
was reduced to one MP and Herefordshire
Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...
to two MPs.
*The number of seats in the Commons was increased from 652 to 670, inclusive of Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
.
Apart from boundary changes, approximately 160 seats were new (or "liberated" as Gladstone described it) in England and Wales. The number of seats in Scotland was increased by 12, and the representation of Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
in Parliament remained at 103 members, even though its population had declined relative to the rest of the United Kingdom, due to emigration which had continued since the famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...
. This arrangement was described by ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' as "...obviously dictated by a somewhat pusillanimous eak-heartedcalculation that it was better to avoid a struggle with the Parnellite party."[
The number of seats had been fixed at 658 in the 1832 and 1867–8 legislation, but two two-member boroughs (Beverley and Bridgwater) and two single-member boroughs (Cashel and Sligo) had been disenfranchised for corruption.
]
Consequences
Cessation of dual-MP constituency pacts and majority-minority appeal
The reduction in the number of two-member constituencies (elected by the bloc vote system) ended cross-party cooperation: before the Act, in many counties and boroughs the two main parties had agreed to nominate one candidate each, and no election was held. Contested elections became the norm after the Act: 657 of 670 seats were contested at the 1885 general election.
Recognition of the middle and working classes
The division of former two-member constituencies had a direct, clear consequence: it hastened the decline of the domination of Parliament by the aristocracy
Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'.
At t ...
(formed of those who had won Royal and often military favour and their heirs, many of whom were accurately referred to as the 'landed gentry'). After 1885, for the first time, MPs connected to industry and commerce outnumbered those closely related to the gentry.[ The Lords immediately stood out therefore as non-representative of the electorate; the "household suffrage" of 1885 gave the majority of men the vote; and by the end of 1918 all those aged over 21 could vote and some women.
Nonetheless, the ]Lord
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or ar ...
s and their sons, grandsons and nephews in the Commons continued to form the greater part of the Cabinet
Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to:
Furniture
* Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers
* Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets
* Filing ...
until the Asquith ministry – further, the Lords legally bore equal strength, save for their inability to initiate bills spending public funds since 1407, until Asquith's constitutional Parliament Act 1911
The Parliament Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5 c. 13) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is constitutionally important and partly governs the relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two Houses of Parlia ...
. The House of Lords could veto or amend bills sent to them by the Commons.
Electoral results and impact on strategy and attitudes
Immediate expansion of the working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
electorate caused the number of ' Lib/Lab' MPs to rise from 2 in 1874 to 13 in 1885. The Act's new seats saw a 1% single-party swing to the Conservatives and so a gain of only 10 seats and a similar gain of 11 seats by Independent Liberal
Independent Liberal is a description allowed in politics to denote party affiliation. It is used to designate a politician as a liberal, yet independent of the official Liberal Party of a country. Those parties were the Liberal Party of Canada, ...
s, the latter often slightly more radical (redistributive) than both mainstream parties.
The sudden balance of power of the seats held or won by Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish national ...
candidates galvanised those opposed to Home Rule. This third party power of veto coupled with the end of local electoral pacts in a foreseeable way; Disraeli and Gladstone needed central control of their members to pursue narrower narratives and promote differing values. The IPP were often labelled particularly by the media and Conservatives as ' Parnellites'.[ Their power saw ]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-conse ...
make Home Rule his touchstone but, in so doing, distance his party from most peers who, until the House of Lords was flooded with Liberal peers in 1911, preferred conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
policies and guarded their near-equal power. Peers of the Whig persuasion flocked to a conservative line given immediate loss of family ties (hence leverage) in the Commons and tide of reformist
Reformism is a political doctrine advocating the reform of an existing system or institution instead of its abolition and replacement.
Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can eve ...
policies engulfing the Liberal party caused by the Act's generous franchise and loss of their coveted and often sponsored Whig-Radical and Whig-Conservative dual-member seats in the Commons. In short most peers felt change had gone far and fast enough. The opening words of free thought of the Lords, in its reply to the Queen's Speech came from the Duke of Abercorn
The title Duke of Abercorn () is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1868 and bestowed upon James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn, James Hamilton, 2nd Marquess of Abercorn. Although the Dukedom is in the Peerage of Ireland, it refe ...
who said:-
Liberal MPs opposing Home Rule rapidly formed a new party to stand at the next election in 1886, the Liberal Unionist
The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain, the party established a political ...
s who were willing to govern with Conservatives.
Liberals were unable to rely on any Lords' majorities (ratification) on their Bills from 1885 until the Parliament Act 1911
The Parliament Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5 c. 13) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is constitutionally important and partly governs the relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two Houses of Parlia ...
. The 1911 Act ended the equal power of the House of Lords forever, constitutionally
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princip ...
.
132 small areas ("parliamentary boroughs") were merged with part or all of their surrounding county constituency, all of which had previously returned two members. Courted for decades with the promise of for social change, religious freedom and free trade by Liberals, often served by a Radical-leaning alongside and a Whig-leaning MP, these boroughs had few Conservative MPs at most elections. Their substitute single-member seats where gaining suburban and wealthy rural parts particularly assisted the Conservative party, which took a position of national "strength and unity" in opposing Chamberlain
Chamberlain may refer to:
Profession
*Chamberlain (office), the officer in charge of managing the household of a sovereign or other noble figure
People
*Chamberlain (surname)
**Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), German-British philosop ...
's "radicalism" preferring instead education reform and opposing Gladstone's Home Rule
Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance wit ...
"crusade" in favour of budgetary concessions and support for unionist Irish businesses. The ensuing Queens Speech
A speech from the throne, or throne speech, is an event in certain monarchies in which the reigning sovereign, or a representative thereof, reads a prepared speech to members of the nation's legislature when a session is opened, outlining th ...
showed the Queen
In the English-speaking world, The Queen most commonly refers to:
* Elizabeth II (1926–2022), Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 1952 until her death
The Queen may also refer to:
* Camilla, Queen Consort (born 1947), ...
was "...resolutely opposed o Irish Home Rule..convinced that I shall be heartily supported by my Parliament and my people."
The Conservative party thinkers and leaders in both houses had now enfranchised the majority of men trusting them to break the deadlock in their favour; in return they had espoused religious freedom and almost completely free trade. The Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
may have won the 1885 General Election however the new Lords heavy antipathy and the Irish question tore the party apart.
The majority of multi-member seats saw cooperation before 1885 whereas under the new one-MP-per-constituency norm, cooperation as patron and protégé or to attract opposing voters was futile. Whig and the most progressive Radical candidates could now be branded "weak", "divided" or "distanced" from the line of Gladstone and his successors which proved a flaw in the broad congregation of the Liberal Party until the formation of the final splinter group of 1931. Conservatives depicted Gladstone's dogged advancement of Home Rule, notably his failed first and second Irish Home Rule bills in 1886 and 1893, an open dissent from Her Majesty, as the root cause of Liberal Party disintegration. This unorthodoxy combined with heavy defeats on other Commons bills in the House of Lords which began to hemorrhage more Whigs led to electoral landslide victories for the Conservative party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
in 1886
Events
January–March
* January 1 – Upper Burma is formally annexed to British Burma, following its conquest in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885.
* January 5– 9 – Robert Louis Stevenson's novella ''Strange ...
and 1895
Events
January–March
* January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.
* January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Histor ...
to break the deadlock.
Redistributed seats: England
Redistributed seats: Wales
Redistributed seats: Scotland
Redistributed seats: Ireland
See also
* Uniform Congressional District Act
The Uniform Congressional District Act is a redistricting bill that requires that all members of the United States House of Representatives in the 91st United States Congress and every subsequent Congress be elected from a single member constit ...
* Apportionment Act of 1911
The Apportionment Act of 1911 (, ) was an apportionment bill passed by the United States Congress on August 8, 1911. The law initially set the number of members of the United States House of Representatives at 433, effective with the 63rd Congr ...
* The Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885-1918
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
External links
Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, 48 & 49 Vict. C. 23
References
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Redistribution Of Seats Act 1885
United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1885
1885 in law
1885 in politics
1885 in the United Kingdom
Election law in the United Kingdom
Election legislation