Democracy and the Vote in British Politics, 1848-1867

The Second Reform Act, passed in 1867, created a million new voters, doubling the electorate and propelling the British state into the age of mass politics. It marked the end of a twenty year struggle for the working class vote, in which seven different governments had promised change. Yet the standard works on 1867 are more than forty years old and no study has ever been published of reform in pr...