Industrial Britain 1745–1901, Year 9

Plassey

HintFought beside a village north of Calcutta, and won partly because the Nawab's own commander had been bribed to hold back.

The whyThe Company had come to India to trade, but it kept soldiers to guard its warehouses. After this victory it placed a ruler of its own choosing over Bengal, one of the richest regions of India. From then on a business was deciding who governed.

taxes

HintThink of the money every ruler takes from the people it governs.

The whyCollecting revenue is what rulers do, so from 1765 the Company was acting as a government while still answering to shareholders in London. The money paid for a larger army, and the army was used to take more territory.

Carry raw materials to the ports for British trade

HintFollow a bale of cotton along the track and ask where it ends up.

The whyOfficials of the time put moving troops first and trade second among their reasons. British investors were promised a 5% return, with any shortfall met from Indian taxes. Railways did change India, and Indians used them in huge numbers, but 'what good came of it' and 'what it was built for' are separate questions.

The British Raj

HintA three-letter word from Hindi meaning 'rule'.

The whyIt began when Parliament took India away from the East India Company after the great rebellion of 1857. Queen Victoria was later given the title Empress of India. It ended with independence in 1947.

Voted to reject it

HintMost MPs had been elected under the very system the petition wanted to change.

The whyMPs refused even to hear the petitioners, by 287 votes to 49. The petitions of 1839 and 1848 met the same fate. The Chartists failed in their own lifetime, yet their ideas outlived the movement.

man

HintHalf of all adults were left out of even this radical demand.

The whySome Chartists argued for women's votes, and many women were active in the movement, but its leaders feared that asking for so much would sink the whole Charter. Women waited another eighty years for a vote in general elections.

1872

HintIt came about a generation after the last great Chartist petition of 1848.

The whyBefore the Ballot Act, a man voted by declaring his choice in public, so a landlord or employer could punish him for it. Voting in secret made the vote a free choice, and it is still how we vote today.

A general election every year

HintIt concerns how often the country goes to the polls.

The whyThe Chartists wanted yearly elections so that MPs could never forget the voters or be bribed for long. Later reformers judged that a government needs more than twelve months to get anything done. The other five points are now so normal that we barely notice them.

1867; 1884

HintThe gaps were long: the second came thirty-five years after the first, and the third seventeen years after that.

The whyNo single Act created democracy. Each one let in a further group of men and left millions out, and each was passed only after years of pressure. After the third, every woman and about four men in ten still had no vote.

Those living in the countryside (the counties)

HintThink of the men who ploughed, sowed and harvested for a wage.

The whyIn 1867 the vote went to male householders in the boroughs. The 1884 Act applied the same rule to the counties. Men with no settled home of their own, such as servants who lived in and sons living with their parents, were still left out.

Parliament feared that refusing reform would bring revolution

HintAsk what the ruling classes had watched happen in France, and dreaded seeing at home.

The whyParliament rarely gives up power because of a good argument alone. In 1832, and again in 1867, change came when those in charge judged that giving a little was safer than refusing everything. Pressure from outside mattered as much as speeches inside.

A rotten borough

HintThe first word describes fruit that has gone bad.

The whyOld Sarum in Wiltshire was a grassy mound with a handful of voters and two MPs, while Manchester had none. The 1832 Act took the MPs away from 56 such places and gave seats to the new industrial towns.