The Chartist Movement was the first to fight for the vote (for men). Below is Jacob Rees Mogg’s view (The Victorians 2019) of what they were trying to do. He is describing the views of Tory Prime Minister Robert Peel but offers no note of criticism about them.
A country In flux, one in which such campaigners as the Chartists called for further and greater reforms, for universal suffrage, the ballot and for the abolition of the property qualification which. embedded in the Reform Bill, ensured that only gentlemen of property could aspire to stand for Parliament.
Movements such as the Chartists threatened, for Peel, risking a needless upending of the time hallowed system of government which had delivered ‘more practical happiness (and) true liberty than has been enjoyed in any other country that ever existed’
..The Tamworth Manifesto (1834) can therefore be seen as a very British phenomenon and it was British because it exemplified a very British lesson: the importance of taking part and playing by the rules.. an acceptance of the rules of the game was as important as the game itself. This helps explains his and his heirs’ reluctance to accept that the rules should ever be changed other than lawfully and by the means duly provided for changing them
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