Comparing the 1832 Election with the 2024 Election
If you read attempts to put the 2024 Election into historical comparison, the 1832 Election comes up.
It is reportedly the worse Tory Election defeat since 1832 while the Times (6th July) claims Starmer has won on the lowest vote share since 1832.
The 1832 Election was the first held on a slightly extended franchise arising from what is known as the Great Reform Act. The push for change had come particularly after 1819 led by working class radicals. 1832 was the result of middle class radicals capping the process. A £10 franchise was implemented meaning very limited numbers gained a vote.
The Election was won by Earl Grey (Whig, the Liberal Party was formed in 1859) and lost by the Duke of Wellington (Tory). There were around 800,000 votes 31,000 going to the Irish Repealers led by O’Connell.
The Whigs won 441 seats (67%) and the Tories 170 (29%)
Certainly the result made the Tories realise that they had to modernise their organisation. By 1834 in places like Lancashire grassroots Tory structures were formed (in this case by Hulton the Magistrate who sent the Yeomanry in at Peterloo in 1819).
The Whig administration that took office was responsible for the Poor Law (Workhouse) and despatching the Tolpuddle Martyrs to Australia in 1834. Such was where modernisation led.
E P Thompson in the Making of the English Working Class quotes a Macclesfield radical that ‘it mattered not to him whether he was governed by a boroughmonger or a whoremonger or a cheesemonger if the system of monopoly and corruption was still to be upheld’
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