Pressure for the First Reform Act

No secret ballot, pocket and rotten boroughs = corruption

1780 - Society for Constitutional Information - Cartwright

1785 - Pitt proposed disenfranchising 36 of the worst boroughs

1789 - French revolution

         - raised the question of the 'rule by the rich' and criticed Britian's political system

1791 - Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information - May 1792 petition with 10,000 signatures

1792 - Rights of Man - Thomas Paine - inspired young reformers

         - London Corresponding Society - 26 Oct. 1795 demonstration at Copenhagen Fields (100,000 people)

1807 election - Burdett and Cobbett raise issue of reform

1815 - economic distress

         - Corn Laws increased price of bread - employers had to riase wages - increased middle class criticism

1816 - harvests fail - riots in islington

Radical press - Cobbett, Wooler, Hunt - increased political awareness

1817 - March…