Manufacturing Centres Unrepresented in Parliament
It was not so much that the landowning aristocracy were over-represented in Parliament by their control of so many pocket boroughs, as that great manufacturing centres were entirely unrepresented. The middle-class manufacturers had no means of making their influence felt in the unreformed House of Commons, for towns of such importance as Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham sent no representatives to Parliament. This meant that Parliament was out of touch with all the industrial life of the nation, and that nothing was done till after the Reform Act in the way of serious industrial legislation.
| 35 | constituencies with hardly any voters at all returned | 75 | members |
| 46 | constituencies with less than 50 voters in each returned | 90 | ″ |
| 19 | constituencies with less than 100 voters in each returned | 37 | ″ |
| 26 | constituencies with less than 200 voters in each returned | 52 | ″ |
| 84 | male electors in other constituencies returned | 157 | ″ |
The Reform Act of 1832 changed all this. It disfranchised all boroughs with less than 2,000 inhabitants—fifty-six in all; allowed one member only to boroughs with between 2,000 and 4,000; gave representatives to Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and to several other large manufacturing towns and London boroughs; extended the county franchise to leaseholders and £50 tenants at will; and settled the borough franchise on a uniform qualification of occupation in a house of £10 rateable value. It also fixed two days, instead of fifteen, as the limit for county elections, and one day for boroughs.