The Hyde Park Railings (1866)
It was seen quickly that there was a very real demand for the enfranchisement of the town workman—the agricultural districts remained unawakened—and Reform Leagues and Reform Unions sprang up as they had done in 1831. Then in London came the incident of the Hyde Park railings, which gave a distinct impetus to the Reform movement. What happened at Hyde Park was this: the London Reform Union decided to hold a monster demonstration in Hyde Park on July 23rd, but the Chief Commissioner of Police had declared the meeting must not take place, and ordered the gates to be closed at five o’clock. Mr. Edmund Beales, and other leaders of the London Reform Union, on being refused admittance, drove away calmly to hold a meeting in Trafalgar Square, but the great mass of people remained outside the park, “pressed and pressing round the railings.” Some were clinging to the railings; others deliberately weakened the supports of the railings. Park Lane was thronged, and all along the Bayswater Road there was a dense crowd. The line was too long for the police to defend, and presently, when the railings yielded to the pressure, the people poured in to the park.
“There was a simultaneous, impulsive rush, and some yards of railing were down, and men in scores were tumbling and floundering and rushing over them. The example was followed along Park Lane, and in a moment half a mile of iron railings was lying on the grass, and a tumultuous and delighted mob was swarming over the park. The news ran wildly through the town. Some thought it a revolt; others were of opinion it was a revolution. The first day of liberty was proclaimed here—the breaking loose of anarchy was shrieked at there. The mob capered and jumped over the sward for half the night through. Flower beds and shrubs suffered a good deal, not so much from wanton destruction, as from the pure boisterousness which came of an unexpected opportunity for horseplay. There were a good many little encounters with the police; stones were thrown on the one side, and truncheons used on the other pretty freely. A few heads were broken on both sides, and a few prisoners were made by the police; but there was no revolution, no revolt, no serious riot even.”81
The Guards were called out, and a detachment arrived at the park, but the people only cheered the soldiers good-humouredly. Not even a blank cartridge was fired that day.
The Government, however, took the Hyde Park disturbance with extreme seriousness. “Nothing can well be more certain than the fact that the Hyde Park riot, as it was called, convinced Her Majesty’s ministers of the necessity of an immediate adoption of the reform principle.”82 Disraeli, who in 1859 had proposed reform without getting any support, now saw that a great opportunity had come for a constructive Conservative policy, and boldly insisted to his party that Parliamentary Reform was a necessity. “You cannot establish a party of mere resistance to change, for change is inevitable in a progressive country,” he told his followers.
All through the autumn and winter great demonstrations took place in the large towns and cities of the country in support of the demand for the enfranchisement of the workman, and when Parliament met in February, 1867, a Reform Bill was promised in the Queen’s Speech. To Lord Derby the measure was frankly a “leap in the dark,” and one or two Conservative ministers (including Cranborne, afterwards Lord Salisbury) left the Government in disgust. But the Conservatives generally chuckled at “dishing the Whigs,” and the Bill, with considerable revision, was passed through both Houses of Parliament by August.