Democracy: The Vote and Workers Rights

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   1867      1906      betrayed      bribed      industrial      legislation      lives      men      parliament      picket      property      Reform      rich      rotten boroughs      sack      secret ballot      strike      Third      Trades Unions Act      unfair      vote      Women      workhouse      working   

The 1830s
Only the had the right to vote and their methods of voting were
. There was no privacy when people voted as it was done in public. This meant that people could be
pressurised or to vote for a certain MP.
MPs were rich men as they were not paid. This meant there was no working class people in to speak
up about the changes needed.
Cities where working people lived didn’t have MP. Many people believed if that could win the right to
they would be able to improve their living and
conditions. Therefore the campaign for the vote was a step towards changing their
.

The 1832 Act increased the number of men who could vote from one in ten to two in ten. However
voters still had to own or land so only middle and upper class could vote. Voters could not be
working class. Voters still had to be and voting was still in public. Bribery and fear remained a big
part.
A positive change was that some lost their MPs and these were given to cities like Leeds,
Manchester and Bradford However the MPs were usually from the south and did not understand the
areas and conditions for the workers.

rotten boroughs

The working people who had been part of the campaign for the vote felt . Only the middle classes
benefited. They then were involved in which further harmed the poor such as the new Poor Law
where the key feature was the .
Very slowly things in Britain things began to change and by with the Second Reform Act and the
Reform Act of 1884 more men were given the vote.
In 1832 10% of men voted and by 1884 45% voted.

A further improvement came in 1872 when the was made law to say that voting must be done in
secret. Before that people could be given the if they voted for someone their boss did not like.

After MPs were paid so now even working class men could become MPs and work to achieve better pay and
conditions. were left out of voting until 1918 when some of them aged 30 and over got suffrage. This
was rectified in 1928 when all women aged 21 got the vote.

Workers rights
Along with the vote workers were slowly given rights at work. The Combination Act was ended and the
of 1825 let workers join together into unions to try and get better conditions and pay.
In 1875 they were given the right to go on in order to get their employers to agree to their demands.
They were also allowed to peacefully so they could persuade others to join the strike.