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| 1820, Feb. 23 |
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| Cato Street conspiracy, in which 20 extremists plotted to establish a provisional government after blowing up the cabinet as they dined together. | 1 |
| Political reforms. Castlereagh's suicide in 1822 paved the way for moderation. Robert Peel, secretary for home affairs, secured the passage of legislation that revised laws stipulating the death penalty for more than 200 offenses. William Huskisson, president of the board of trade, lowered import duties on certain items and lifted the secular prohibition on the exportation of wool; these measures foreshadowed the fuller embrace of free trade in the 1840s. | 2 |
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| 1824, June 21 |
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| Joseph Hume, a radical member of Parliament, secured the repeal of the Combination Acts. Workers could now organize but still could not strike because the use of violence or threats was forbidden. The Combination Acts had not stopped organization among skilled workers who continued to combine under the auspices of friendly societies. Following the repeal of the Combination Acts, engineers, mechanics, and printers began to organize in exclusive skilled unions, which sought to control that skill within their area. Shorter-lived unions among factory workers also sprang up, like John Doherty's Grand General Union of All the Spinners (1829). | 3 |
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| 1829, June |
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| The Metropolitan Police Act established a police force in London that patrolled all of London except for the City of London itself. | 4 |
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| 1828, July 15 |
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| Revision of the Corn Laws. Grain could be imported into the country but would be subject to duties fixed on a sliding scale (duties decreased as the price increased). | 5 |
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| 1830 Ff |
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| Cooperative socialism, presented by Robert Owen in publications such as his New Moral World, resulted in working and middle-class cooperative societies and workshops. In the mid-1830s, Owen organized the Equitable Labour Exchange in London to exchange “labor notes,” representing units of labor, for cooperatively produced goods. | 6 |
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| 1831–32 |
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| Cholera epidemic throughout Britain, but particularly bad in large cities. | 7 |
| Impetus for electoral reform. The radicalism developing in England grew out of the economic changes that undermined the representative nature of the existing franchise. Migration into cities and the growth of the industrial middle class resulted in electoral boroughs that did not reflect the distribution of population. In pocket boroughs, the patron controlled absolutely the right to return candidates, whereas in rotten boroughs, bribery and the use of influence determined the candidate. As a result, the campaign launched by the Whigs during the election following William's ascension focused on the need for electoral reform. The Whigs won the election and began work on the Great Reform Bill. | 8 |
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| 1832 |
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| THE GREAT REFORM BILL. The bill was defeated twice in 1831, once in committee and once by the Lords after it had passed in Commons. The third time, the Lords demanded amendments unacceptable to the Commons; Grey forced the king, who could not form an effective Tory ministry, to create enough new peers to pass the measure. Provisions: The bill redistributed 143 seats and eliminated the antiquated forms in the boroughs. It gave the franchise to all householders paying 10 pounds in annual rent. In the counties, the area of enfranchisement was enlarged by retaining the 40-shilling freehold qualification for those owning their own land. It also was the first bill to explicitly exclude women from the franchise. Results: The Great Reform Bill helped to shift the balance of power in the Commons to the industrial and commercial elites. It demonstrated that the Lords could be challenged, but it failed to destroy the Lords' authority within the government. Their veto continued to be a powerful weapon for the landholding classes. It also did not eliminate the possibility of influence because it did not provide the secret ballot and offered no means of continued redistricting to keep pace with population growth and migration. Nor did it provide the working classes, who had rallied for the extension of the franchise, with the vote. | 9 |
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| 1833, Aug. 23 |
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| Under the direction of Edward Stanley, Parliament abolished slavery in the colonies over a five-year period with compensations of £20 million to slave owners. It ended a long campaign by abolitionists led by William Wilberforce. | 10 |
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| Aug. 29 |
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| A factory act forbade the employment of children under 9 years of age and restricted the hours of labor for those between 9 and 13 years to 48 hours per week, or 9 hours per day, and for those from 13 to 18 years of age to 69 hours per week, or 12 per day. It also required that children under 13 years of age have 2 hours of schooling per day and established a system of paid inspectors. The bill reflected changes in the use of children in factories and the disdain the middle class demonstrated for parents who allowed their children to work in such a way. | 11 |
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