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| 1835, Sept. 9 |
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| The Municipal Corporations Bill provided a uniform plan of government for all boroughs and cities except London and 67 small towns. Each town government was to consist of a mayor elected annually, councilors elected every three years by the freemen and rate payers, and aldermen chosen by the councilors. | 1 |
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| 1836 |
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| The London Workingman's Association, under the direction of Francis Place and William Lovett, drafted the Charter, which would provide the impetus for the Chartist movement (1838–48). It demanded (1) universal male suffrage, (2) the secret ballot, (3) abolition of the property qualification for M.P.'s, (4) payment of M.P.'s, (5) equal electoral districts, and (6) annual Parliaments. The Chartist movement combined diverse local working-class organizations in the demand for the Charter. | 2 |
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| 1837, Nov |
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| Feargus O'Connor started the national, Chartist Northern Star newspaper and advocated the use of physical force in defense of the rights of labor. William Lovett differed from O'Connor and advocated moral force. | 3 |
| Female suffrage. Some radicals, such as Thomas Salt, addressed the issue within the working-class press and sought to expand the Charter to include women in the franchise. | 4 |
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| 1839, Nov. 4 |
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| The Newport Uprising was the result of rising unemployment and cuts in hours exacerbated by the Chartist activities of John Frost. Welsh miners joined with Frost and other Welsh radicals to march to Newport, take the city, and demand that the mines be turned over to their control. The rising was thwarted by a combination of bad organization and poor weather, which made it impossible to keep to the tightly coordinated time schedule. As a result of the failed uprising, John Frost and several other Chartists were sentenced to death. These sentences were later commuted to life in exile. | 5 |
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| 1840–42 |
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| Chadwick Commission reported on public health problems and overcrowding in the cities, which demanded action from governments in addressing issues such as sewage, housing conditions, and trash removal. This work eventually resulted in the enactment of the Public Health Bill (1848). The bill set up a central board of health and allowed communities to set up local boards if they desired. | 6 |
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| 1840, Feb. 10 |
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| Queen Victoria married Prince Albert. | 7 |
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| 1842 |
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| Mining Act carried after a parliamentary report on the mines revealed the terrible conditions in which individuals employed in the mines worked. The bill forbade the use of children under age 10 and all women underground and the payment of miners in public houses. The restrictions on women's and children's work cut the incomes of many miners' families. More legislation followed in 1844, which restricted the work of women in factories and required that dangerous machinery be fenced. | 8 |
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| 1842 |
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| Plug Plot Strikes. Economic hardships coupled with the passage of the Mining Act resulted in a wave of traditional protests in the area of Staffordshire. Crowds marched through northern mill towns, protesting wages and removing the plugs from the boilers in factories to stop employers from using strikebreakers to keep the factories working. | 9 |
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| 1844 |
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| The Bank Charter Act separated the Bank of England into commercial business and issue departments and made it the only issuer of currency in the country. Parliament also enacted the Joint Stock Companies Act, which required all companies that issued transferable stock to be registered. | 10 |
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| 1845 |
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| John Henry Newman joined the Roman Catholic Church. Newman's conversion was the product of the Oxford Movement, begun with Rev. John Keble's sermon on national apostasy in 1833. This movement stressed the continuity between the Anglican and Catholic Churches and concentrated on reviving High Church teachings and asserting Catholic rights. Newman was the foremost apologist for the movement and wrote many of the tracts used by the movement in its campaign. | 11 |
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| 1846, June 26 |
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| Repeal of the Corn Laws under Peel as a result of increased agitation and the Irish potato famine. The repeal was designed to discourage claims that the government was stopping imports of foodstuffs into Ireland, but it also demonstrated the growing strength of the Anti–Corn Law League. The league began in 1838 but gathered momentum in the early 1840s. The Chartists opposed the league because of its middle-class support and its failure to recognize that no real benefits to the working classes could come about without suffrage reform. | 12 |
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| 1847, June 8 |
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| Ten Hours Bill passed. The bill limited the work of women and children to ten hours a day. | 13 |
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