Between 1780 and 1782, Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, formed to mobilize the political classes against the government and its disastrous American War, came to identify as its chief aim ‘parliamentary reform’. This choice of slogan helped to give the word ‘reform’ a centrality in English public life which it had not had before, but which it would retain for more than half a century.

The very noun-form ‘reform’ was novel. This is not to say that it had never previously been used; yet it had been uncommon. The standard noun-form of the verb ‘reform’ had been ‘reformation’. The Wyvillite slogan probably helped to popularize the shortened form of the noun.

The verb ‘reform’ and the nouns ‘reformer’ and ‘reformation’ had all had some role in English political discussion for several centuries previously. Over time, their associations and connotations had shifted, and they had risen and fallen in favour. My impression is that they increased in use from the mid-eighteenth century: shifts in 1780 did not mark an unheralded break with the past. Yet it seems clear that the Wyvillite campaign both significantly promoted their use, and helped to change the ways in which they were used.

In this chapter, I survey patterns in the use and further shifts in the associations and connotations of this cluster of words down to the 1830s and beyond. I begin with a sketch of their previous history.