1. Butterfield, Herbert, The Whig Interpretation of History (London, 1959), p. 15Google Scholar.

2. Morley, John, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone (New York, 1903), II, 223Google Scholar.

3. ibid., II, 227.

4. Ibid.

5. Trevelyan, G. M., “The Great Days of Reform,” in The Making of English History, ed. Schuyler, R. L. and Ausubel, H. (New York, 1952), p. 494Google Scholar.

6. Trevelyan, G. M., British History in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1922), p. 347Google Scholar. (Recently reissued as a Pelican paperback, this book still has considerable influence.) See also Gillespie, Frances E., Labor and Politics in England, 1850-67 (Durham, N.C., 1927), p. 289Google Scholar: “The Act of 1867 was the culmination of a development that had been continuous since the agitation for the first reform bill. It was the inevitable result of policies forced upon all classes in the state by the facts of the social and political world.”

7. The chief dissenters from the “Whig interpretation of history” are: Herrick, Francis H., “The Reform Bill of 1867 and the British Party System,” Pacific Hist. Rev., III (1934), 216–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The Second Reform Movement in Britain,” J.H.I., IX (1948), 174–92Google Scholar; Park, Joseph H., The English Reform Bill of 1867 (New York, 1920)Google Scholar; Dickinson, G. Lowes, The Development of Parliament during the Nineteenth Century (London, 1895)Google Scholar; and Briggs, Asa, Victorian People (London, 1954)Google Scholar, and The Age of Improvement (London, 1959)Google Scholar. These writers, of course, differ among themselves and from the present analysis. The most notable departure from the Whig interpretation, unfortunately appearing too late to be utilized in this essay, is Beer, Samuel H.'s British Politics in the Collectivist Age (New York, 1966)Google Scholar. Without implicating Professor Beer in my own interpretation of 1867, I should like to express my gratification at finding myself in general accord with what I regard as one of the most distinguished works of recent years.

The neo-Marxist interpretation has more in common with the Whig interpretation than might be thought, both being deterministic in the same sense (although in the one case the ruling classes are presumed to have responded to the “social facts” and “needs of the new era” with a “wise alacrity,” and in the other to have responded to those facts and needs reluctantly and belatedly, as a result of working-class pressure and the threat of violence). The most explicit neo-Marxist analysis is Harrison, Royden's “The Tenth April of Spencer Walpole: the Problem of Revolution in Relation to Reform, 1865-67,” in Before the Socialists (London, 1965)Google Scholar. Harrison maintains that in 1867 the working class “had attained precisely that level of development at which it was safe to concede its enfranchisement and dangerous to withhold it,” that “a Reform Act had become essential,” that “the Tory Statesmen were bowing to a process which it was beyond their power to control.” ibid., pp. 133, 135.

8. Walpole, Spencer, The Life of Lord John Russell (London, 1891), II, 342Google Scholar.

9. Martin, Theodore, The Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort (London, 1879), IV, 410Google Scholar.

10. Punch, VI (1859), 70.Google Scholar

11. Fortnightly Review, I (1865), 327Google Scholar; Bagehot, Walter, The English Constitution (World's Classics ed.; London, 1928), p. 238Google Scholar. Since the timing of Bagehot's remarks is significant, the citations here are to the essays as they originally appeared in the Fortnightly Review between June 15, 1865, and January 1, 1867. When the essays were republished as a volume later in 1867, not only were the original dates omitted but their order was changed, so that observations made before the opening of the debate on reform would seem to belong to a later stage of the controversy and vice versa. There were also significant deletions and changes in the volume.

12. Fortnightly Review, IV (1866), 274;Google ScholarBagehot, , English Constitution, p. 144Google Scholar.

13. The conventional thesis about the influence of the Civil War is documented in Pelling, Henry, America and the British Left (New York, 1957), pp. 7–29Google Scholar. But what he succeeds in showing is that both proponents and opponents of reform invoked America to support their prior prejudices and positions — not that they were influenced by America to change their prejudices and positions. Another foreign influence to which Asa Briggs gives much prominence — the visit of Garibaldi to London in April 1864 — is similarly inconclusive. Briggs, , Age of Improvement, pp. 495–96Google Scholar.

14. Cecil, Robert, “The Theories of Parliamentary Reform,” in Oxford Essays (London, 1858), p. 52Google Scholar.

15. See Briggs, , Age of Improvement, p. 504Google Scholar, for the way economic facts may be interspersed with political events so as to give the impression that there was a causal relationship between the two, when in fact there is no evidence that the one even figured in the other. The point is further discussed below, pp. 128-32.

16. Morley, , Gladstone, II, 126.Google Scholar

17. 3 Hansard 182: 873 (Mar. 23, 1866)Google Scholar.

18. ibid. 183: 152 (Apr. 27, 1866).

19. Monypenny, W. F. and Buckle, G. E., The Life of Benjamin Disraeli (London, 1929), I, 1576Google Scholar.

20 3 Hansard 183: 1647 (May 31, 1866)Google Scholar.

21. Monypenny, and Buckle, , Disraeli, II, 164.Google Scholar

22. Quoted by Park, , English Reform Bill, p. 94Google Scholar.

23. It is deceptive to say, as Harrison does: “The Government's measure not only split its own supporters, but divided the League. Beesly, out of regard for Bright, supported the Bill, others followed Ernest Jones in his bitter denunciations of it.” Harrison, , Before the Socialists, p. 82Google Scholar. From this statement one might deduce that the split in the government ranks came from the fact that the bill was insufficiently radical — whereas there was hot a single defection on this account; or that the League was more or less evenly “divided” between those supporting and those opposing the bill — whereas the supporters were in the overwhelming majority and represented the official position of the League.

24. Trevelyan, G. M., The Life of John Bright (London, 1913), p. 351Google Scholar.

25. Walpole, , Russell, II, 429.Google Scholar

26. The History of “The Times”, II (London, 1939), 403Google Scholar.

27. The Reform League itself had had its origin, in 1864, in a similar episode involving the right of assembly. The initial move for its formation came immediately after the police had broken up a meeting protesting against the curtailment of Garibaldi's visit. And from the first the right of assembly was one of its principal demands.

28. The desperation of historians intent upon finding evidence of popular revolutionary sentiment may be seen in Harrison's attempt to make a major cause out of a still more minor incident: the meeting at Hyde Park on May 6, 1867. The whole of his essay is focussed on this one episode, which, as the title suggests, is held to be analogous to April 10, 1848, when the Chartist petition was presented to Parliament, and which, like that earlier date, is held to epitomize the threat of revolution. But just as one may doubt that April 10 was “one of the most famous days in the history of the nineteenth century,” so one may doubt the importance of May 6. The Government's “surrender of 6 May,” it is said, “served as harbinger and analogue” to its “surrender on Reform.” But its “surrender” on 6 May was nothing more momentous than a tactful retreat from an injudicious position; having earlier prohibited the meeting, it then tacitly permitted it — and made its change of mind known at least two days before the meeting was held. And the “surrender” on reform which supposedly followed the “surrender” of 6 May had in fact been decided upon by the Government long before. Lacking even the trampled flower beds and broken railings of the preceding July 22, May 6, 1867, has still less claim to demonstrating the importance of “mass agitation” in the passage of the Reform Act. Harrison, , Before the Socialists, pp. 78, 106, 101Google Scholar.

29. Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, Correspondence (New York, 1935), p. 213Google Scholar.

30. A typical exaggeration is the statement that “a number of heads were broken.” Magnus, Philip, Gladstone (London, 1954), p. 182Google Scholar.

31. Arnold, Matthew, Culture and Anarchy, ed. Wilson, J. Dover (Cambridge, 1957), p. xxviGoogle Scholar.

32. Trevelyan, , Bright, p. 361Google Scholar.

33. Trevelyan, , British History, p. 344Google Scholar.

34. Trevelyan, , Bright, p. 365Google Scholar.

35. ibid., p. 382.

36. 3 Hansard 188: 1106 (July 5, 1867)Google Scholar.

37. Bagehot, , English Constitution, p. 267Google Scholar.

38. 3 Hansard 182: 2093 (Apr. 26, 1866)Google Scholar.

39. ibid. 186: 70-71 (Mar. 18, 1867).

40. Monypenny, and Buckle, , Disraeli, II, 218.Google Scholar

41. ibid., II, 269-70.

42. Morley, , Gladstone, II, 225.Google Scholar

43. Cox, Homersham, A History of the Reform Bills of 1866 and 1867 (London, 1868), p. 282Google Scholar.

44. Cox, Homersham, Whig and Tory Administration during the hast Thirteen Years (London, 1868), p. 51Google Scholar.

45. Cox, , Reform Bills, p. 279Google Scholar.

46. Cox, , Whig and Tory Administration, p. 50Google Scholar; 3 Hansard 187: 717 (May 17, 1867)Google Scholar.

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48. ibid., II, 224-25.

49. Disraeli, Benjamin, Contarini Fleming (2nd ed.; London, 1845), p. 101Google Scholar.

50. Monypenny, and Buckle, , Disraeli, II, 222.Google Scholar

51. Robertson, William, Life and Times of the Right Hon. John Bright (London, n.d.), p. 425Google Scholar.

52. Morley, , Gladstone, II, 225.Google Scholar

53. Monypenny, and Buckle, , Disraeli, II, 287.Google Scholar

54. Park, , English Reform Bill, p. 242Google Scholar, quoting Disraeli, , The Chancellor of the Exchequer in Scotland, p. 29Google Scholar.

55. Monypenny, and Buckle, , Disraeli, II, 279.Google Scholar

56. Cox, , Whig and Tory Administration, pp. 50–51Google Scholar.

57. 3 Hansard 99: 951 (June 20, 1848)Google Scholar.

58. Cox, , Whig and Tory Administration, p. 57Google Scholar. Cox mistakenly used the figure of £6 instead of £7 in describing the Liberal bill — a telling slip. (See below p. 118.)

59. 3 Hansard 188: 1605 (July 15, 1867)Google Scholar.

60. Earl of Malmesbury, Memoirs of an Ex-Minister (London, 1884), II, 369Google Scholar.

61. 3 Hansard 188: 1603 (July 15, 1867)Google Scholar.

62. Quarterly Review, CXXVII (1869), 541–42Google Scholar.

63. Ostrogorski, M., Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties, ed. Lipset, S. M. (New York, 1964), I, 124Google Scholar, quoting the Times, Apr. 18, 1883.

64. 3 Hansard 182: 40 (Mar. 12, 1866)Google Scholar; ibid. 182: 1137 (Apr. 12, 1866).

65. Monypenny, and Buckle, , Disraeli, II, 289.Google Scholar

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68. Monypenny, and Buckle, , Disraeli, I, 1580.Google Scholar

69. See above, p. 109.

70. 3 Hansard 182: 53 (Mar. 12, 1866)Google Scholar.

71. Jones, Wilbur D., Lord Derby and Victorian Conservatism (Athens, Ga., 1956), p. 285Google Scholar.

72. Briggs, , Age of Improvement, p. 511Google Scholar. See also Harrison, , Before the Socialists, p. 115Google Scholar: “An examination of the papers of Tory Cabinet ministers reveals that Gladstone's opponents were in dire need of information and were really un-certain about the make-up of the class with which they had to deal.”

73. See above, p. 97.

74. See quotation below, n. 77.

75. E.g., Tholfsen, Trygve R., “The Transition to Democracy in Victorian England,” International Review of Social History, VI (1961), 226–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Here the Reform Act appears as a demonstration of the “Liberal Victorian faith” — a “belief in progress through rational reform” and the “liberal confidence in class harmony” — the faith that, after 1867, kept the working class loyal to the Liberal Party and that inspired the philosophy of Lib-Labism. Nowhere, in this account of the “Liberal” faith, is there any mention of the fact that the act was passed by the Conservatives rather than by the Liberals.

76. E.g., Lichtheim, George, Marxism (New York, 1961), pp. 98, 102Google Scholar: “1867 was also the year in which the second Reform Bill gave the vote to the upper layer of the British working class” (my italics); “It was the Tories under Disraeli's skilled leadership who reaped most of the benefits in 1867, when the skilled workers got the vote” (my italics). A more interesting compound of error, inconsistency, and grudging admission may be found in Checkland, S. G., The Rise of Industrial Society in England (London, 1964), p. 369Google Scholar: “Disraeli's Reform Act extended the vote to cover the £10 householders, lodgers paying £10 rent in the towns, and to £12 householders in the counties. Not all were satisfied with what had been gained, but it was a notable advance over 1832. The artisan in the towns was now virtually enfranchised.”

77. Bryce, James, Studies in Contemporary Biography (New York, 1903), p. 14.Google Scholar

78. Trevelyan, , Bright, p. 373Google Scholar.

79. Cole, G. D. H. and Postgate, R., The British Common People (New York, 1939), p. 348Google Scholar.

80. Gillespie, , Labor and Politics, p. 265Google Scholar.

81. Thomson, David, England in the nineteenth Century (London, 1950), p. 127Google Scholar.

82. Southgate, Donald, The Passing of the Whigs (London, 1962), pp. 318, 320Google Scholar. One may continue to document this attitude indefinitely — e.g., the references to a “Conservative surrender,” as if the Conservatives had reluctantly yielded to Liberal demands. Pelling, , America and the British Left, p. 9Google Scholar; Harrison, , Before the Socialists, p. 106Google Scholar.

83. Cox, , Whig and Tory Administration, p. 39Google Scholar.

84. Trevelyan, , Bright, p. 357Google Scholar.

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86. Bryce, , Studies, p. 298Google Scholar.

87. In his British History, Trevelyan attached great significance to Blight's lesser cabinet position while failing to mention Lowe's far more important one; and in his biography of Bright, Lowe's position is referred to only in a footnote. See also Christie, O. F., The Transition from Aristocracy (London, 1927), p. 160Google Scholar: “It had become almost impossible to say such things [the venality of the working class …] and survive politically. Lowe was afterwards obliged to look for a seat in a new academic constituency.” Again there is no mention of the fact that he survived so well as to become Chancellor of the Exchequer.

88. Magnus, , Gladstone, p. 178Google Scholar.

89. 3 Hansard 182: 2100 (Apr. 26, 1866)Google Scholar.

90. Brodrick, George C., “The Utilitarian Argument against Reform as Stated by Mr. Lowe,” in Essays on Reform (London, 1867), p. 2Google Scholar.

91. Leslie Stephen, “On the Choice of Representatives by Popular Constituencies,” ibid., p. 88.

92. 3 Hansard 183: 1639–40Google Scholar (May 31, 1866).

93. ibid. 182: 2093 (Apr. 26, 1866).

94. ibid. 182: 2088.

95. ibid. 182: 2103.

96. Ibid. 183: 1650 (May 31, 1866).

97. ibid. 188: 1540 (July 15, 1867).

98. E.g., Trevelyan, , Bright, p. 395Google Scholar: “Gladstone had transformed the old Whig-Liberal party into a Liberal-Radical party on the basis of Bright's programme.” Or Gillespie, , Labor and Politics, p. 291Google Scholar: “The Act of 1867 gave the Radical faction the ascendancy within the Liberal party.”

99. Trevelyan, , Bright, p. 405Google Scholar. Other contemporaries agreed. In 1870 Bagehot wrote that “in the present cabinet, unless consistent rumor speaks false, his voice has more usually been a Conservative voice than the contrary.” “Mr. Bright's Retirement,” Bagehot's Historical Essays, ed. John-Stevas, Norman St. (Garden City, N.Y., 1965), p. 227Google Scholar. A few years later Bagehot found “few more typical Conservatives in the House of Commons than Mr. Bright.” “The Conservative Vein in Mr. Bright,” ibid., p. 229.

100. 3 Hansard 182: 213-14, 224 (Mar. 13, 1866)Google Scholar.

101. Walling, R. A. J. (ed.), The Diaries of John Bright (London, 1930), p. 296Google Scholar.

102. ibid., p. 300.

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104. ibid., p. 160.

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107. Trevelyan, , Bright, p. 375Google Scholar.

108. ibid., p. 373.

109. 3 Hansard 186: 636–37 (Mar. 26, 1867)Google Scholar.

110. ibid. 186: 637.

111. The difficulty of making Bright conform to the Liberal image may be illustrated by Gillespie's account, in which he is alternately described as favoring manhood suffrage, as refusing to “come out for manhood suffrage,” and as refusing to “stand for household suffrage” — all within the same period and with no mention of either the Instruction or the Residuum; or by such contradictory statements as that the Reform Act was “on a more sweeping scale than even Bright had ever stood for,” followed by the non sequitur: “Bright had succeeded at last because, after repeated failures, he had been able to call in the people to redress the balance in the House of Commons.” Gillespie, , Labor and Politics, pp. 270, 273, 286, 288Google Scholar.

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113. ibid. 188: 1550-53.

114. Park, , English Reform Bill, p. 243Google Scholar, quoting the Times, June 12, 1867.

115. 3 Hansard 188: 1603-04, 1609–10 (July 15, 1867)Google Scholar.

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117. There is another, and to a certain extent contradictory, thesis that finds significance in the fact that the Conservatives sponsored the Act of 1867 enfranchising the urban working class and the Liberals the Act of 1884 enfranchising the agricultural laborers — each giving away, so to speak, what belonged to the other. But this does not take account of the tendency of the agricultural laborers to vote with their Conservative landlords rather than against them. The facility of constructing such plausible but contradictory theses casts suspicion upon them all.

118. The appendices and index to Southgate, Passing of the Whigs, come closest to a Namierite analysis. But the information is too superficial and fragmentary and too unrelated to questions of public policy to be of much assistance in the present inquiry.

119. See above, p. 120.

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121. Times, May 23, 1867.

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