Representation of the People Act 1884

2025-10-01T15:53:17Z

2A04:4A43:4B5F:EB33:3578:2EAE:427E:2BED: Reworded a sentence to make it more neutral - the original wording made it seem like 50% for Ireland was somehow worse than 40% for England and Wales.

{{short description|United Kingdom law reforming the electoral system}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2023}}
{{EngvarB|date=January 2018}}
{{Infobox UK legislation
|short_title =Representation of<br/>the People Act 1884
|type =Act
|parliament =Parliament of the United Kingdom
|long_title =An Act to amend the Law relating to the Representation of the People of the United Kingdom.
|year=1884|statute_book_chapter =48 & 49 Vict. c. 3
|introduced_by =[[William Ewart Gladstone|William Gladstone]]
|territorial_extent =United Kingdom
|royal_assent =6 December 1884
|commencement =
|repeal_date =
|amendments =
|related_legislation = [[Redistribution of Seats Act 1885]]
|repealing_legislation =[[Representation of the People Act 1918]]
|status =Repealed
|original_text =
|legislation_history =
}}

[[File:William Ewart Gladstone by Rupert Potter.jpg|thumb|right|167px|[[William Ewart Gladstone]] in 1884.]]
In the [[United Kingdom]] under the premiership of [[William Ewart Gladstone|William Gladstone]], the '''Representation of the People Act 1884''' ([[48 & 49 Vict.]] c. 3), also known informally as the '''Third Reform Act''',<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hayes |first=William A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iSAmAAAAMAAJ |title=The Background and Passage of the Third Reform Act |date=1982 |publisher=Garland Pub. |isbn=978-0-8240-5156-3 |language=en}}</ref> and the [[Redistribution of Seats Act 1885|Redistribution Act]] of the following year were laws which further extended the suffrage in the UK after the [[Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby|Derby]] government's [[Reform Act 1867]].<ref name=":0" /> Taken together, these measures extended the same [[voting]] qualifications as existed in the towns to the countryside, more than doubling the electorate in the counties, and essentially established the modern [[First-past-the-post|one member constituency]] as the normal pattern for [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|parliamentary]] representation.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blackburn |first=Robert |date=February 2011 |title=Laying the Foundations of the Modern Voting System: The Representation of the People Act 1918: Laying the Foundations of the Modern Voting System |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1750-0206.2010.00237.x |journal=Parliamentary History |language=en |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=33–52 |doi=10.1111/j.1750-0206.2010.00237.x|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The bill was introduced by Gladstone on 28 February 1884. The Conservative-dominated House of Lords rejected the bill on 17 July but then passed it. It gained royal assent on 6 December of that year.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Andrew |authorlink=Andrew Jones (historian)|title=The politics of reform 1884 |date=2008 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-08281-5 |location=Cambridge |oclc=233543817}}</ref>

The Act extended the 1867 concessions from the [[borough]]s to the countryside. All men paying an annual rental of £10 and all those holding land valued at £10 now had the vote.<ref name=":0" /> This significantly increased the electorate; in the [[1880 United Kingdom general election|1880 general election]], before the passing of the Act, 3,040,050 voters were registered, while in the [[1885 United Kingdom general election|1885 general election]], after the passing of the Act, there were 5,708,030 registered voters.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Craig |first=Fred W. S. |title=British electoral facts, 1832–1987 |date=1989 |publisher=Parliamentary Research Services, Dartmouth |isbn=0-900178-30-2 |edition=5th |location=Aldershot, Hants., England |oclc=20057069}}</ref> The bill was so objectionable to the House of Lords that [[William Ewart Gladstone|Gladstone]] was forced to separate the legislation into two bills,<ref name=":0">McKechnie, ''The reform of the House of Lords'' p.49</ref> the second being the [[Redistribution of Seats Act 1885]], which redistributed constituencies in order to equalise representation within constituencies across the UK.<ref name="lowell">{{cite book |last=Lowell |first=A. Lawrence |url=https://archive.org/stream/governmentofengl028326mbp#page/n225/mode/2up |title=The Government of England |publisher=Macmillan |year=1912 |volume=1 |location=London |page=199 |author-link=Abbott Lawrence Lowell}}</ref>

The 1884 Reform Act did not establish [[universal suffrage]]: although the size of the electorate was increased considerably, all women and 40% of men were still without the vote.<ref>{{cite book|last=Pilkington|first=Colin|title=The Politics today companion to the British Constitution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oSYdxnZrzqUC&q=representation+of+the+people+1884&pg=PA134|year=1999|publisher=[[Manchester University Press]]|isbn=978-0-7190-5303-0|page=134}}</ref><ref name="Cook">{{cite book |last=Cook |first=Chris |title=The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Nineteenth Century, 1815-1914|url=https://archive.org/details/routledgecompani00cook|url-access=limited |year=2005|publisher=[[Routledge]]|isbn=978-0-415-35970-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/routledgecompani00cook/page/n80 68]}}</ref> Male suffrage varied throughout the kingdom, too: in England and Wales, two in three adult males had the vote; in Scotland, three in five did; in Ireland, the figure was one in two.<ref name="Cook" />

==Key sections of the Act==
{{Unreferenced section|date=November 2020}}
''Section 2'': This extended a uniform household (freeholder and leaseholder) franchise to all [[Borough constituency|parliamentary boroughs]] and [[County constituency|counties]] in the [[United Kingdom]].

''Section 3'': Men inhabiting a dwelling-house as an employee, whose employer did not live there, were to be treated for franchise purposes as if they were occupying as tenants.

''Section 4'': Prohibition of multiplicity of votes. This was not to stop people acquiring multiple votes in different constituencies ([[plural voting]] was still permitted), but to restrict sub-division of one property to qualify multiple voters (so-called [[faggot voter]]s).

''Section 5a'': A man who was a £10 occupier in a county or borough was to be a voter in that county or borough. This assimilated the previous county occupation franchise and borough occupation franchise into a uniform occupation franchise.

''Section 6'': Occupation in a borough was not to confer a county franchise.

==Effects==

As many crofters in the [[Scottish Highlands]] qualified as £10 occupiers, the Act empowered Scottish Gaels to take action against evictions and rent increases at the end of the [[Highland Clearances]]. Their votes led to the formation of the [[Crofters' Party]] and [[Highland Land League]],<ref>{{cite web|last1=Crowley|first1=D.W.|title=The Crofters' Party – 1885 to 1892 The first British independent common people's political party|url=http://www.caledonia.org.uk/land/documents/Crofters%27%20Party.pdf|access-date=24 April 2017}}</ref> and eventually the passage of the [[Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886]], which addressed many of their grievances and put an end to the [[Highland Clearances]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Derick S. |last=Thomson |author-link=Derick S. Thomson |title=The Companion to Gaelic Scotland |publisher=Basil Blackwater Publisher Lim., [[Àth nan Damh]] |year=1983 |isbn= 0-631-12502-7|page=88}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Wikisource}}
* [[Democracy in Europe]]
* [[Reform Acts]]
* [[Representation of the People Act]]
* [[Parliamentary franchise in the United Kingdom 1885–1918]]
* [[Medical Relief Disqualification Removal Act 1885]]

==References==
* ''The Statutes: Second Revised Edition, Vol. XVI 1884–1886'', (printed by authority 1900)
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{cite book|last=Cunningham Glen|first=W|title=The Representation of the People Act, 1884, with introduction notes and index.|url=https://archive.org/details/representationp00glengoog|year=1885|publisher=Shaw & Sons}}
*[https://archives.parliament.uk/collections/getrecord/GB61_HL_PO_PU_1_1884_48and49V1n5 Digital reproduction of the Original Act on the Parliamentary Archives catalogue]

{{UK electoral reform|state=expanded}}

[[Category:1884 in British law]]
[[Category:Representation of the People Acts]]
[[Category:December 1884]]
[[Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1884]]
[[Category:William Ewart Gladstone]]

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Representation of the People Act 1884