5. In what ways did the 18th century see such conflict of interests between different groups of
power?
Answers
Answer:
From caricatures capturing public opinion to riots on the streets, in this article Matthew White discusses how the majority of Georgians, who didn’t have the right to vote, engaged in politics and expressed their grievances.
Throughout the Georgian period the political rights of ordinary men and women were extremely limited. Only those men with substantial property or wealth were entitled to vote – this amounted to around 200,000 individuals, which was only a tiny fraction of the population. Many Members of Parliament were elected to represent ‘rotten boroughs’ – these were boroughs in which just a handful of voters enjoyed totally disproportionate representation in Parliament. Many large towns such as Manchester, on the other hand, which were expanding quickly as a result of migration and industrialisation, had no representation at Westminster at all until the passing of the first Reform Act in 1832.