Rotten Boroughs and Reform
Background
A borough was “a town possessing a municipal corporation and special privileges conferred by royal charter” (Oxford English Dictionary). Among these privileges, boroughs had the right to send representatives to Parliament. No new boroughs had been chartered in England since the 17th century (Corey 371). As the nation aged, its population and industry changed, creating a disparity between the nation's demographics and its system of governmental representation. With the advent and unrestrained growth of the Industrial Revolution, population and wealth concentrated and massed in northern towns and cities. While seats in Parliament remained occupied by representatives from the antiquated boroughs, "no provisions were made to represent the growing commercial and professional classes" (Corey 372).
In some cases, boroughs had become severely degraded due to poverty, depopulation, or even natural disasters. “Another ancient borough, Dunwhich, had for centuries been buried under the North sea,” that sea-side town having long since given way to erosion (Hughes 84). Such boroughs were considered “rotten,” as they were effectively controlled by one town corporation or large land-owner, as only the propertied upper class was eligible to vote. Such aristocrats often controlled their constituents' votes by bribery and coercion (Corey 372). For example, see William Makepeace Thackeray's installment novel, Vanity Fair. Thackeray uses “Queen's Crawley” to represent a “rotten” borough.
Reform
The 1832 Reform Bill enfranchised lawyers, factory owners, merchants, and other members of the middle class, stipulating as a requirement at least a rental lease of at least fifty pounds per year (Bloy). In addition, fifty-six old boroughs were abolished, their Parliamentary seats redistributed among some new boroughs and counties, somewhat more appropriate to population demographics (Corey 372). Not all of the rotten boroughs were eliminated at this point, however.
Widespread enfranchisement occurred slowly, as successive acts made their way through Parliament during the Victorian age. The 1867 Reform Bill lowered the stipulations to five pounds per annum for leaseholders, adding approximately one million voters. The subsequent Reform Bill of 1885 added two million voters to the electorate by enfranchising households in the counties as well (Hughes 84).
Those forces turned London into a contested terrain between the marginalized group and bourgeois when their roles began to blur. When
The Virginia House of Burgesses was a system of representative government created by the Virginia Company, first convened in 1619. It could make laws and levy taxes; however, the English governor and council could veto its acts. New England’s Town Meetings were the main institution of local government in a Yeoman Society in which most adult men had a vote. (1630-1700). Both were significant because they are both institution of governments created by the people to represent the people. The Virginia House of Burgesses attracted the migrants and the Town Meetings were created to fit the need of the Purtians’
Industrialization changed the demographic make up of England. In The Victorian Church in York Edward Royle states that "As suburban development turned sparsely populated manors into thriving and populous communities, further parochial sub-division took place" (2). Where small parishes once were sufficient, the larger manufacturing towns demanded more parishes be added to minister to the larger population. In 1832 the "Church of England was in danger and quite unequipped for ministry to an emerging urban industrial society" (Parsons 16). There was a shortage of clergy because of the rapid unanticipated growth.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, several factors contributed to the growth and expansion of cities in the United States. The 1850s saw a fantastic peak in the immigration of Europeans to America, and they quickly flocked to cities where they could form communities and hopefully find work1. The rushing industrialization of the entire country also helped to rapidly convert America from a primarily agrarian nation to an urban society.
This was the 1867 Reform Act. In 1832, the Great Reform Act was passed, this allowed most middle class men to vote, but not working class men. But, the 1867 Reform Act changed that. This Act would have led to all men who had lived at the same address for 12 months being able to vote. This meant that many more working class men were able to vote in the General elections.
Voting in the colonies came to have strict requirements regarding who was allowed to vote. Only white, male Christians who owned land had the right to vote (Doc 2). If you strayed from even one of these requirements you were not allowed to vote. This left politics to one particular group of people. General Assemblies were established in which governors were elected, by those could vote, to run theses courts (Doc 3). The House of Burgess was established as well as the General Assemblies and it consisted of representatives who were elected by the people (Doc 6).
The United States’ government has always had a hand on our country’s housing market. From requiring land ownership to vote, to providing public housing to impoverished families, our government has become an irremovable part of the housing market. The effects of these housing policies can affect American residents in ways they might not even recognize. As several historians have concluded, many housing policies, especially those on public housing, either resulted in or reinforced the racial segregation of neighborhoods.
Social distinctions between owners and servants. In 1670 freemen could vote to elect planters or farmers to legislature. No servant was part of the House of Burgesses until 1640. In 1670 poor men voting was outlawed.
During the 1750's, the most wealthy people in the town held the most property, meaning they obtained the most power and money. As time moved on, though, voting requiremen...
In the end of 18th century to 19th century, more and more people began moving into developed cities. Especially in New York City, thousands of new immigrants were seeking a better life than the one they had before. Tenements were built as a way to accommodate this growing population, and the majority people who lived in tenements were working-class, cause back to that time most tenements were located near factories, tenements were highly concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods of the city. A typical tenement building had four to five stories, in order to maximize the number of renters and to maximize their profits, builders wasted little space and buildings that had been single-family residence were divided into multiple living spaces to fit in more people, early tenements might dwell in almost 90 percent of their lots. There were no housing laws to protect the rights for people who lived in tenements until they stated The First
In Victorian society, the beliefs of the people were generally strict. They had a low tolerance for crime, good social ethics, and believed in sexual repression. Any criminal who was publicly found guilty of a crime was punished harshly and looked down upon (Chesterton 3). Upper class citizens prided themselves on looking and acting like royalty. The upper classes held parties often, dressed in only the best, and spent most of their time with other members of the same class (Wagner 5-8). Though they shared these beliefs publicly, crime, poverty, and prostitution were rampant for the majority of the era (Gorman 325-326). The upper class focused on impressing other upper class members; so much that the lower classes lived in terrible conditions. They forced children to work, and men often showed little sexual restraint in their private lives. This is represented by one of the main carvings on the Westminster Palace. The Palace is decorated in and out with carvings of countless people and animals. After the building burnt down in 1834, a competition was held for a design of a new palace. Charles Barry would win (Foley, Mark). He was a well known architect in the t...
Gentrification is the keystone for the progression of the basic standards of living in urban environments. A prerequisite for the advancement of urban areas is an improvement of housing, dining, and general social services. One of the most revered and illustrious examples of gentrification in an urban setting is New York City. New York City’s gentrification projects are seen as a model for gentrification for not only America, but also the rest of the world. Gentrification in an urban setting is much more complex and has deeper ramifications than seen at face value. With changes in housing, modifications to the quality of life in the surrounding area must be considered as well. Constant lifestyle changes in a community can push out life-time
One Victorian sentiment was that a civilized individual could be determined by her/his appearance. This notion was readily adopted by the upper classes and, among other things, helped shape their views of the lower classes, who certainly appeared inferior to them. In regards to social mobility, members of the upper classes may have (through personal tragedy or loss) often moved to a lower-class status, but rarely did one see an individual move up from the abysmal lower class. Although poverty could be found almost anywhere in Victorian London (one could walk along a street of an affluent neighborhood, turn the corner, and find oneself in an area of depravity and decay), most upper-class Londoners, who tended to dwell in the West End, associated the East End with the lower class.
Beginning in the 1960s, middle and upper class populations began moving out of the suburbs and back into urban areas. At first, this revitalization of urban areas was 'treated as a 'back to the city' movement of suburbanites, but recent research has shown it to be a much more complicated phenomenon' (Schwirian 96). This phenomenon was coined 'gentrification' by researcher Ruth Glass in 1964 to describe the residential movement of middle-class people into low-income areas of London (Zukin 131). More specifically, gentrification is the renovation of previously poor urban dwellings, typically into condominiums, aimed at upper and middle class professionals. Since the 1960s, gentrification has appeared in large cities such as Washington D.C., San Francisco, and New York. This trend among typically young, white, upper-middle class working professionals back into the city has caused much controversy (Schwirian 96). The arguments for and against gentrification will be examined in this paper.
"'Don't you know that some cities are ruled by tyranny, some by a democracy, and some by an aristocracy?'