ABSTRACT
When Liverpool resigned early in 1827 the cause of parliamentary reform seemed as forlorn as at any time since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Public interest was muted; the issue hardly figured in the election of 1826. Yet a measure which many Tories believed fatal to the cause of sound government was on the statute-book less than five and a half years later. The speed of the change may seem remarkable and the crowded narrative of events in the interim has its confusions, but three important explanatory factors may be kept in mind. First, the Tory party, that immovable obstacle to change in the eyes of the radicals, was not a monolith; the departure of Liverpool removed the central pillar of the structure. Second, the reform question encompassed more than an extension of the franchise. Concessions to Roman Catholics, and even Protestant dissenters, were viewed by many Anglicans as more damaging to the fabric of English society than the granting of a parliamentary seat to Manchester or Birmingham. Third, the economic boom of the 1820s came to an abrupt halt in 1829. By February 1830 the Whig leader, Earl Grey, was talking of 'a state of general distress such as never before pressed upon any country'. As radical leaders and opponents of reform alike knew, only high prices and unemployment could translate an intellectual case for constitutional change into a mass movement of incalculably threatening aspect.
