Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to history of the Oak national Academy.

My name is Mr Arscott and today, and in the next few lessons, we're going to try and solve a difficult puzzle.

We're going to try and work out why different stories are told about Britain's journey to democracy and today's title It's going to seem equally weird, the Whig story of political reform.

Now we're going to find out why we brought both these questions during today's lesson.

what you need to do first , make sure you've got a piece of paper and a pen and start writing down today's title.

And what's due that I'll get my head out of the way.

So the tacker is the Whig story of political reform.

If you haven't finished down, finished copying that down.

You might to pause the video.

And then unpause it when you're done.

So to begin, I want to have a look at this picture.

Now this is a picture of a painting, which you can find in the national portrait gallery.

And when you, if you see that painting, it's absolutely huge.

Now it's a bit hard for us to see it on a screen, but I always try to work out what you can see.

You might pause the video for a few seconds.

While you to look at some of the details, work out, what do you thinks going on? Right , welcome back.

So you've probably seen and written something like this is a large room and you can see lots of men in it.

Now, some of you who might seem to pictures like this before might have had a guest and said, this is parliament.

And if you have well done.

Now, this painting shows the House of Commons in 1833 and House of commons is part of the British parliament.

Now, the time this painting was created, it was done in order celebrate a key event and has done because it was actually, this is something quite exciting to see.

The thing that was celebrating with the fact that parliament had been reformed.

And what we mean by reform is that parliament would be made better.

And the way it had been reformed is that double the number of people have been able to vote in the election, which chose the members of this parliament.

So that men that you can see in this picture, now that reform shows the parliament was becoming more democratic.

Now, why was this something to celebrate something to be excited about? Well, the reason was this was , the reason why this was such a success.

Was it before 1832, it looked like Britain might experience a violent revolution like the French revolution.

And you can see a cartoon on the right, which shows this fear of the French revolution and the violence from it.

Now what happened instead was that by parliament reforming itself and increasing number of voters, Britain experienced a more gradual change.

The British government remained more stable.

It didn't go through a sudden and violent change, like a revolution.

And instead it managed to keep itself going in where it had been going before.

So the painting on the left is trying to celebrate the success of Britain, having a stable and reliable system of government when it needs to change, It will, but it does it gradually.

Right, over to you.

So I'm going to ask you to try now, write , I'll ask this question.

What can you see now on the left, I put two sentence starters to help you.

So in this painting I can see, and the painting gives the impression that.

Now the second sentence is a bit harder, but make sure you do the first one, have a guide on the second one.

And once you've had to get finishing both sentences, unpause the video and we'll see what you've written.

Okay welcome back.

Now, I'm going to show you what I've written, which gives you a bit of an idea about what you could have included.

So in this painting, I can see the British parliament after 1832 and then right the painting gets the impression that Britain was well-governed.

And well done if you wrote something like that.

If you didn't write something like that, that doesn't mean you got it wrong, but it might be useful for you to copy our mighty two sentences, just so you've got some really clear notes.

Now, over the next four lessons, we're going to look at the story of Britain Journey to democracy , so look at how that happened.

Now in the 1830s, Britain was a bit democratic.

It had a parliament as we've seen, and this parliament was chosen at elections.

So in that sense, it was democratic but only about 10% of the population could vote in these elections.

That's not very democratic.

And today Britain is a democracy.

You can see a photograph of the British parliament today on the right now, every adult Britain has a right to vote and we can see what the modern parliament looks like today.

Now, if you look carefully through them, you can see something that looks very similar.

It's a similar shaped room.

People have sat in a similar way, but there is one key difference.

We can spot from the photo or the painting.

And that's that today we have women in parliament, whereas in the thirties, no women could be elected to parliament.

So what we're going to try to look at the next few lessons is how did this happen? How did Britain go from being a bit democratic to being a full democracy? Well, part of the onset for how'd that happen is that it took a long time.

Now this timeline gives us a really broad overview of the period we're talking about.

Some of these are events are ones that you might study before and school.

Now, all of them could argue, be connected to the story of how Britain became a democracy.

So in the 17th century, the civil Wars and the glorious revolution helped make parliament strong.

And because parliament strong stopped monarch being able to rule alone and maybe rural badly.

Then in 1789, the French revolution start and the French revolution spread ideas about democracy around the world.

And then as we've just looked at the great reform act in 1832 increase the number of voters.

Now in 1832 Britain was not a full democracy.

So we're going to be looking at, in this period after breaking 32, going up to today about how we turn into democracy and we can call this period a period of political reform.

So good place to start is for you to make sure you've got a really clear understanding of what democracy means.

So I want you to pause the video and copied out a copy of this definition, and then un-pause it when you're done.

Now, once we're looking at this story, we're going to find out that actually, that people tell very different stories about Britain's journey to democracy.

So our guiding question for this lesson, the next few lessons is why are different stories told about Britain's journey to democracy? Now we're going to focus on three stories in particular.

So the first story is the story about parliament.

Why did parliament passed laws that increased the number of voters? The second story we're going to look at is a story of the working class.

So how work has put pressure from below to change attitudes and eventually win the vote.

And then third, we going to look at the story about women.

So how women fought against sexism to win the vote.

Now focus today is the first one.

The story is about parliament, and we're going to find out this story has a pretty funny name.

It's called the Whig story.

Now the wig story explains how parliament passed laws to make Britain a democracy.

Now, this story is perhaps most connected to this man on the right.

His name is Thomas Bangiton Macaulay, and he was actually a politician at the time.

The Great Reform Act was passed and he was a member of the political party, the Whigs that supported reform now, as well as being a politician, Macaulay was a historian.

And he wrote a very famous set of books about Britain and journey towards good government.

Now the style and the focus of his books have inspired others, which has created what we call the Whig interpretation of history.

And that's quite a mouthful, the Whig and tub shape interpretation of history.

So I'm just going to call it the Whig story for today.

So what was the Whig story? Now, Macaulay thinks that the Whig story or the story of British history is a story of success.

He thinks that gradually England and eventually Britain managed to maintain progress and get better and better and better as time went on.

Now, he thinks that in the beginning, Indian was governed badly, but then it became well-governed.

So for example, in the middle ages, England was ruled badly by some monarchs.

A good example of that would be King John, who can see on the left now King John ruled so badly that people in England rose up against him, and they forced him to sign a document called Magna Carta and Magna Carta protected the liberties of some free people in Britain ,so it stopped monarchs, being able to do certain things as some of the subjects now, Macaulay Whig like that because it stopped King John being able to rule like a tyrant, a tyrant is a ruler who rules cruelly and maybe tries to hold onto power too much.

So Magna Carta meant to stop England from having tyrants.

Then the civil war was fought and that broke out between parliament and King Charles, the first.

And one of the reasons it brought it broke out was because parliament thought Charles, the first was, was acting like a tyrant now because of the civil war, there's this long conflict.

And then eventually parliament became more powerful.

And then we see in the glorious revolution and the, at the end of the 17th century and 1688.

Britain becomes a proper constitutional monarchy, whether they're Monarch or the King or queen must share power with parliament.

Now, what Macaulay thinks happened was it, during this story, Britain became a stable and successful country.

So things were gradually getting better and parliament and King worked together to lead this process of Britain and England getting better and better.

Right over to you.

So what is a Whig version of history? There's four options.

I want you to read through them, pause the video and then unpause it Once you made a choice about which you think is the correct answer.

Okay, well done.

If you thought it was option three.

So Whig version of history is where he tell stories, which show English government gradually getting better.

Now we then get to the part of the story of about history.

The Macaulay lived through himself.

Now the Whig story would say, Britain continued to make progress in this period.

It continued to get better and better.

So the great Reform Act produced a stable government and avoided a violent revolution.

So that shows progress.

Now the middle classes were allowed to take part in elections after the Great Reform Act.

And that meant that they could use the kind of knowledge that they'd acquired from making their own personal wealth.

Some of them been involved in trades and own factories.

They could use that knowledge to help make Britain even wealthier.

So they're going to use that expertise and their knowledge in parliament to help make Britain get better.

Now, the whig story could would say that Britain they continue to make greater progress afterwards.

Now, one of the key ways just happened was gradually expanding the number of people who had the right to vote, and we call that the right to vote the franchise.

So I want you to just pause the video and copy out that definition franchise, the right to vote in your notes, because it's going to be an important word we're going to keep coming back to.

So what happened after the Great of Reformat was that Britain continued to experience this gradual progress of things getting better.

So there were a number of more laws that are passed by parliament, which increased the number of voters.

Now, these two men on the right it's Disraeli and Gladstone well British prime ministers who led these reforms. And they were very skillful in trying to get these through parliament.

So the 1867 Reform Act, the 1884 Representation of the People's Act, both increased the number of voters and they gave what they called respectable working class people the a vote.

And what they meant by respectable was that with people there'll be able to use the vote sensibly.

They'll be able to make sensible decisions when they voted.

And so by including them in the number of voters in the electorate, they managed to maintain the stability and success of the British method of government.

Now, we can try to end this story by looking at this quite complicated looking graph.

Now what this graph shows is the proportion of Britons that can vote at any one time and along the bottom, we can see the years passing.

So the graph shows the proportion of Britain that can vote across time.

Now the red line shows males.

So the number of men that could vote and the blue line shows the number of women that could vote.

Now the red line illustrates this really nicely.

What we can see is that over about a hundred year period, the number of men that could vote goes up and goes up and goes up until eventually a hundred percent of men had the right to vote.

Now for women, it has been more sudden, but still it's done gradually.

The number of women that can vote is increased in stages.

And this graph really illustrates the whig story of history.

There aren't sudden rapid changes instead, the system of government and by that, we were talking about the number of women vote is gradually increased to make Britain a more stable and successful country.

Right, now we've just learned a huge amount, man heard huge information so we've just got to deal with thinking about it, to hope, it stays in our memory a bit longer.

So, what I've put on the right of four key events.

And what I want you to do is I want you to try and put them in order.

So I'm going to ask you to write them out on your piece of paper, in the correct order, and then unpause the video when you think you've got it in the right order.

And then we'll see whether you've got it right.

So pause the video now, please.

Right.

Welcome back.

Let's see what you got.

So the correct order would be this, the glorious revolution that happened in 1688.

That was the event that made Britain a constitutional Monarchy Is the point when Britain's monarchs agreed, they had to work with parliament.

Then we've got 1832, the Great Reformat, which is when the number of voters was doubled.

Then also in the 19th century, we got Disraeli and Gladstone, reforms where they gradually increase the number of male voters again.

And then eventually we have Equal franchise of women or women were given the vote.

So you're now in a really good position for you to have a go at trying to answer some comprehension questions.

So what I'm going to ask you to do shortly is pause the video, go to the next page and then read through the worksheet slides, which go through the story in a slightly different way and give you a bit more detail.

Once you've read through it.

I want you to have a go at answering these questions and then come back to the video to check your answers.

Now I'm going to read through the questions first, just so they are as clear as possible.

So question one.

Which reform allowed cities like Manchester and Birmingham to be represented in parliament.

Two, which country does Macaulay believe became the greatest country on earth.

Three, which Kings might weak historians see as examples of tyrants? Four, why could Britain be labelled a democracy in 1928.

and five , with a challenge questions It's a bit hard than other ones, what are the key features of a whig interpretation of history? And that was a very difficult question.

If you can't answer that, that's nothing to worry about.

Right, so I'm going to ask you to do now is pause the video, go to the next page, read through worksheet slide and then come back to the video.

Once you've answered the questions and we'll go through your answers.

Right, welcome back.

Let's go through some of these answers.

So question one, which reform allowed cities like Manchester and Birmingham to be represented in parliament? an accessible answer would be the Great Reform Act.

A good answer in a full sentence would be, Manchester and Birmingham were represented in parliament after the Great Reform Act.

So there's good answers in a full, meaningful sentence.

So always tries to do that.

If he didn't quite get the right answer then you can change your answer.

Now I paused the video.

If you did get it well done, let's move on to the next question.

Okay, two.

Which country does Macaulay believe became the greatest country on earth? It's a great Britain or Britain now here at England.

That's probably okay.

'cause Macaulay often does slip between talking about Britain and England, but if we're going to be really precise, it should be Britain.

So good answer.

Macaulay believes that Britain became the greatest country on earth.

He believes this was achieved because Britain developed a good type of government.

Okay.

Question three, which Kings might weak historians see as examples of tyrants.

So I expect your answers could be King John or Charles the first but good answer in a full sentence, weak historians might see Kings John the first and Charles first as tyrants.

They might agree these Kings acted like tyrants by taking away the traditional liberties with the people they wrote.

And the traditional liberties I'm not sure what that means.

That means the freedoms they had.

Okay question four.

Why would, why could Britain be called a democracy in 1928? I expect blanks except to be women and men could vote.

A good answer in a full sentence is by 1928, the franchise was extended to all adult men and women earlier Reforms had not given men and women equal voting rights.

Alright, question five.

So what are the key features of a whig interpretation of history? So some acceptable things you could have included Progress, Constitutional monarchy is good or gradual change, or those are parts of it.

So let's put that into a few sentences, which are fully risk.

So whig interpretations of history.

Describe how British history is a story of progress.

Gradually great Britain became a wealthier more free and stronger country.

Britain could achieve this because it had a stable, constitutional monarchy.

Now, if you haven't got something like that, you may well still have a good answer.

Look at the except freelancers.

See if you've got some of those key words in it.

Now, if you're not entirely satisfied your answer, I'd recommend you copy that one out my good answer.

And that way you've got some really solid notes to tell you what whig interpretation of history is.

So very well done for today, if you'll get in nearly the end of your time for this lesson, then I suggest you stop the video now and then go to the final quiz.

But if you've got a bit of extra time, if worth, having a go at our extension activity, it's a bit difficult, but it will develop your historical thinking.

So the question is why would a Whig historian see the 1832 Act as Great? Now I better think about how we can ask that, so, same questions at the top.

Why would a Whig historian see the 1832 Reform Act as Great.

Now what I've got written below are four possible options.

Now none of these are obviously wrong.

All of these are things that some who might say as why weaker story might think the Reformat is Great.

So I'm going to ask you to do is pause the video, read through them, and then have a think about which one of these best explains why our Whig historian would like the 1832 Reform Act.

So pause button now read through them and have a good think at least a minute.

Pause video now please.

Right.

Welcome back.

So it'd be interesting to know which one you thought best explained it because all of them might explain a bit why whig would like the Reform Act.

Now there's one which ,if any, I said before, the none of them have definitely wrong or obviously wrong.

But option two is the one, which is the bit, that is the most dodgy we could say.

So the alternative is the 1832 act made Britain more democratic by doubling the number of voters.

Now, the reason I'm saying it's a bit dodgy is because at the time that Macaulay was writing and that the whig were in power, they wouldn't have liked being called democratic or would seen democracy is a good thing in itself.

At the time, democracy is kind of seen as a bit of a dirty word and was associated with radicalism and violent change.

So they would have been more likely to prefer some of the other ones.

However, if we just, if by the Whig's story, we just mean the story of progress.

And we think that democracy shows progress.

Then option two could be acceptable, but it wouldn't be something that was used as a phrasing at the the time.

So now you've had a bit of a think about that.

I want you to have a go at trying to answer this question.

Now that there's an optional reading futurity beforehand.

This is a reading from Macaulay.

One of Macaulay's own books now is it's a difficult bit of reading to do ? But it gives you a better flavour for how Macaulay and other Whigs wrote and saw history.

So if you want to have read through that, pause the video.

Now have a look through it.

You might want to jot down a few quotes that you could then use in your answer.

And unpause the video once you're finished, you're not going to read it.

Don't worry.

I will move on to how you can write it.

So why would Whig historian see the 1832 Reformat as Great? So I put a few sentence starters on the board for you and I were really good idea for you to use these in order to help structure your answer.

I've also put a bank of key words, which if you can clue this in your answers as long as going to write something a pretty good quality.

So I'm going to stress you shortly pause the video, and then have a go of writings.

And then when you're done, if you should then finish.

So once you've finished writing it, once you've finished writing I want you to pause video and then go to the final quiz at the end of the lesson.

So please stop videoing now and move on to the final quiz.

Well done for all your today's hard work.

What day is very impressive with trying to look at these different stories? Why Britain began a democracy.

Now, if you've written out the extension activity, you really know if you just share it with your class teacher, so make sure you take a picture of it and then email it to them so they can see your hard work as well.