Hello, I'm Mr Marchant and I'll be your history teacher for today.

I'm really looking forward to starting our learning journey together and my role will be to make sure that you can meet today's learning objective.

Welcome to today's lesson which is part of our unit on the Industrial Revolution where we're asking ourselves, did industrialization revolutionise people's lives? By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to explain why the Great Reform Act was introduced in 1832 and assess its impact on representation for industrial workers.

So today's lesson is really interested in the political changes which people experienced during Britain's Industrial Revolution.

There are five keywords which will help us navigate our way through today's lesson.

Those are franchise, constituencies, disproportionate, rotten borough, and representation.

The franchise refers to the group of people who can vote in a country's elections.

The individual areas of a country that elect someone to represent them in Parliament are called constituencies.

Something may be described as disproportionate if it is too large or small in comparison to something else.

A rotten borough was a constituency which was able to elect an MP despite having very few voters.

And finally, representation is the act of speaking or doing some officially for another person.

Today's lesson will be split into three parts and we'll begin by focusing on the unreformed Parliament.

By the start of the 1830s, pressure to reform Parliament was growing stronger and stronger.

The unreformed Parliament was particularly poor at representing Britain's growing population of industrial workers.

There were three key reasons why Britain's unreformed Parliament represented industrial workers poorly.

This was because of the franchise, constituencies, and also because of the rules around being an MP.

The franchise for the unreformed Parliament was a major problem for industrial workers because of property qualifications.

Across the country, to gain the right to vote, most people were expected to own property worth a certain value.

However, the low wages which most industrial workers earned made it unrealistic for them to own property.

In 1830, it is estimated that less than 1% of the population had the right to vote in Parliamentary elections.

Representation for industrial workers in the unreformed Parliament was also poor because of the way constituencies were organised.

In 1831, an area known as Old Sarum was represented by two MPs in Parliament, whereas Manchester had no MPs of its own.

This was despite the fact that nobody lived in Old Sarum by 1831, whilst over 140,000 people lived in Manchester.

British constituencies had mostly been organised in the Mediaeval period, long before the Industrial Revolution began.

This meant that new industrial cities like Manchester, Birmingham, or Glasgow often elected no MPs to the House of Commons, whilst places like Old Sarum, that been important in the Mediaeval period but had since declined, still elected their own MPs.

Because of its disproportionate representation in Parliament, Old Sarum was often described as a rotten borough and there were many others like it.

Finally, representation for industrial workers also suffered because of the rules around becoming an MP.

MPs had to pass a property qualification.

This meant that to sit in Parliament, MPs had to own their own property.

Most industrial workers did not own property of their own, so would not have been eligible to attend Parliament if they were elected.

MPs also did not receive a salary.

This made it virtually impossible for industrial workers to become MPs themselves, as they simply could not afford to effectively work without pay for several years.

So, we've heard some of the issues around the unreformed Parliament, but let's make sure our understanding of that is secure.

I want you to write the missing word in the following sentence.

Most people had to own blank to be part of the franchise.

So what's the missing word? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the missing word was property.

Most people had to own property to be part of the franchise.

And let's try another question.

Which two barriers prevented many industrial workers from becoming MPs? Was it that MPs did not receive a salary, that MPs had to be literate, that MPs had to own property, or that MPs had to be from noble backgrounds? Remember, you're looking for two answers to this question.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answers.

Okay, so well done if you said that one of the barriers for industrial workers was that MPs did not receive a salary.

And, the other answer that we were looking for to this question that acted as a barrier to many industrial workers becoming MPs, was that MPs had to own property.

In both of these circumstances, this made it very hard for industrial workers, who are usually poor, to become MPs because they simply would not be able to pass the original tests or to support themselves whilst they worked in the job.

And let's try one more question.

We have a statement that says rotten boroughs were a problem as they elected more MPs just because lots of people lived there.

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was false.

But we need to be able to justify our answers here.

So, two justifications have appeared on the screen.

One says that nobody lived in Old Sarum, but it still had two MPs in 1831.

And our other justification says that no one who lived in Old Sarum got to vote for an MP in 1831.

Which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was A.

Nobody lived in Old Sarum, but it still had two MPs in 1831.

It was because of this situation that Old Sarum and other places like it became known as rotten boroughs.

And let's try one final question.

I want you to write the missing keyword in the following sentence.

Rotten boroughs meant that representation in Parliament was blank compared to the population.

So what's the missing word? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the missing word was disproportionate.

Rotten boroughs meant that representation in Parliament was disproportionate compared to the population.

They led to very small, or even unpopulated areas, being overrepresented in Parliament.

So, we're now ready to put all of our knowledge into practise.

I want you to match up each of the three terms, franchise, constituencies, and MPs, with the correct explanation of why they were a problem in the unreformed Parliament.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answers.

Okay, so I asked you to match up each of our three terms with the correct explanation of why they were a problem in the unreformed Parliament.

So the issue with the franchise was that high property qualifications meant that only 1% of the people had the right to vote.

The issue with constituencies was that rotten boroughs were overrepresented, whilst many industrial cities elected no MPs.

And the problem with MPs was that only property owners could sit in Parliament and members were not paid.

So really well done if you got all of those matched up correctly.

We're now ready to move onto the second part of our lesson all about pressure for reform.

In 1832, a new law to reform Parliament and the electoral system was successfully passed.

This became known as the Great Reform Act.

Pressure from within and beyond Parliament contributed to the passing of the Great Reform Act.

A new government, led by Earl Grey, came to power in 1830.

Earl Grey and his political party, the Whigs, supported reform of Parliament, unlike many members of the Tory party, which had previously been in government.

Grey's government began preparing plans for a reform act as soon as it came into power.

There was also growing public pressure for reform.

In 1830, Thomas Attwood set up the Birmingham Political Union, otherwise known as the BPU.

The BPU argued that all men who paid taxes should be able to vote, that industrial cities and towns should be represented by their own MPs, that the property qualification for becoming an MP should be abolished, and that MPs should be paid a salary.

Most members of the BPU could not vote in elections for the unreformed Parliament, but, by 1832, BPU meetings attracted up to 200,000 people and similar organisations were established in other industrial areas.

So thinking about what we've just heard, which statement is most accurate? A, both the Tory and Whig parties supported reform, B, the Tory party supported reform, but not the Whigs, C, the Whig party supported reform, but not the Tories, or D, neither the Tories nor the Whigs supported reform? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, really well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was C.

The Whig party, led by Earl Grey, supported reform of Parliament, although the Tory party, which had been in government for many decades before this, did not.

And let's try another question.

Which of these was not a demand of the BPU, the Birmingham Political Union? For more MPs for industrial cities, salaries for MPs, or votes for female taxpayers? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was C.

The BPU did want to see the franchise extended, but they argued that it should be extended to all men who paid taxes.

They did not argue for votes for female taxpayers.

Let's try another question.

We have a statement that says the BPU was only able to put limited pressure on the government.

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was false.

But we need to be able to justify our answer.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first one says that the BPU organised its members to ensure pro-reform MPs were elected.

The second says that the BPU organised mass meetings with crowds of over 200,000 people.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct justification was B.

The BPU organised mass meetings with crowds of over 200,000 people.

This showed just how popular support for reform really was and put pressure on the government.

Although the BPU did want to see pro-reform MPs elected, most of its members did not have the right to vote, so they weren't really able to organise actions like those described in option A.

So now we're ready to put all of our knowledge into practise.

I want you to complete the passage shown on the screen by adding in the missing words.

The words to use are listed under the paragraph, but you need to be careful because more words are listed than there are gaps, so some of them are there just to trick you.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see how the passage should have been completed.

Okay, well done for all of your effort on that task.

So I asked you to complete the passage by adding in the missing words, and your answer should have looked like this.

The Great Reform Act was passed in 1832 due to pressure from within and beyond Parliament.

A new Whig government led by Earl Grey came to power in 1830, which was committed to reform.

In that same year, the Birmingham Political Union, or BPU, was founded by Thomas Attwood.

The BPU held mass meetings and called for changes such as votes for all male taxpayers, for industrial cities to have their own MPs, and the introduction of salaries for MPs.

So really well done if you managed to fill in all of those gaps correctly.

And now we're ready to move onto the third and final part of our lesson for today where we're gonna focus on reform and industrial workers.

The Great Reform Act expanded the franchise for Parliamentary elections.

The number of people who could vote increased by more than 60%.

However, a property qualification did remain and continued to exclude most industrial workers from voting.

For the first time, the Great Reform Act also formally excluded women from voting in British national elections.

Although it had not been common, there were not any formal restrictions to prevent women from voting in elections before 1832, unlike those restrictions that were included in the Great Reform Act.

As a result, the franchise only expanded to include one out of every five adult males after 1832.

The Reform Act also abolished most rotten boroughs such as Old Sarum.

This allowed seats in the House of Commons to be redistributed so that 67 new constituencies were created.

Industrial cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow were able to elect their own MPs for the first time, and were each represented by two MPs in a reformed Parliament.

Thomas Attwood, the man who had founded the BPU, became one of Birmingham's first two MPs.

However, representation in the House of Commons was still disproportionate, as some small constituencies survived.

For example, Totnes, which is in Devon, and had a population of just 6,000 people in the 1830s, continued to be represented by two MPs just like Manchester which had only two MPs yet had a population of 140,000.

The Great Reform Act did not change any of the rules around sitting as an MP in Parliament.

This meant that anybody who was elected as an MP still had to pass the property qualification to actually attend Parliament, and it remained the case that MPs were not paid a salary for their work.

So, let's check our understanding of some of the reforms that came through as a result of the Great Reform Act.

How did the Great Reform Act affect the franchise in Britain? Was it that it increased the number of constituencies by more than 60%, did it increase the number of voters by more than 60%, or did it reduce the number of voters by more than 60%? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was B.

The Great Reform Act affected the franchise by increasing the number of voters by more than 60%.

One in five adult males could vote in elections after the Great Reform Act was passed.

And let's try another question.

This time we have a statement that says the Great Reform Act did not meet all of the BPU's key demands.

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was true.

But we need to be able to justify our response.

So, two justification have appeared on the screen.

The first says that cities like Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow still did not have their own MPs.

The second says that MPs elected to Parliament still received no salary and had to pass a property qualification.

So which of those justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was B.

The Great Reform Act didn't change any of the rules around becoming an MP, and so, even after 1832, MPs still did not receive a salary, and still had to pass a property qualification.

And let's try another question.

We have a statement that says after 1832, the number of MPs representing an area was proportionate to its population.

Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was false.

But again, we want to justify our response.

So, two justifications have appeared on the screen.

One says that some small constituencies continued to send a disproportionate number of MPs to Parliament.

Whilst our other says that industrial cities were give given disproportionately more MPs to reflect their growing economic importance.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct justification was A.

Some small constituencies continued to send a disproportionate number of MPs to parliament.

Totnes, which had a total population of 6,000 people, provides a good example of this as it was still able to elect two MPs after 1832, the same amount of MPs elected by Manchester which had a population of 140,000.

So thinking about everything that we've heard, we're in a good position to put our knowledge and understanding into practise.

We have two different points of view shown on the screen.

Lucas says that industrial workers would have been happy with the changes made by the Great Reform Act, whereas Sofia says that industrial workers would have been disappointed with the changes made by the Great Reform Act.

So, whose opinion do you agree with more? And I want you to explain your answer.

You may use the following sentence starters to help you.

I agree with blank's opinion of the Great Reform Act more.

For example and this was important because.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, so we had our two opinions from Lucas and Sofia, and I asked, whose opinion do you agree with more and for you to explain your answer.

So your response may have included, I agree with Sofia's opinion of the Great Reform Act more.

For example, the Great Reform Act made no changes to the salary or property qualifications in place for MPs.

This was important because it meant that industrial workers still could not afford to become MPs so their interests could still be overlooked in Parliament.

Your answer could also have included, I agree with Sofia's opinion of the Great Reform Act more.

For example, the Great Reform Act left some small constituencies like Totnes with two MPs.

This was the same amount of MPs as represented large industrial cities like Manchester.

This meant that representation in Parliament remained disproportionate.

So, really well done if you wrote something that looked like one of our two models there.

And that means we've reached the end of today's lesson, so we're in a good position to summarise our learning.

We've seen that the unreformed Parliament before 1832 represented industrial workers very poorly.

The BPU created public pressure for parliamentary reform, which was passed by Earl Grey's Whig government in 1832.

The 1832 Great Reform Act extended the franchise, but most industrial workers remained without the vote.

The Great Reform Act gave industrial towns and cities their own MPs.

And the Great Reform Act did not make it easier for industrial workers to become MPs.

So, really well done for all of your hard work in today's lesson and it's been a pleasure to have you joining me.

I look forward to seeing you again in future as we continue to think further about the Industrial Revolution and whether industrialization really revolutionised the lives of people in Britain.