page_title: 1831 reform riots
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: 1831 reform riots / Background
caption_attribution_description: See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG.
context_page_description: The 1831 reform riots occurred after the Second Reform Bill was defeated in Parliament in October 1831. There were civil disturbances in London, Leicester, Yeovil, Sherborne, Exeter, Bath and Worcester and riots at Nottingham, Derby and Bristol. Targets included Nottingham Castle, home of the anti-reform Duke of Newcastle, other private houses and jails. In Bristol, three days of rioting followed the arrival in the city of the anti-reform judge Charles Wetherell; a significant portion of the city centre was burnt, £300,000 of damage inflicted and up to 250 casualties occurred.
context_section_description: The British parliament consists of two houses: the House of Lords and the House of Commons.  In the early 19th-century the House of Lords was populated by hereditary peers and the House of Commons by Members of Parliament (MPs) elected to represent constituencies. The areas covered the constituencies had not been amended to reflect population change and so there were many so-called rotten boroughs, returning one or two MPs from only a small number of voters, while some new urban centres such as Manchester had no MPs.  The franchise was small with only 5% of the British populace able to cast a vote at a general election.
  In March 1831, an attempt was made by the Whigs to introduce a Reform Bill to address the matter.  This was defeated in parliament and the prime minister, Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, resigned.  Grey was returned to office with a majority in the subsequent general election and introduced a second Reform Bill.  This passed in the House of Commons, but was defeated in the Lords on 8 October 1831.
  The rejection of the bill and the second resignation of Grey resulted in a period of political upheaval which has since been characterised as "the closest that Britain came to revolution".  Inhabitants of cities and towns were angry at the failure to pass the bill and there were serious disturbances in London, Leicester, Yeovil, Sherborne, Exeter, Bath and Worcester.  The disturbances in Birmingham were so severe that the British Army's Scots Greys cavalry regiment was deployed to the city.  Full-scale riots erupted in Bristol, Nottingham and Derby.
caption: British Prime Minister Earl Grey
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