Legislating for the four nations at Westminster in the age of Reform, 1830-1852

Established in 1800, the Union of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland received its most tangible manifestation in the merging of the four nations in one common Imperial Parliament at Westminster. This thesis is a study of that legislative Union during a critical period of its history between the accession of Lord Grey’s ministry in 1830 and the general election of July 1852. Its point of departure is the Reform ‘crisis’ of 1830-32, which culminated in the passage of separate parliamentary Reform acts for each of the three kingdoms. Together, these statutes overhauled the United Kingdom’s political system, in the process redefining the relationships subsisting between the four nations of the Union and sparking two decades of far-reaching legislative activity. To date, however, very little is known about the precise geographical dimensions of such legislative efforts, nor what those dimensions might reveal about the character and operation of the Reformed legislative Union itself.

This thesis addresses these questions by drawing on a database recording the geographical scope of every public general bill introduced to the House of Commons between October 1830 and July 1852. Building upon this empirical foundation, the spread of legislative effort across the four nations is tracked, in terms of numbers, subject-matter and agency. Connections and interactions between the legislative endeavours of the four nations are drawn, and national tensions at Westminster arising as a result are analysed.

Ultimately, this thesis concludes that the legislative Union of the Reform era defies straightforward analysis: trends towards the closer integration of the four nations ran alongside those favouring and furthering national particularity. If that dichotomy engendered division, it also signified a legislative flexibility at the heart of the Union, which may go some way towards explaining its continued survival for a further seven decades.