The Franchise Bill of 1884, by extending the household and lodger franchise ...

The Franchise Bill of 1884, by extending the household and lodger franchise to the counties, added some 2,000,000 voters to an electorate of 3,000,000. The Conservatives insisted that a Redistribution Bill should be produced as well, and by their majority in the Lords they were able to suspend the Franchise Bill until their demand was satisfied. To the other alarms of an anxious year was added the prospect of a conflict between the Houses, and a concerted attack on the Lords by Chamberlain and the Radicals.

But, privately asked to say what they wanted, the Conservative leaders produced a plan even more drastic than the Cabinet had contemplated.

No less than 107 boroughs, with a Parliamentary history often going back to the origins of the Constitution, were to be swept away, and 166 seats released for redistribution, Yorkshire getting 15, Lancashire 24, London and its suburbs It is impossible not to share some at least of the regrets with which contemporaries regarded the disappearance of the little boroughs, and the variegated representation of interests which their existence had endured. The independent member may have been correctly defined as the member who no one could depend on, but his presence saved Parliament from becoming merely the register of party opinions.

The success of the Birmingham Caucus had given party managers a new idea of their importance and power; and there were plenty of candidates ready to pay for their admission to a political career by bargains which the traditions of the political class had hitherto discountenanced.