Episode 4

'The struggle for the Great Reform Bill of 1832 took place a the crossroads of English history.' - so says Antonia Fraser in her lively and insightful account of the political change took take place during this period.

Times were in flux. The Industrial Revolution was underway. The reverberations of the French Revolution were still being felt. And the country would be ruled by a new monarch, William IV.

And political change, who and how we would vote, was now in the spotlight. Put there mainly by the
Whigs - led by Earl Grey.

Age-old corruption, rotten boroughs, even hereditary peers would feel these winds of change. But how would the Bill be made law? Bumpily and dramatically, as it turned out, and its path is followed in five episodes, which are abridged by Katrin Williams:

4. Reform of Parliament is stalling, the Bill cannot get through. So the Mob is on the streets of Sherbourne and Bristol. In fact, unrest seems likely everywhere..

Reader Adrian Scarborough
Producer Duncan Minshull.