The End of The League
The Reform League's campaigning culminated in the passing of the Reform Act 1867 which gave the vote to representatives of working class men for the first time.
Despite a Reform Bill being on the Statute Book by mid-August, the League's leaders resolved that the organisation needed to be kept going to watch over the Scottish and Irish Representation Bills, whose enactment was reserved for 1868, and to forward Vote by Ballot and a wider county franchise.
They received support from John Bright, who hoped the League would be spurred on by its success and would continue to campaign for the ballot. Tories were alarmed at the prospect of two permanent bodies of agitation (the League and the Union) of a kind they had never known before.
Demonstrations continued, culminating in the surprisingly successful "working men's" assembly of 11 Nov 1867 in Crystal Palace. However, the focus of the league started to recede once most "respectable" working men had received the householder or lodger vote. Years of demonstrations began to tire the workers and the thought of many more years of the same no longer held the same appeal.
In addition, the Sheffield Outrages and the Fenian "martyrdoms" took over as the main working class issues of the day. Notable events of this time include the "funeral processions" of 24 Nov 1867 and the "Fenian Outrage" at Clerkenwell Prison on 13 Dec 1867. Pro-Fenian indiscretions by some members of the Reform League, such as George Odger and James Finlen were seized by the Tory press as chances to scare the population that the Reform League would continue agitation indefinitely.
"Advanced Liberal" politicians of respectability, who had worked with the League in 1866–7 and had tasted its power to cause reform, were determined not to let the League die at a time when they needed support against Conservative resistance to changes in Ireland. The very wealthy Samuel Morley gave the League £250 in November 1867, followed by £25 from P. A. Taylor and £20 from Abraham Walter Paulton in January 1868, £100 from Titus Salt in April 1868 and £100 from Thomas Thomasson in June 1868. However, Samuel Morley gave another donation of £1,900 which enabled the League to send out numerous "deputations" to boroughs where a useful Trade Union and working-class vote might be won for the "advanced Liberalism" of the General Election of Nov 1868. Their help was gratefully received and enough "advanced Liberals" were elected in Nov 1868 to cause the immediate resignation of Benjamin Disraeli's cabinet.
As reward for their help, Morley had also allowed some of his £1,900 to finance a number of the Reform League's leaders (e.g., Edmond Beales in Tower Hamlets, George Howell (aided by John Bedford Leno) in Aylesbury and William Randal Cremer in Warwick, etc.) to stand themselves in the election. None succeeded, mainly due to a lack of respectability and also due to a failure of negotiations to allow them to contest suitable constituencies.
The Reform League was dissolved in March 1869, and some of its members went on to become Liberal MPs or activists.
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