Benjamin Lucraft - Parliamentary Reform

Parliamentary Reform

The reform of voting rights for Parliamentary elections had long been an issue. An Act of Parliament in 1809 made the purchase of votes illegal and was one of a series of Parliamentary Acts which dealt with minor abuses of the electoral process during the first part of the 19th century.

The Great Reform Act of 1832 had made some steps to change the way Parliament was elected with the old system of rotten boroughs with just a handful of voters, literally less than 10 people in some cases, was swept away.

The underlying problem of the representation of the people, by which was meant a wider franchise than just the county set or the propertied land-owners, was not addressed. By the 1860s Lucraft was active as a representative of the Furniture Workers and as such sat on the General Council of the International Working Men's Association, The First International.

The years in which Lucraft was involved in the agitation for the extension of the franchise into the later sixties was the most influential period of his career. At this stage he ranked as an ultra-radical in terms of British politics. He understood the crucial importance of the craft unions in any viable working-class political movement and accepted a need for militant action to achieve defined aims and goals.

After Garibaldi's visit to London the English members of the General Council, including Lucraft, had taken a prominent part in the founding of the Reform League in 1865 which led to the agitation culminating in the Reform Act 1867. Lucraft was a member of the Council and the Executive of the Reform League.

The Trades Unions had been unenthusiastic about political, as opposed to industrial, reform and after the failure of the mildly reformist Liberal bill of 1866 the Reform League was in danger of going under. Lucraft was the key figure in deliberately soliciting the participation of the Trades Unions and in breaking down their reservations, paving the way for the demonstrations of 1866–1867.

The modest programme that Edward Beales and George Howell, leaders of the League, were promoting began to be challenged by Lucraft in April 1866 when he started weekly outdoor meetings on Monday nights on Clerkenwell Green — thereby reached out to working-class groups hitherto unresponsive to more traditional political agitation. They had a wagon for a platform, a band to lead the singing, and a banner for the men from Clerkenwell. Once Lucraft had taken the initiative the executive felt obliged to vote to subsidise the Clerkenwell Green events.

William Ewart Gladstone's inability to carry through even a minimal reform and the reactionary and insulting speeches of the anti-reformers all combined to lead the Reform League down a more militant path. The first manifestation of the new temperament among the League membership came, not unexpectedly, from Lucraft. His response to the defeat of the Liberal bill was to escalate his open air demonstrations by moving them from Clerkenwell Green to Trafalgar Square.

Early in 1867 the militant elements in the leadership of the Reform League again decided that more vigorous action was required, this time against the Derby-Disraeli ministry, and weekly demonstrations began in Trafalgar Square. Charles Bradlaugh and Lucraft were among those pushing for escalation and Lucraft was one of five proponents appointed to organise a rally in Hyde Park on 6 May.

This was first banned by the Home Secretary Spencer Walpole and then, because of the very large numbers that gathered round the ten platforms, allowed to proceed in spite of thousands of police and troops.

On the evening of 27 June 1866 he led a thousand demonstrators to the West End where an estimated 10,000 had already assembled. Unwilling to allow Lucraft to outface them the Executive decided to hold its own Trafalgar Square meeting on 2 July and Howell was appointed to supervise the arrangements. This was the League's first real popular success, with estimates up to 80,000 for the attendance, and it was further decided to hold a rally in Hyde Park on 23 July.

The authorities became frightened by the spectre of revolution and Sir Richard Mayne, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, banned the meeting although a majority of the Executive resolved to ignore the prohibition.

Unlike July 1866 the League showed its capacity for organising a working-class agitation in defiance of parliamentary authority while keeping good order despite some small local violence. The workers forced their way through the police cordons, past flailing truncheons, to a noisy rally where a short section of the park railings were pushed over.

The League regarded the sixth of May as a 'great moral triumph'. The Home Secretary resigned, on what were said to be health grounds, and the Prime Minister admitted that the government had 'subjected themselves to some slight humiliation in the public mind'.

While Benjamin Disraeli denied he was yielding to pressure he accepted the lodger franchise proposals, removed the distinction between personal and compound ratepayers, allowed it to be a household suffrage measure and stripped most of the guarantees which the Conservatives had been promised.