Trafalgar Square Demonstration of 1866
Disappointed with the failure of the Bill, the Reform League, organised a demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 29 June 1866. Its size and violence surprised everyone. Speeches were made which refused support for any future Reform Bill which was not based on the League's programme. It was also declared that the advent of Tories to power was "destructive to freedom at home and favourable to despotism abroad". Red flags and the cap of liberty were sported by a march from Clerkenwell Green. Crowds cheered the Liberal Reform Club in Pall Mall and Gladstone's house in Piccadilly and jeered loudly outside the Conservative Carlton Club.
A second meeting on 2 July 1866 was even more heated, with rioting in the West End by a "fortuitous concourse of the waifs and strays and roughs of a great city".
Read more about this topic: Reform League
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