Tory Reform in 1832

Please forgive a newbie if this has already been covered -1500+ pages are rather a lot to scroll through!

I've just finished reading Edward Pearce's excellent "Reform!" about the 1832 Reform Act (in the UK). Although I did study it at school, I'd forgotten that following the defeat of the Bill in the Lords, Grey and his Whig cabinet resigned and William IV asked the Duke of Wellington, who had preceded Grey as (Tory) Prime Minister to form a government. Wellington decided that he couldn't do so and so Grey returned to office, and carried his Bill into law.

But suppose Wellington had decided to form a Government? He was, after all, the last-ditcher who had turned his coat and carried Catholic Emancipation - and it was the Irish seats falling to O'Connell's associates that provided Grey with his majority (English MPs voted against Grey's bill). And, Pearce tells us, there were Tories who planned a Reform of their own.

A Tory Reform Bill seemed perfectly possible in London in 1832. (It was what King William IV wanted.) It would have disfranchised a few dozen of the smallest and "most corrupt" seats - I say "most corrupt" in quotes because although that's how we think of the Old Sarums and so forth, contemporaries often saw them as just another form of property. It would have given some of those seats to the large industrial towns - Manchester, Birmingham and so forth - but it would almost certainly have also created seats for the overseas "interests" - notably the East India Company, or at least its nabobs, and also the for the slavers in the Caribbean. (The Slave Trade had been criminalised a generation before, but slave ownership in the colonies was still legal in 1832.)

What do Forum members think might have been the consequences of such an Act? Would it have done enough to draw the teeth of the Political Unions who were campaigning for the extension of the franchise? And would it have forestalled the 1833 Act which abolished slavery in British colonies? If so, might it not have led to Britain supporting the South in the US Civil War? And where might that have led to?
 
The question is how Wellington could have carried on a government once he'd formed one, which is presumably the reason he didn't try. He'd surely have needed a new parliament with a majority but in OTL Grey won decisive victories in both 1831 under the old system, and 1832 under the new one, so I'm not sure it's realistically possible at that point

To get a Tory Reform Act, I think you'd need to go back to an earlier PoD, and create an excuse for Wellington (or an earlier PM) to back a more limited reform - and there, I think your suggestions are on the mark. I don't know enough about the period to suggest one but given the U-turn on Catholic emancipation etc, it wouldn't be out of the question. In many ways, it would be a forerunner of what Disraeli later did, though presumably not in the sense of producing something more radical than his opponent.

I doubt that a Tory Act would have prevented the abolition of slavery within the empire, as the tide was running strongly on that issue. There may have been a delay due to a clash of reforms but by the time the bill was being debated, the discussion was more detail than principle. At most, it may have delayed its implementation and so I doubt it'd have had much consequence on the American Civil War.

As for other consequences, the main one might be Ireland. Would a parliament still dominated by aristocrats and gentry have applied such a dogmatic and brutal approach to the Potato Famine as the more middle-class one did in OTL? Probably it would (not least because most of the senior politicians would have been the same) but the question's worth asking all the same.

Longer term, I'd imagine that pressure for further reform would mount earlier and there'd be a Second Reform Act some time in the 1850s.
 
The question is how Wellington could have carried on a government once he'd formed one, which is presumably the reason he didn't try. He'd surely have needed a new parliament with a majority but in OTL Grey won decisive victories in both 1831 under the old system, and 1832 under the new one, so I'm not sure it's realistically possible at that point.
He is the war hero, he held the office in 1828-30, so holding the office again two years later, should be fine, he would have the support of Robert Peel and Henry Goulburn.

To get a Tory Reform Act, I think you'd need to go back to an earlier PoD, and create an excuse for Wellington (or an earlier PM) to back a more limited reform - and there, I think your suggestions are on the mark. I don't know enough about the period to suggest one but given the U-turn on Catholic emancipation etc, it wouldn't be out of the question. In many ways, it would be a forerunner of what Disraeli later did, though presumably not in the sense of producing something more radical than his opponent.
The Irish Question, may be better solved by an Irish Prime Minister, so this may be what is needed for the 17th Century.

I doubt that a Tory Act would have prevented the abolition of slavery within the empire, as the tide was running strongly on that issue. There may have been a delay due to a clash of reforms but by the time the bill was being debated, the discussion was more detail than principle. At most, it may have delayed its implementation and so I doubt it'd have had much consequence on the American Civil War.
What about a reform that has the emancipation of the catholics and the abolotion of slavery, a massive "Tory" reform?

As for other consequences, the main one might be Ireland. Would a parliament still dominated by aristocrats and gentry have applied such a dogmatic and brutal approach to the Potato Famine as the more middle-class one did in OTL? Probably it would (not least because most of the senior politicians would have been the same) but the question's worth asking all the same.
With Duke of Wellington, being from Ireland, he wont want his fellow Irish men dying from starvation while fat lords eat like kings in Westminster.
Longer term, I'd imagine that pressure for further reform would mount earlier and there'd be a Second Reform Act some time in the 1850s.
This i can accept.
 
He is the war hero, he held the office in 1828-30, so holding the office again two years later, should be fine, he would have the support of Robert Peel and Henry Goulburn.

Yes, but not that of the Commons. The Whigs have an comfortable majority in 1831 so while Wellington can form an administration, the Whigs can consistently vote him down. As in OTL Grey also won a massive majority in 1832, I don't see how Wellington is going to be able to keep his government in office.

What about a reform that has the emancipation of the catholics and the abolition of slavery, a massive "Tory" reform?

Taking up three controversial issues simultaneously, each of which is largely or wholly supported by the Whigs, is going to split his party. He did well to get one of them sorted.

With Duke of Wellington, being from Ireland, he wont want his fellow Irish men dying from starvation while fat lords eat like kings in Westminster.

He considered himself English, place of birth notwithstanding. By the time of the famine, he'd probably have left front-line politics anyway, whatever the electoral system or basis; he was 76 when it began.
 
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