Excerpt from History of Our Time: 1885 1911
Modern England, politically speaking, begins with the Reform Bill of 1832, which transferred power from the landed interest to the middle class. After the long winter of stagnation caused by fear of revolution on the French model there was a breath of spring in the air. Within the next few years slavery was abolished throughout the Empire, municipal government reformed, the Poor Law modernized, and the problem of public health tackled for the first time Railways and steamships were built, and as a result of the Irish Famine and the Free Trade campaign the Corn Laws were swept away Members of the aristocracy, such as Grey, Melbourne, and Aberdeen, Russell, Derby, and Palmerston, Salisbury and Rosebery, continued to play an active part, but representatives of the business and professional world, such as Cobden and Bright, Peel, Gladstone and Disraeli, obtained an ever increasing share of power which was not seriously challenged when the Reform Bill of 1867 enfranchised the urban worker. Though Queen Victoria held tenaciously to her prerogatives the direct influence of the Crown gradually diminished, while that of the House of Commons, more representative than ever before, steadily increased, and the importance of the Press waxed as illiteracy waned. Factory legislation, the co-operative movement, Trade Unions, and compulsory education attempted to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding urban population. The national wealth increased by leaps and bounds, and for half a century England with her bountiful supplies of coal became the industrial leader of the world.
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