On This Day

01 March 1831

Lord John Russell presents the first Reform Bill to the House of Commons

The government proposed to abolish 168 seats including Old Sarum, Bossiney, Lostwithiel and Wendover and to creat 106 new seats in mainly northern industrial towns and cities such as Manchester, Leeds, Huddersfield and Wolverhampton. Writing the following day, Lord Grenville noted in his diary, ‘Lord John Russell rose at six o’clock and spoke for two hours and a quarter – a sweeping measure indeed much more than anyone had imagined.’