ABSTRACT
It would be natural for an economist to assume that the liberal age in Britain started much earlier than 1848, perhaps as early as the late eighteenth century when Edmund Burke, William Pitt and others were extolling the virtues of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776). Britain began the move towards free trade relatively early, a landmark being William Huskisson’s dramatic reduction in the number of goods subject to tariffs in the 1820s. The monetary framework for a liberal capitalist economy was arguably laid down by the Bullion Debate, and policy was refined in the period leading up to the Bank Charter Act of 1844. During this period parliament was clearly sovereign and, in parliament, the House of Commons was clearly dominant, though not to the extent that it became in the twentieth century. Parliamentary debate was vigorous and could affect the fate of governments. In 1848 Britain experienced no revolution and did not even see any change in the franchise.
