ABSTRACT
In the 1830s the working classes in England were facing a decline in jobs. At the same time, wages were being driven down by changes in technology and patterns of work. The common people found they had a very different set of concerns than the enfranchised seemed to have. 1 The Reform Bill for which they had campaigned had developed into a reform law that still excluded them from the vote. And the passage of the New Poor Law drove home their powerlessness.
