ABSTRACT
The Reform Act of 1832 was the creation of a government dominated by Whig landowners. Although popular pressure in 1829-32 played an important part in its passing, the measure itself was not designed to satisfy radicals outside parliament who wanted the new system to be representative of all interests and not merely of the propertied. The Whigs aim was to get the lower middle classes out of the clutches of just those radicals by bringing them within what William Gladstone would later call the privileged pale of the Constitution. The Liberals emerged from inside the Whig party over the period from about 1835 to 1860. Over this period, the political importance of the towns grew. Reflecting this, the term Whig/Liberal, or even Liberal, was increasingly used to describe the party which opposed the Tories. Many Liberals advocated free trade and the Liberal Party was also a much more natural home for nonconformists.
