ABSTRACT
From the struggles of the seventeenth century, Englishmen of the Georgian age inherited both their “matchless” constitution and the strain of radicalism that criticized it. During the election of 1761 William Beckford, a supporter of William Pitt the Elder, raised a more fundamental question. It was becoming the program of organized groups forming deliberately for the purpose of exacting pledges from Members of Parliament, or would-be members, and for propagandizing the cause. When reform came before the Commons under Pitt’s auspices in May 1783 the political situation had changed. The SCI continued even after the defeat of 1785 to carry on its work of public education. Without realizing either the long run or the short run potentialities of what they had done, the radicals of the 1780’s had seriously challenged the ancient assumptions about representation and the franchise.
