ABSTRACT
The Australian Constitutions Act 1850 (UK) was a deliberate decision by the Whig Government of Earl Russell to allow constitutions in the form which colonists themselves would develop, and self-government after further agitation and debate in 1852. British election debates and platforms resembled those in the Australian colonies, but the same democratisation did not occur in Britain, where the Chartists were completely defeated. Britain did not experience the European revolutions of 1830 and 1848, and the constant revolutions of France and South America. Britain's Australian colonies shared in this relative stability.
