orse than it was
in the earlier years of the nineteenth century, before the great Reform Act
had been passed.[80] And while the Anti-Corn Law League, the Socialist
propaganda of Robert Owen, and the agitation for factory legislation, all
promised help and attracted large numbers of workmen, the Chartist movement
was by far the strongest and most revolutionary of all the post-reform
popular agitations. Chartism went to pieces because the leaders could not
work together, and were, in fact, greatly divided as to the methods and
objects of the movement. By 1848 Bronterre O'Brien had retired from the
Chartist ranks, Feargus O'Connor was M.P. for Nottingham--to be led away
from the House of Commons hopelessly insane, to die in 1855--and Ernest
Jones could only say when the Chartist Convention broke up in hopeless
disagreement, "amid the desertion of friends, and the invasion of enemies,
the fusee has been trampled out, and elements of our energy are scattered
to the winds of heaven."

In spite of its failure, Chartism kept alive for many years the desire for
political enfranchisement in the labouring classes. That desire never died
out. Although Palmerston, the "Tory chief of a Radical Cabinet"--so
Disraeli accurately enough described him--was Prime Minister from 1855 to
1865 (with one short interval), and during that period gave no
encouragement to political reform, the opinion in the country grew steadily
in favour of working-class enfranchisement. Palmerston's very inactivity
drove Liberals and the younger Conservatives to look to the working classes
for support for the measures that were planned. The middle class was
satisfied that the artisans could be admitted to the franchise without
danger to the Constitution. Palmerston's death in 1865 left the Liberal
Party to Earl Russell's premiership, with Gladstone as its leader in the
Commons. Reform was now inevitable.

The Bill as first introduced in 1866 was a moderate measure, making a L7
rental the qualification for a vote in the boroughs. It was too moderate to
provoke any enthusiasm, and it was hateful to the old Palmerstonian Whigs
and most of the Conservatives, who objected to any enfranchisement of the
working class. By a combination of these opponents the Bill was defeated,
the Liberals retired from office, and a Conservative ministry under Lord
Derby, with Disraeli leading the House of Commons, was formed.

THE HYDE PARK RAILINGS (1866)

It was seen quickly that