In the nineteenth century, Britain saw the transformation of the political and parliamentary system. These included the Reform Acts which transformed the electorate and Parliament, social reforms such as the New Poor Law of 1834, and mass protests such as the Peterloo Massacre.
In this playlist, you’ll find videos featuring content from our partners at the People’s History Museum, the Parliamentary Archives and the National Archives. This playlist will be particularly helpful for Part 3 of AQA’s Power and the People module and the c. 1800-2014 topic of OCR’s Power: Monarchy and Democracy.
Additional Resources
Free online course
The Citizens project at Royal Holloway produced a free online course ‘Peterloo to the Pankhursts: Radicalism and Reform in the 19th Century’, which you can access on Future Learn. This course is for anyone with an interest in political and social history, including the history of British Parliament, trade unionism and the labour movement.
The People's History Museum
The People’s History Museum has the largest collection of political material in Britain. You can see some of their items here. The Peterloo 1819 website hosts free learning resources made in partnership with the People’s History Museum and Manchester Histories. The Peterloo 1819 has links to multiple resources on the Peterloo Massacre which might be useful, including a video featuring descendants of those present in 1819. For information on female reformers at Peterloo, see this blog post on the People’s History Museum, this article on The Conversation and this document from the National Archives.
LSE Women’s Library
The LSE Women’s Library has produced this online exhibit on female reformers on ‘Sexual Revolutionaries’ including sources and information about Josephine Butler and the Contagious Diseases Act.
19th century political change
The National Archives website has a range of free classroom resource featuring some of their documents on nineteenth-century political change. These include an interactive ‘Powers, Politics & Protest’ resource with student activities, and tasks and sources on specific legislation such as the 1833 Factory Act and the 1834 Poor Law. The Living Heritage pages of the UK Parliament website include case studies, digitised documents and short explanatory articles on elections and voting in the nineteenth century. There is also a section on the history of the Metropolitan Police. The UK parliament also hosts an interactive timeline with the themes ‘Journey to Democracy’ and ‘Modern Social Reforms’.
Further reading
For further reading on radicalism and reform in the nineteenth century, see the History of Parliament website and the Citizens Project blog.
