Mark Pack

This biography first appeared in the Dictionary of Liberal Biography, produced by the Liberal Democrat History Group. Charles Grey, second Earl Grey, Viscount Howick and Baron Grey, was the Prime Minister who oversaw the Great Reform Act of 1832, which overhauled the country’s parliamentary electoral system and was the culmination of two years of intense [...] »

Blackwood's Magazine (November 1833) decried the impact of the Great Reform Act on British politics, saying it had brought forth MPs who spent too much time giving speeches: The Reform Bill ... has augmented two-fold that class of orators who spend their breath and not their money in securing their places [i.e. constituencies], and whose [...] »

This was my contribution to the collection of historical counter-factuals, President Gore...: and Other Things That Never Happened. The general election of July and August 1830 took place in an atmosphere of intense political crisis. The 1829 harvest had been very poor and food prices rose sharply. Widespread agricultural riots and organised protests spread, triggered [...] »