Redistribution of Seats Act 1885
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| Long title | An Act for the Redistribution of Seats at Parliamentary Elections, and for other Purposes. |
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| Citation | 48 & 49 Vict. C. 23 |
| Introduced by | William Gladstone |
| Territorial extent | United Kingdom |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 25 June 1885 |
| Other legislation | |
| Repealed by | Representation of the People Act 1918 |
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Status: Repealed
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The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 (48 & 49 Vict., c. 23) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was a piece of electoral reform legislation that redistributed the seats in the House of Commons, introducing the concept of equally populated constituencies, in an attempt to equalise representation across the UK. It was associated with, but not part of, the Reform Act 1884.
The first major reform of parliamentary seats took place under the Reform Act 1832. The next redistribution of parliamentary seats occurred in three parliamentary acts in 1867–68. The Reform Act 1867 applied to English and Welsh constituencies. This was followed by the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868 which redistributed Scottish seats and gave Scotland extra seats at the expense of England. The third act was the Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1868.
The 1868 redistribution had proved unsatisfactory and there had been only superficial attempts to match the numbers of representatives to the population of a constituency. A few of the largest towns were given three MPs, but electors could only vote for two candidates. As a result, the political importance of these boroughs was reduced: for example, a borough formerly represented by two Liberals was now usually represented by two Liberals and one Conservative. In a Commons vote on party lines, the Conservative neutralised one of the Liberals, so that the borough only counted for one vote. Smaller boroughs with two members of the same party had twice the voting power in the house as the larger boroughs.
By the 1880s, continued industrial growth and resulting population movements had resulted in an increased imbalance between the constituencies in terms of the numbers of MPs and the population.
William Ewart Gladstone, leading a Liberal government, introduced a Representation of the People Bill in 1884, which sought to greatly extend the franchise but not to alter the boundaries of constituencies. The Liberals had a large majority in the House of Commons, and the measure passed through the House easily. The House of Lords, on the other hand, was dominated by the Conservative Party. The Conservative leader, Lord Salisbury, was opposed to the bill. The majority of the Conservative party's MPs were elected by the counties, with the Liberals being electorally strong in the boroughs. He realised that the bill's extension of household suffrage into the counties would enfranchise many rural voters such as coalminers and agricultural labourers who were likely to vote for the Liberals. This, he claimed, would lead to "the absolute effacement of the Conservative Party". Salisbury hoped to use the Conservative majority in the Lords to block the bill and force Gladstone to seek a dissolution of Parliament before the reforms could be enacted. The Lords duly rejected the bill and returned it to the Commons, provoking outrage among the Radical wing of the Liberals. A campaign organised around the slogan "The Peers Against the People" called for reform or abolition of the Lords if they rejected the bill a second time.
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