Paul Adelman

Parliament initially became troubled by the working classes 'thundering at the gates'. Curiously, writes Paul Adelman, it was the Conservative Party that benefited from Russell’s Reform Act.

The Education Act of 1870 was a landmark in Liberal policy, writes Paul Adelman, but it failed to satisfy the Nonconformist conscience of many Liberal supporters.

Paul Adelman explains a major turning point in modern British history.

History with the people left out? Arid quantification? Or study of the essential motivating force of society? Six historians answer.

It may have lacked the newsworthy drama of the earlier acts, but the Reform legislation of 1884-85 wrought 'great organic changes in the British constitution', writes Paul Adelman.