Days of May

The Days of May was a period of social unrest and political tension in the United Kingdom in May 1832, after Tories in the House of Lords blocked the Third Reform Bill, which aimed to extend parliamentary representation to the middle class and to the newly industrialised cities of the English Midlands and the North of England.

The campaign to broaden the electoral franchise had garnered wide and organised national support over the preceding years, led by Thomas Attwood's Birmingham Political Union, which boasted that it "had united two million men peacefully and legally in one grand and determined association to recover the liberty, the happiness, and the prosperity of the country". While Attwood was careful to keep the unions' activities legal and non-violent, he also encouraged the widespread belief that they were potentially a powerful and independent extra-parliamentary force; he boasted that the nation could be mobilised in an hour. The fall of the bill, and the subsequent resignation of the Whig government of Lord Grey, were met with rioting, campaigns of economic sabotage and threats of armed insurrection that many contemporaries judged to be credible.