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Book of the Week: Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill 1832

Antonia Fraser

Duncan Minshull

Katrin Williams

Adrian Scarborough

Book of the Week: Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill 1832: Episode 1

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Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill 1832

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill 1832, Episode 1

It's the beginning of the 1830s. 'Reform' is in the air, but who will press for it?

4 Extra Debut. The early 1830s. Who will press for the 'reform' of age-old corruption and privilege? Read by Adrian Scarborough. From May 2013.

'The struggle for the Great Reform Bill of 1832 took place a the crossroads of English history.' - so says Antonia Fraser in her lively and insightful account of the political change that took place during this period.

Times were in flux. The Industrial Revolution was underway. The reverberations of the French Revolution were still being felt. And the country would be ruled by a new monarch, William IV.

And political change, who and how we would vote, was now in the spotlight. Put there mainly by the
Whigs - led by Earl Grey.

Age-old corruption, rotten boroughs, even hereditary peers would feel these winds of change. But how would the Bill be made law? Bumpily and dramatically, as it turned out, and its path is followed in five episodes, which are abridged by Katrin Williams:

1. It is the beginning of the 1830's. One king has died, another has been toppled,
and the word 'reform' is in the air. But who will press for it?

Reader Adrian Scarborough
Producer Duncan Minshull.

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Antonia Fraser's account of a period of dramatic political change

Antonia Fraser's account of a period of dramatic political change, abridged by Katrin Williams. Read by Adrian Scarborough

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Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill 1832

Episode 1

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