Abstract
From the 1760s, the question of parliamentary reform in Britain concerning the amendment and extension of suffrage was an important topic of differing intensity. It was the so-called extra-parliamentary movement which endeavoured to reach its objective by means of petitions.
However, the radical reformers of the 1790s who demanded parliamentary reform differed in objectives from their predecessors. The aims of the new reform societies, whose membership consisted mainly of the working class, were annual parliamentary elections and universal suffrage.
The British government of the Prime Minister William Pitt the younger, especially under the pressure of events of the French Revolution and for fear of possible insurrection or some domestic conspiracy, legislatively intervened not only against Scottish but also against English radicals. In the 1790s, therefore, the government launched persecution against all supporters of radical reform and revolutionary France.