House of Lords

===19th century===
The 19th century was marked by several changes to the House of Lords. The House, once a body of only about 50&nbsp;members, had been greatly enlarged by the liberality of [[George III]] and his successors in creating peerages. The individual influence of a Lord of Parliament was thus diminished.

Moreover, the power of the House as a whole decreased, whilst that of the House of Commons grew. Particularly notable in the development of the Lower House's superiority was the [[Reform Act 1832|Reform Act of 1832]]. The electoral system of the House of Commons was far from democratic: property qualifications greatly restricted the size of the electorate, and the boundaries of many constituencies had not been changed for centuries. Entire cities such as [[Manchester]] had not even one representative in the House of Commons, while the 11 voters of [[Old Sarum (UK Parliament constituency)|Old Sarum]] retained their ancient right to elect two MPs despite living elsewhere. A small borough was susceptible to bribery, and was often under the control of a patron, whose nominee was guaranteed to win an election. Some aristocrats were patrons of numerous "[[rotten borough|pocket boroughs]]", and therefore controlled a considerable part of the membership of the House of Commons.

When the House of Commons passed a Reform Bill to correct some of these anomalies in 1831, the House of Lords rejected the proposal. The popular cause of reform, however, was not abandoned by the ministry, despite a second rejection of the bill in 1832. Prime Minister [[Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey]] advised the King to overwhelm opposition to the bill in the House of Lords by creating about 80&nbsp;new pro-Reform peers. [[William IV of the United Kingdom|William IV]] originally balked at the proposal, which effectively threatened the opposition of the House of Lords, but at length relented.

Before the new peers were created, however, the Lords who opposed the bill admitted defeat and abstained from the vote, allowing the passage of the bill. The crisis damaged the political influence of the House of Lords but did not altogether end it. A vital reform was effected by the Lords themselves in 1868, when they changed their standing orders to abolish proxy voting, preventing Lords from voting without taking the trouble to attend.<ref>McKechnie, ''The reform of the House of Lords'' etc.</ref> Over the course of the century the powers of the upper house were further reduced stepwise, culminating in the 20th century with the [[Parliament Act 1911]]; the Commons gradually became the stronger House of Parliament.