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| | Reform Acts. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05 |
 | | Reform agitation, beginning to develop in the 1760s, was supported by William Pitt and others, but the emergency period of the French Revolution interrupted it. |
 | | The Reform Act of 1884, passed during the administration of William Gladstone, removed the distinction between county and borough franchises and, by the reduction of rural qualifications, added about 2,000,000 more men to the electorate. |
 | | It was not, however, until the passage of the Representation of the People Acts in the 20th cent. |
| www.bartleby.com /65/re/ReformAc.html (472 words) |
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