Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Although all women and most men remained unenfranchised, the Reform Act of 1832 was a turning point in the history of modern Britain. . . . The Reform Act thus greatly contributed to the development of more broadly based political parties." [Merriman: Modern Europe, p. 633] "The Reform Act of 1832 corresponds to the July Revolution of 1830 in France, and had indeed been powerfully stimulated by the news from Paris. This period is probably the only one in modern history when political events in Britain ran parallel with those on the continent, to the point where something not unlike a revolutionary situation might have developed in 1831-2 but for the restraint of both Whig and Tory parties." [Hobsbawm: Revolution, p. 110-11]