this explains why the county electorate in industrial counties like Yorkshire and Lancashire grew rapidly, but the bulk of the fast-growing urban middle class remained voteless. In addition, Glasgow – which grew into a major industrial and commercial centre in the 18th century, increasing in numbers from some twelve thousand to eighty thousand – although technically represented in the House of Commons, was part of a district of burghs that meant it was in practice without representation, and since none of its citizens met the county franchise none of them had a direct vote. Some other industrial towns which elected members but with a very narrow franchise were in the same situation: Wigan, for example, had 10,000 people in 1800 but only 100 electors, while residents of the fast-growing London suburbs were also unrepresented unless they met the county franchise to vote in Middlesex, Surrey or Kent. Movements for reform The English Civil War of the 1640s produced a series of debates over reforming the electoral system – involving the franchise, the distribution of the House of Commons seats, and the abolition of the House of Lords. At the Putney Debates of 1647, radicals led by Thomas Rainborough argued for manhood suffrage; conservatives, led by Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton, maintained that the vote should rather go only to those they regarded as having a 'stake' in the country. The Cromwellian system that eventually emerged featured a modest increase in the franchise, and a sharp reduction in the overall number of seats, with a shift in balance to county over borough members. There was also a redistribution of borough seats from the West and South-West to Eastern England. With the Restoration of the monarchy of 1660, however, came a restoration of the pre-revolutionary system in its entirety, thereafter sanctified as the Ancient Constitution; and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 saw no attempt to re-open the question. There followed a long period during which any challenge to the system of representation was equated with republicanism and treason; and the political classes remained largely content with the alliance of landowners, urban merchants, and small town electorates which underpinned it. A reform movement began in the mid-18th century, with the Yorkshire Association attempting to increase county representation at the expense of the rotten boroughs; but with the failure of Pitt’s Reform Bill of 1785 it came to an end. Thereafter new reformist strands