Membership of The Little Circle
A moderate supporter of reform, from 1815 Brotherton was a member of a group of Nonconformist Liberals, meeting in the Manchester home of John Potter, termed the Little Circle. Other members of the group included: John Brotherton (preacher); Archibald Prentice (later editor of the Manchester Times); John Shuttleworth (industrialist and municipal reformer); Absalom Watkin (parliamentary reformer and anti corn law campaigner); William Cowdray Jnr (editor of the Manchester Gazette); Thomas Potter (later first mayor of Manchester) and Richard Potter (later MP for Wigan).
After the death of John Potter, the Potter brothers formed a second Little Circle group, to begin a campaign for parliamentary reform. This called for the better proportional representation in the Houses of Parliament from the rotten boroughs towards the fast-growing industrialised towns of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Salford. After the petition raised on behalf of the group by Absalom Watkin, Parliament passed the Reform Act 1832.
Read more about this topic: John Edward Taylor
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