I have added a new post to the Copy Book, Mrs Partington and Her Mop.
This is a short extract from a speech given at Taunton in October 1831, by the Revd Sydney Smith. Shortly before, the House of Lords had blocked the passage of a Bill proposing sweeping changes to the Commons. The Industrial Revolution had drained rural communities of people, and created vast new cities, but constituency boundaries had remained unchanged. Dozens of rural seats in the Commons represented almost nobody, and yet there were no seats in the Commons representing the crowded cities. The Bill was designed to set this right.
Smith supported the reform Bill, but unlike many people he was not anxious about its fate. He told the meeting in Taunton that the Lords had taken on a task far greater than they knew, and then told them a little anecdote about Mrs Partington, of Sidmouth in Devon.