Describing the period 1815-1832 as 'The birth of a new age', this book considers the tremendous forces of change operating after industrialisation and discusses the achievement of Lord Liverpool's administration in containing these pressures, thereby leading the way to evolutionary change rather than revolution. Britain before the Reform Act Eric J Evans In the years1815-1832, Britain came close to revolution. Fewer than twenty years separate the Battle of Waterloo from the passing of the ‘Great’ Reform Act but during this period Britain’s political elite was challenged as never before. In rising to that challenge, the political elite attempted, with considerable success, to ensure that Britain engineered that most perilous of transitions, from a less complex and more deferential society into a modern urban and industrial one, while avoding political revolution.