POLITICAL HISTORY 



Such is Mr. Justin McCarthy's description of the Bill.*'''* After some negotia- 

 tions with the peers and with the Opposition, Parliament met again in 

 October, 1884, and a Redistribution Bill was promised which satisfied the 

 peers, and decided them to accept the Franchise Bill which accordingly was 

 carried in the last month of the year 1884, The Redistribution Bill was 

 passed in March next year, and this left the Parliamentary representation of 

 the county as we know it to-day. 



The early ' eighties * were important in another aspect, for they 

 witnessed the military reorganization of the forces of the county. Several 

 distinguished regiments had long been quartered in Lancashire, and by the 

 Army Reorganization Order of July, 1881, seven of these fine regiments 

 were definitely assigned to Lancashire, and placed on a territorial basis. To 

 each was assigned a 3rd, or perhaps 4th, battalion of the old Royal Lancashire 

 militia, which as a historic county force has been so often referred to in 

 these pages. To these were also added volunteer battalions, which like the 

 Militia were to bear the name of the regiment to which they were hence- 

 forth attached. The committee responsible for these suggestions was very 

 fittingly presided over by Colonel the Hon. F. A. Stanley, who in 1878-80 

 had represented North Lancashire and who, as the earl of Derby, is the 

 present lord-lieutenant of the county. 



The rearrangement of the seven Lancashire Regiments in 1881 was as 

 follows : — ^" 



"^ Hist, of Our Own Times, from 1880 to the Diamond Jubilee, 168, et seq. 



'^'' See Rep. of the Committee on the Formation of Territorial Regiments as prepared by Col. Stanley's 

 Committee, Feb. 1881, App. i, 12-3, et seq. ; see also App. ii, Pari. Rep. Army Organization, 1881-5. 

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