Then on the 8th of October the House of Lords threw out the Bill by 199 to 158, and at once fierce riots broke out all over the country, in especial at Derby, Nottingham, and Bristol.
At Derby the jail was stormed.

At Nottingham the castle was burned, and of nine men subsequently convicted of riot, three were hanged.

At Bristol, the jail, the Mansion House, the Customs House, the Excise Office, and the Bishop's Palace were burned, and twelve lives were lost in three days.
The new session opened in December, and again the Bill was introduced, and this time the second reading had a majority of 162: 324-162.

The House of Lords hesitated when the Bill came up to them at the end of March, 1832; allowed the second reading to pass by 184 to 175, and then in Committee struck out those clauses which disfranchised the "rotten" boroughs--uninhabited constituencies like Old Sarum.

Grey, the Whig Prime Minister, at once resigned, and the Duke of Wellington endeavoured to form a Tory anti-reform Ministry.