Reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary movements which reject those old ideals, in that the ideas are often grounded in liberalism, although they may be rooted in socialist (specifically, social democratic) or religious concepts. Some rely on personal transformation; others rely on small collectives, such as Mahatma Gandhi's spinning wheel and the self-sustaining village economy, as a mode of social change. Reactionary movements, which can arise against any of these, attempt to put things back the way they were before any successes the new reform movement(s) enjoyed, or to prevent any such successes.

After two decades of intensely conservative rule, the logjam broke in the late 1820s with the repeal of obsolete restrictions on Nonconformists, followed by the dramatic removal of severe limitations on Catholics in Britain.

The Radical movement campaigned for electoral reform, against child labour, for a reform of the Poor Laws, free trade, educational reform, prison reform, and public sanitation. Originally this movement sought to replace the exclusive political power of the aristocracy with a more democratic system empowering urban areas and the middle and working classes. The energy of reform emerged from the religious fervour of the evangelical element in the established Church of England, and Evangelical workers in the Nonconformist churches, especially the Methodists.

Reformers also used the scientific methodology of Jeremy Bentham and the utilitarians to design specific reforms, and especially to provide for government inspection to guarantee their successful operation. The greatest success of the Reformers was the Reform Act 1832. It gave the rising urban middle classes more political power, while sharply reducing the power of the low-population districts controlled by rich families. Despite determined resistance from the House of Lords to the bill, this act gave more parliamentary power to the liberals, while reducing the political force of the working class, leaving them detached from the main body of middle class support on which they had relied. Having achieved the Reform Act 1832, the Radical alliance was broken until the Liberal-Labour alliance of the Edwardian period.

The Chartist movement in nineteenth-century Britain sought universal suffrage. A historian of the Chartist movement observed that "The Chartist movement was essentially an economic movement with a purely political programme." A period of bad trade and high food prices set in, and the drastic restrictions on Poor Law relief were a source of acute distress. The London Working Men's Association, under the guidance of Francis Place, found itself in the midst of a great unrest. In the northern textile districts the Chartists, led by Feargus O'Connor, a follower of Daniel O'Connell, denounced the inadequate Poor Laws. This was basically a hunger revolt, springing from unemployment and despair. In Birmingham, the older Birmingham Political Union sprang to life under the leadership of Thomas Attwood. The Chartist movement demanded basic economic reforms, higher wages and better conditions of work, and a repeal of the obnoxious Poor Law Act.

The idea of universal male suffrage, an initial goal of the Chartist movement, was to include all males as voters regardless of their social standing. This later evolved into a campaign for universal suffrage. This movement sought to redraw the parliamentary districts within Great Britain and create a salary system for elected officials so that workers could afford to represent their constituents without a burden on their families.

Many consider Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) to be the source of the reformers' long-running campaign for feminist inclusion and the origin of the Women's Suffrage movement. Harriet Taylor was a significant influence on John Stuart Mill's work and ideas, reinforcing Mill's advocacy of women's rights. Her essay "Enfranchisement of Women" appeared in the Westminster Review in 1851 in response to a speech by Lucy Stone given at the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1850, and it was reprinted in the United States. Mill cites Taylor's influence in his final revision of On Liberty (1859), which was published shortly after her death, and she appears to be obliquely referenced in Mill's The Subjection of Women.

A militant campaign to include women in the electorate originated in Victorian times. Emmeline Pankhurst's husband, Richard Pankhurst, was a supporter of the women's suffrage movement and had been the author of the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882. In 1889, Pankhurst founded the unsuccessful Women's Franchise League, and in October 1903 she founded the better-known Women's Social and Political Union (later dubbed 'suffragettes' by the Daily Mail), an organization famous for its militancy. Led by Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia, the campaign culminated in 1918, when the British Parliament the Representation of the People Act 1918 granting the vote to women over the age of 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of the property with an annual rent of £5, and graduates of British universities. There was also Warner's suffrage movement.