Disturbances arose in cities such as Coventry and Manchester (a protest of 12,000), with more notable ones occurring in Bristol (Bristol riots triggered after reform bill was blocked in Parliament) and Nottingham, where municipal buildings were attacked, and the military intervened to disperse the crowd. Although this unrest was unlikely to evolve drastically, what was most worrying at the time was the ideas behind it, and the fact that people were willing to act on their beliefs if the issue continued. The political unions formed in the time, like the Birmingham Political Union (Thomas Attwood) campaigned in favour of extending and redistributing suffrage rights to the working class, and these, coupled with radical newspapers grew drastically after the reform bill was initially abandoned. Although this was nothing new – in the decades previous similar radical behavior had been observed, calls for reform bared an extra weight as it united different classes – Attwood described the BPU as "a general political union between the lower and middle classes of the people". Unlike previous times, aims were concerted and coordinated to a greater extent than previous calls for reform, and there was a general realization that times could not continue as they were. The fact there was an increasing sense of unity between different margins of society also contributed to a very real fear of something similar to France, during their revolutionary wave at the time. This can be exemplified by MP Thomas Macaulay, who on the reform act, said: "I support the measure, because I am sure that it is our best security against revolution". There was a genuine fear of an escalation, and popular protest was central to this and with no doubt contributed to the passing of the bill.
Another important short-term factor in its passage was the support of the monarchy. The reform bill had initially been passed in the House of Commons, however the Tory traditionalists dominated the House of Lords, and therefore blocked the proposed legislation – triggering violent unrest in large cities, like Bristol.