Unreformed House of Commons
Encyclopedia
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
as it existed before the Reform Act 1832
Reform Act 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...
.
Until the Act of Union of 1707 joining the Kingdoms of Scotland
Kingdom of Scotland
The Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...
and England
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
(to form the Kingdom of Great Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
), Scotland had its own Parliament
Parliament of Scotland
The Parliament of Scotland, officially the Estates of Parliament, was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland. The unicameral parliament of Scotland is first found on record during the early 13th century, with the first meeting for which a primary source survives at...
, and the term refers to the House of Commons of England
House of Commons of England
The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain...
(which included representatives from Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
from the 16th century). From 1707 to 1801 the term refers to the House of Commons of Great Britain
House of Commons of Great Britain
The House of Commons of Great Britain was the lower house of the Parliament of Great Britain between 1707 and 1801. In 1707, as a result of the Acts of Union of that year, it replaced the House of Commons of England and the third estate of the Parliament of Scotland, as one of the most significant...
. Until the Act of Union
Act of Union 1800
The Acts of Union 1800 describe two complementary Acts, namely:* the Union with Ireland Act 1800 , an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, and...
of 1801 joining the Kingdom of Ireland
Kingdom of Ireland
The Kingdom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800. It replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171...
to Great Britain (to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
), Ireland also had its own Parliament
Parliament of Ireland
The Parliament of Ireland was a legislature that existed in Dublin from 1297 until 1800. In its early mediaeval period during the Lordship of Ireland it consisted of either two or three chambers: the House of Commons, elected by a very restricted suffrage, the House of Lords in which the lords...
. From 1801 to 1832, therefore, the term refers to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
The House of Commons evolved long before the modern theory of democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
. In mediaeval political theory it was believed that sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
flowed from God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, not from the people, and that monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
was the form of government ordained by God. The King (or Queen) was "the Lord's anointed
Divine Right of Kings
The divine right of kings or divine-right theory of kingship is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God...
," and it was the duty of the people to obey the King as God's representative. Nevertheless, it was always recognised that the King had a corresponding duty to rule wisely and for the people's benefit, and from an early date it was accepted that this included the duty to listen to the advice of the people, as expressed by their chosen representatives. To this idea was added the practical consideration that it was easier for the King to collect the taxes he needed if the people consented to pay them.
Composition of the House
The House of Commons consisted entirely of men, most of them men of substantial property, and (after the Glorious RevolutionGlorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
of 1688) entirely of Anglicans
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
(except in Scotland). All of these restrictions were in conformity with the dominant ideology of the time. Women could neither vote nor stand for election, and this was not questioned by any substantial number of people until well after 1832. Members of Parliament were not paid, which meant that only men of wealth could take the time to serve. In any case, candidates had to be electors, which meant that in most places they had to have substantial property, usually in the form of land.
Virtually all members representing county seats (see below) were landed gentlemen. Many were relatives or dependants of peers
Peerage
The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...
, but others took pride in being independent squire
Squire
The English word squire is a shortened version of the word Esquire, from the Old French , itself derived from the Late Latin , in medieval or Old English a scutifer. The Classical Latin equivalent was , "arms bearer"...
s who did not have titles. These independent country gentlemen, sometimes called "the country party" although they were not an organised party, were often the only source of opposition to the government of the day, since they had no need to gain government favour through their votes in the House.
Members for borough seats (see below) were sometimes also local squires, but were more frequently merchants or urban professionals such as lawyers. A large number of borough members were placed in their seats by the government of the day in order to provide support to the government: these were known as "placemen," and it was a long-standing objective of parliamentary reformers to get the placemen out of the House of Commons. Some borough members were men of little means, sometimes in debt or insolvent, who agreed to become placemen in return for government funds. All 18th century governments depended on this corrupt element to maintain their majorities. Some boroughs were under the control of particular ministers or government departments. The members representing the Cinque Ports
Cinque Ports
The Confederation of Cinque Ports is a historic series of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex. It was originally formed for military and trade purposes, but is now entirely ceremonial. It lies at the eastern end of the English Channel, where the crossing to the continent is narrowest...
, for example, were traditionally dependants of the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
and spoke for the interests of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
.
Although there was no religious restriction on the right to vote, in practice most Catholics were prevented from voting between the reign of Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
and the Papists Act 1778
Papists Act 1778
The Papists Act 1778 is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain and was the first Act for Catholic Relief. Later in 1778 It was also enacted by the Irish parliament....
, because they could not own or inherit land, making them unable to meet the property requirement (although many Catholic families circumvented this prohibition). Even after 1778, eligibility for election to the House of Commons was restricted by the fact that members had to take an Anglican oath to take their seats. This excluded Catholics, non-Anglican Protestants
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
(English Dissenters
English Dissenters
English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....
), Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and atheists
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
from the House. (This restriction did not apply to Presbyterians in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, where the Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
was the established church.)
It is a widely held view that the quality of members of the House of Commons declined over the 250 years before its reform in 1832, and this belief was one of the stimulants for reform. Sir John Neale
J. E. Neale
Sir John Ernest Neale, FBA was a British historian who specialised in Elizabethan and Parliamentary history.-Academic career:...
could say of the county members in the reign of Elizabeth I: "It was not sufficient for candidates to belong to the more substantial families...They usually had to show some initiative and will." In the boroughs, he wrote, "competition tended to eliminate the less vigorous, less intelligent and unambitious." This would not be accepted as a description of the situation in the reign of George III
George III of the United Kingdom
George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...
, when it was frequently said that the House of full of lazy time-servers, talentless dependants of peers, and corrupt placemen and government agents.
What did not change was the numerical dominance of country gentlemen in the House. In 1584 they comprised 240 members in a House of 460. Two hundred years later this proportion had hardly changed, even though the social composition of Britain had changed radically over that time. But the proportion of independent members had declined. The proportion of these members who were sons or close relatives of peers rose considerably over this period. In 1584 only 24 members were sons of peers: by the end of the 18th century this number had risen to about 130 (in a House of 659, i.e. 19.72%), a fourfold proportional increase.
In the 18th century about 50 members of the House held ministerial or similar government offices. These included a number of officials who today would be career civil servants: the Secretary of the Admiralty, for example. As well, a number of members were given ceremonial Court appointments, usually sinecure
Sinecure
A sinecure means an office that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service...
s, as a means of ensuring their loyalty. These included such archaic posts as eight Clerks of the Green Cloth
Clerk of the Green Cloth
The Clerk of the Green Cloth was a position in the British Royal Household. The clerk acted as secretary of the Board of Green Cloth, and was therefore responsible for organising royal journeys and assisting in the administration of the Royal Household. From the Restoration, there were four clerks...
and a dozen Grooms of the Bedchamber. Many more members held other sinecures of various kinds, mostly clerkships in government departments, posts which usually involved no actual work. This was not necessarily regarded as corrupt – in an age when Members received neither payments nor pensions, a sinecure position was regarded as a legitimate reward for service, but it also served to keep the recipient loyal. More clearly corrupt was the payment of secret pensions to Members by the Treasury. In 1762 sixteen Members were thus secretly in the pay of the government.
Opposition rhetoric at the time, however, tended to exaggerate the corruption of the 18th century House of Commons and the extent to which governments controlled the House by corrupt means. John Brooke's studies of division lists led him to comment: "The majority of Members voting with Government held no office and did so through honest conviction." The lists show, he said "that Members were given office because they voted with Government, not that they voted with Government in order to obtain office." As he points out, at a time when there were no formal political parties and hence no party discipline in the House, governments had to resort to other expedients to secure a majority and allow the continuity of government
Continuity of government
Continuity of government is the principle of establishing defined procedures that allow a government to continue its essential operations in case of nuclear war or other catastrophic event....
.
County members
England had been divided into countiesCounty
A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...
(or shire
Shire
A shire is a traditional term for a division of land, found in the United Kingdom and in Australia. In parts of Australia, a shire is an administrative unit, but it is not synonymous with "county" there, which is a land registration unit. Individually, or as a suffix in Scotland and in the far...
s) since Anglo-Saxon times, and these formed the first basis of representation. Two knights of the shire
Knights of the Shire
From the creation of the Parliament of England in mediaeval times until 1826 each county of England and Wales sent two Knights of the Shire as members of Parliament to represent the interests of the county, when the number of knights from Yorkshire was increased to four...
were chosen to represent each county. Before 1536 England had 39 counties
Counties of the United Kingdom
The counties of the United Kingdom are subnational divisions of the United Kingdom, used for the purposes of administrative, geographical and political demarcation. By the Middle Ages counties had become established as a unit of local government, at least in England. By the early 17th century all...
(see list below), electing 78 knights of the shire. These "knights" were local landowners who did not hold peerage
Peerage
The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...
s (in which case they would be members of the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
). When Wales was formally annexed to England in 1536, each of the 12 Welsh counties elected one knight of the shire. Monmouthshire
Monmouthshire (historic)
Monmouthshire , also known as the County of Monmouth , is one of thirteen ancient counties of Wales and a former administrative county....
, previously part of the Welsh Marches
Welsh Marches
The Welsh Marches is a term which, in modern usage, denotes an imprecisely defined area along and around the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods...
, became an English county, electing two members, thus making a total of 92 county members.
In order to be either a candidate or an elector for a county seat, a man had to own (not rent) freehold property valued for the land tax at two pounds
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
a year. (Women could neither vote nor be elected.) This was known as the 40 shilling freehold
Forty Shilling Freeholders
Forty shilling freeholders were a group of landowners who had the Parliamentary franchise to vote in county constituencies in various parts of the British Isles. In England it was the only such qualification from 1430 until 1832...
. (There were 20 shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s to the pound). This rule was established by an Act of 1430, and as the value of money gradually declined over subsequent centuries, an increasing number of landowners were admitted to the franchise. By the early 19th century, for example, Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
had more than 20,000 electors, while Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
and Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
had nearly 10,000 each. By 1831 the English county electorate was estimated at about 190,000.
County members were usually elected without an actual ballot taking place. Only at times of acute party strife did many counties see contested elections. In every county there was a group of landowning families, usually with a peer at their head, and these families would informally agree on who would stand for the county at a given election. They were frequently relatives or allies of the leading peers of the county. Some counties were represented by the same two or three families for centuries (the Lowthers of Westmorland
Westmorland
Westmorland is an area of North West England and one of the 39 historic counties of England. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974, after which the entirety of the county was absorbed into the new county of Cumbria.-Early history:...
being a good example). Sometimes a county would not see a contest for generations. Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
, for example, did not see a contested election between 1722 and 1832. A notable exception was Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
, the county which contained much of suburban London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and which had some famously contentious elections.
Borough members
Borough
A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....
s as well as counties from an early date. A borough was a town which had a Royal charter
Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...
giving it the right to elect two members (known as burgesses) to the House of Commons. (Five English boroughs elected only one member, while two boroughs – the City of London
City of London (UK Parliament constituency)
The City of London was a United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1950.-Boundaries and boundary...
and the double borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
– elected four members each.) From the 16th century 12 boroughs in Wales elected one member each.
Mediaeval kings could and did grant and revoke charters at their pleasure, often to create seats in the House for his supporters, and frequently regardless of the size or importance of the town. Thus there were "rotten boroughs" (boroughs with very few voters) from very early times, but they increased in number over the years as many old towns lost population. The two most famous examples were Old Sarum
Old Sarum (UK Parliament constituency)
Old Sarum was the most infamous of the so-called 'rotten boroughs', a parliamentary constituency of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which was effectively controlled by a single person, until it was abolished under the Reform Act 1832. The constituency was the site of what had been...
, which by the 18th century had no residents at all, and Dunwich
Dunwich (UK Parliament constituency)
Dunwich was a parliamentary borough in Suffolk, one of the most notorious of all the rotten boroughs. It elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1298 until 1832, when the constituency was abolished by the Great Reform Act....
in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, most of which had fallen into the sea. The number of English boroughs fluctuated over time, until the last new borough charter was issued in 1674. From then on the number was fixed at 203, electing 405 members (see list below).
The franchise for borough seats varied enormously. In some boroughs, virtually all adult homeowners could vote. In others, only a handful of landowners could vote. In still others, no-one could vote and the borough's members were chosen by its corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
(council), which was usually elected by a small group of property-owners.
The types of borough franchise were as follows:
Householder boroughs: These were commonly known as "potwalloper
Potwalloper
A potwalloper is an archaic term referring to a borough constituency returning members to the House of Commons of England before 1707, the House of Commons of Great Britain and the Irish House of Commons before 1801, and the House of Commons of the United Kingdom until 1832, when the Reform Act...
" boroughs, because (it was said) anyone who owned a hearth which could boil a pot could vote. In these boroughs all resident male householders who were not receiving alms or poor relief could vote. There were 12 of these boroughs, including Northampton
Northampton (UK Parliament constituency)
Northampton was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Northampton which existed until 1974.It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until its representation was reduced to one member for the 1918 general election...
which had over 1,000 voters even in the 17th century, Preston
Preston (UK Parliament constituency)
Preston is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-Boundaries:...
and other substantial towns, although some were very small, such as St Germans
St Germans (UK Parliament constituency)
St Germans was a rotten borough in Cornwall which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the English and later British Parliament from 1562 to 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act.-History:...
in Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, which had only 20 voters.
- While the householder boroughs were in theory the most democratic, they were in practice very corrupt, notorious for bribery of voters by candidates and their patrons, frequently with liquor, which made for riotous and expensive elections. At AylesburyAylesbury (UK Parliament constituency)Aylesbury is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The Conservative Party has held the seat since 1924, and held it at the 2010 general election with a 52.2% share of the vote.-Boundaries:...
in 1761, the successful candidate simply paid the electors five pounds each for their votes. Sometimes the voters banded together and openly sold the borough to the highest bidder. This usually meant that only the rich and the corrupt could win these seats.
Freeman boroughs: These were boroughs in which the franchise was restricted to "freemen of the borough." There were 92 of these, the largest single group of boroughs. The property qualifications to be a freeman varied widely from place to place. The City of London had about 7,000 freemen in the 18th century, and about 25 other freeman boroughs had at least 1,000 electors, but about 30 boroughs had fewer than 200 electors, and these boroughs were in practice under the control of the town corporation.
- In practice the larger freeman boroughs were the most democratic part of the unreformed political system. They were contested at most elections, and the contests were frequently about political issues rather than just about who had the most money to spend. Some of these boroughs were corrupt, and others were controlled by aristocratic patrons, but many freeman boroughs valued their independence. BristolBristol (UK Parliament constituency)Bristol was a two member constituency, used to elect members to the House of Commons in the Parliaments of England , Great Britain and the United Kingdom . The constituency existed until Bristol was divided into single member constituencies in 1885.-Boundaries:The historic port city of Bristol, is...
, the seat of Edmund BurkeEdmund BurkeEdmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, was the most notable of these. Most of the larger county towns such as Chester, GloucesterGloucester (UK Parliament constituency)Gloucester is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was established in 1295 to return two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons but in 1885 representation was reduced to one member under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885...
, LeicesterLeicester (UK Parliament constituency)Leicester was a parliamentary borough in Leicestershire, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1295 until 1918, when it was split into three single-member divisions.-History:...
, NorwichNorwich (UK Parliament constituency)Norwich was a borough constituency which was represented in the House of Commons of England from 1298 to 1707, in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 until it was abolished for the 1950 general election...
, NottinghamNottingham (UK Parliament constituency)Nottingham was a parliamentary borough in Nottinghamshire, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1295. In 1885 the constituency was abolished and the city of Nottingham divided into three single-member constituencies....
, WorcesterWorcester (UK Parliament constituency)Worcester is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Since 1885 it has elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election; from 1295 to 1885 it elected two MPs....
and York were of this type. But some large freeman boroughs, such as CambridgeCambridge (UK Parliament constituency)Cambridge is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post voting system....
, had small and undemocratic electorates because the right to be a freeman was restricted to a small group.
Scot and lot boroughs: These were 37 boroughs in which the franchise was restricted to those paying scot and lot
Scot and lot
Scot and lot is a phrase common in the records of English medieval boroughs, applied to householders who were assessed for a tax paid to the borough for local or national purposes.They were usually members of a merchant guild.Before the Reform Act 1832, those who paid scot and bore...
, a form of municipal taxation. These boroughs ranged in size from the most democratic borough of all, Westminster
Westminster (UK Parliament constituency)
Westminster was a parliamentary constituency in the Parliament of England to 1707, the Parliament of Great Britain 1707-1800 and the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801. It returned two members to 1885 and one thereafter....
, which had 12,000 famously radical voters in the late 18th century and was held by the Whig
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
leader Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...
, down to a rotten borough such as Gatton
Gatton (UK Parliament constituency)
Gatton was a parliamentary borough in Surrey, one of the most notorious of all the rotten boroughs. It elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1450 until 1832, when the constituency was abolished by the Great Reform Act...
in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, which in 1831 had a total of two voters. Some of these boroughs were in practice owned by aristocratic patrons, while others were notoriously corrupt.
Corporation boroughs: These 27 boroughs restricted the right to vote to members of the borough corporation
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
. In none of them was the electorate larger than 60, and in most it was much smaller. Apart from Salisbury
Salisbury (UK Parliament constituency)
Salisbury is a county constituency centred on the city of Salisbury in Wiltshire. It elects one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, by the first past the post voting system....
and Bath
Bath (UK Parliament constituency)
Bath is a constituency in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, previously of the House of Commons of England. It is an ancient constituency which has been constantly represented in Parliament since boroughs were first summoned to send members in the 13th century...
, they were mostly small towns. As a result these boroughs were rarely contested, since the corporation members usually decided among themselves who would be elected. They were usually known as "pocket boroughs" because they were frequently "in the pocket" of a wealthy patron, although they were not as corrupt as the rotten boroughs.
Burgage boroughs: In these 29 boroughs, the right to vote was attached to ownership of certain properties known as burgage
Burgage
Burgage is a medieval land term used in England and Scotland, well established by the 13th century. A burgage was a town rental property , owned by a king or lord. The property usually, and distinctly, consisted of a house on a long and narrow plot of land, with the narrow end facing the street...
s – whoever owned a certain house or field had a vote in the borough. Since burgage properties could be bought and sold, these were the easiest boroughs for wealthy patrons to control. In a small burgage borough, a patron who bought all the burgages had absolute control. At election time he would simply convey
Conveyancing
In law, conveyancing is the transfer of legal title of property from one person to another, or the granting of an encumbrance such as a mortgage or a lien....
the burgages to his relatives and friends, and thereby in effect nominate two members of Parliament. These boroughs included the notorious Old Sarum, which had no resident voters at all. As a result these boroughs were rarely contested, and even more rarely successfully contested.
Freeholder boroughs: In the remaining six boroughs, the right to vote was held by all freeholders. This was in theory quite democratic, but since they were all small towns none of them had electorates larger than 300 even in 1831.
It is not possible to calculate the size of the borough electorate with any accuracy, since many boroughs were rarely contested, and no records were made of eligible voters unless there was a contest. As well, many people owned property in more than one borough and could thus vote more than once (this was called plural voting
Plural voting
Plural voting is the practice whereby one person might be able to vote multiple times in an election. It is not to be confused with a plurality voting system which does not necessarily involve plural voting...
). One estimate is that there were 170,000 eligible borough voters in 1831. This would give a total English electorate of about 360,000 at the time of the Reform Act, or about 10% of adult males.
University members
The two ancient universities of CambridgeUniversity of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
and Oxford elected two members each from 1603. The franchise was restricted to holders of doctoral and masters degrees, which excluded the great bulk of graduates (mostly Anglican clergy) holding bachelor's degrees. Both universities had about 500 electors in the 18th century, rising to 800 by 1832, but at most elections a much smaller number actually voted. After the Act of Union of 1801, Dublin University also elected one member.
Welsh members
The twelve Welsh counties elected one member each, on the same franchise as English counties. Since Wales was much poorer than England, however, the county electorates were much smaller. The Welsh county electorate was about 19,000 in 1800. The twelve Welsh boroughs also elected one member each. Until the late 18th century all of them were very small towns. The franchises for the Welsh boroughs were freemen, scot and lot and corporation but in practice there were under the control of local patrons and contested elections were rare.Scottish members
The Act of Union of 1707 brought 45 Scottish members to the House of Commons. Of these 30 were elected by the 33 Scottish counties, while 15 were elected from the Scottish boroughs (called burghBurgh
A burgh was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United...
s in Scotland). The electoral system which had operated in the Scottish Parliament since its creation was preserved for the election of Scotland's representatives at Westminster.
Twenty-seven counties elected one member each (this included Orkney and Shetland, which were strictly speaking not counties but fiefs of the Crown, but were treated as if they were a county). The six smallest counties were grouped together into three groups of two (Buteshire and Caithness
Caithness
Caithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...
, Clackmannanshire
Clackmannanshire
Clackmannanshire, often abbreviated to Clacks is a local government council area in Scotland, and a lieutenancy area, bordering Perth and Kinross, Stirling and Fife.As Scotland's smallest historic county, it is often nicknamed 'The Wee County'....
and Kinross-shire
Kinross-shire
Kinross-shire or the County of Kinross is a registration county, electoral ward and historic county in the Perth and Kinross council area in the east central Lowlands of Scotland...
, and Nairnshire and Cromartyshire
Cromartyshire
Cromartyshire was a county in the Highlands of Scotland, consisting of a main portion between Sutherland and Ross-shire and a series of exclaves within Ross-shire. Ross-shire and Cromartyshire were combined as the single county of Ross and Cromarty by the Local Government Act 1889, and this...
), with one of each pair electing a member at alternate elections.
The Scottish county franchise was even more restrictive than for the English counties. A voter either had to own land worth the equivalent of two pounds sterling "of old extent" — meaning that the land had to have had that value since the creation of the Scottish Parliament in the 14th century — or to hold as a Crown tenant land to the value of 35 pounds sterling. This restricted the franchise to a handful of wealthy landowners, and in most counties there were fewer than 100 voters. In some it was far fewer: in Sutherlandshire the Duke of Sutherland owned almost the entire county, and all the voters were his tenants, while in Orkney and Shetland there were seven voters in 1759. The total Scottish county electorate was fewer than 3,000 in 1800.
The 15 Scottish burghs consisted of the city of Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, where the 33 members of the city corporation elected a member, and 14 groups of four or five smaller burghs, each group electing one member between them. The franchise in the groups of burghs was held by the corporations of each of the burghs making up the group. Each burgh corporation would chose a delegate, and the delegates would then meet to elect the member. The representation tended to rotate among the burghs in each group. Since most of the burghs were little more than villages, the leading county families could usually bribe the corporation members to get their nominees elected.
For many years the Scottish representation was manipulated by Henry Dundas
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville PC and Baron Dunira was a Scottish lawyer and politician. He was the first Secretary of State for War and the last person to be impeached in the United Kingdom....
, the Scottish agent of the Tory party, who spent government funds liberally ensuring that Tories were elected. This was one reason why the Scottish members were unpopular at Westminster, being regarded as corrupt even by the standards of the day, as well as uncouth.
Irish members
The Act of Union of 1801 brought 100 Irish members to the House of Commons. The 32 Irish countiesCounties of Ireland
The counties of Ireland are sub-national divisions used for the purposes of geographic demarcation and local government. Closely related to the county is the County corporate which covered towns or cities which were deemed to be important enough to be independent from their counties. A county...
elected two members each, while 33 boroughs elected 35 members (all elected one member except Dublin and Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
, which elected two). The remaining seat was given to Dublin University. The franchise in the counties was the same as for England, and the total Irish county electorate, at about 220,000 in 1801, was actually larger than the English county electorate (Ireland had a larger population relative to England than it does today, and had a larger rural gentry). But the franchise was drastically raised in 1829 when Catholics were allowed to sit in the House of Commons, to deprive the mass of Irish Catholics of the vote and minimise the impact of this concession).
Of the Irish boroughs, only Dublin, Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
, Kilkenny
Kilkenny
Kilkenny is a city and is the county town of the eponymous County Kilkenny in Ireland. It is situated on both banks of the River Nore in the province of Leinster, in the south-east of Ireland...
, Derry
Derry
Derry or Londonderry is the second-biggest city in Northern Ireland and the fourth-biggest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Doire or Doire Cholmcille meaning "oak-wood of Colmcille"...
and Waterford
Waterford
Waterford is a city in the South-East Region of Ireland. It is the oldest city in the country and fifth largest by population. Waterford City Council is the local government authority for the city and its immediate hinterland...
had a mass electorate. Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
’s member was elected by the city corporation and the seat was never contested.
The exclusion of Catholics from the House of Commons was of most consequence in Ireland, where 80 percent of the population were Catholic. At the time of the Act of Union, the Irish were promised that the restriction on Catholics would be lifted but this promise was broken because of the opposition of George III. This meant that except in the Protestant northern counties, most Irish, no matter how wealthy, were excluded from politics until Catholic Emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...
was finally achieved in 1829.
Unrepresented towns
Since the distribution of seats in the House of Commons among the boroughs did not change after the 17th century, no account was taken of the massive demographic changes that took place in the wake of the industrial revolutionIndustrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
of the 18th century. While an uninhabited hill such as Old Sarum elected two members of Parliament, great cities such as Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
, Bradford
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
and Huddersfield
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....
had no direct representation. Residents of these cities who met the 40 shilling freehold
Forty Shilling Freeholders
Forty shilling freeholders were a group of landowners who had the Parliamentary franchise to vote in county constituencies in various parts of the British Isles. In England it was the only such qualification from 1430 until 1832...
test could vote in their respective counties, and this explains why the county electorate in industrial counties like Yorkshire and Lancashire grew rapidly, but the bulk of the fast-growing urban middle class remained voteless.
In addition, Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, a major industrial and commercial centre, although technically represented in the House of Commons, was part of a district of burghs that meant it was in practice without representation, and since none of its citizens met the county franchise none of them had a direct vote. Some other industrial towns which elected members but with a very narrow franchise were in the same situation: Wigan
Wigan
Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total...
, for example, had 10,000 people in 1800 but only 100 electors. Residents of the fast-growing London suburbs were also unrepresented unless they met the county franchise to vote in Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
or Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
.
Movements for reform
English Revolution
"English Revolution" has been used to describe two different events in English history. The first to be so called—by Whig historians—was the Glorious Revolution of 1688, whereby James II was replaced by William III and Mary II as monarch and a constitutional monarchy was established.In the...
of the 1640s, the electoral system for the House of Commons was scrapped (and the House of Lords abolished). The revolutionary governments considered various alternative methods of electing a legislature.
At the Putney Debates
Putney Debates
The Putney Debates were a series of discussions between members of the New Model Army – a number of the participants being Levellers – concerning the makeup of a new constitution for England....
of 1647, representatives of various factions of the victorious Parliamentary army debated whether to adopt a more democratic franchise. The radicals led by Thomas Rainborough argued for manhood suffrage. The conservatives, led by Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
and Henry Ireton
Henry Ireton
Henry Ireton was an English general in the Parliamentary army during the English Civil War. He was the son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell.-Early life:...
, argued that since the great majority of Englishmen were peasant tenants, if given the vote they would vote as their landlords directed, and this would lead to the restoration of the monarchy.
In the circumstances of the time, this proved a persuasive argument, and proposals for a wider franchise or a redistribution of representation were rejected. But no other acceptable basis could be found for electing the House of Commons, and there was no functioning legislature during most of Cromwell’s regime. The Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
of 1660 restored the pre-revolutionary system in its entirety.
Following the Restoration there was a long period during which any challenge to the system of representation was equated with republicanism
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
and treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
. At the time of the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
of 1688 there was no attempt to re-open the question. A reform movement began in the mid-18th century. Although the Whig party was ambivalent in its attitude to reform, some Whig leaders like Fox and Earl Grey
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, KG, PC , known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 22 November 1830 to 16 July 1834. A member of the Whig Party, he backed significant reform of the British government and was among the...
raised the issue many times, but nothing was achieved in the face of Tory
Tory
Toryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
resistance. After 1789 the English reaction against the excesses of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
stifled all attempts to raise the issue until the end of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
in 1815.
Between 1815 and 1832 pressure for reform mounted steadily. The Napoleonic Wars had greatly strengthened the urban middle classes, and their leaders, mainly Dissenting businessmen and editors from northern England, mounted an increasingly vociferous campaign. There was also a radical working-class campaign which demanded manhood suffrage (or even universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
), annual Parliaments and other radical changes but the other reform leaders did not support these demands.
Unable to challenge the system of representation successfully, reformers had to content themselves with bringing in bills to abolish specific particularly corrupt boroughs. The Tories regularly rejected these bills until 1826, where Lord Liverpool
Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool
Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool KG PC was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since the Union with Ireland in 1801. He was 42 years old when he became premier in 1812 which made him younger than all of his successors to date...
's government surprised the reformers by accepting a bill to disfranchise Grampound
Grampound
Grampound is a village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated on the A390 road six miles west of St Austell.Grampound with Creed is the civil parish of which the village of Grampound and the village of Creed are the main settlements...
in Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, when the borough's patron had been convicted of bribery. The reformers, led by Lord John Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC , known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century....
, wanted to transfer Grampound's two seats to Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
but Liverpool would not accept this precedent. So the seats were given to Yorkshire, which thus elected four county members from 1826 to 1832. A few years later East Retford was also disfranchised but its seats were transferred to the neighbouring hundred
Hundred (division)
A hundred is a geographic division formerly used in England, Wales, Denmark, South Australia, some parts of the United States, Germany , Sweden, Finland and Norway, which historically was used to divide a larger region into smaller administrative divisions...
of Bassetlaw
Bassetlaw (wapentake)
Bassetlaw was a wapentake in the English county of Nottinghamshire. The wapentake covered an area in the north of the county, roughly equivalent to the modern Bassetlaw local government district. The wapentake was divided into the divisions of Hatfield, North Clay and South Clay.The place name...
rather than to one of the new cities.
The grant of additional seats to Yorkshire was a recognition of the pressure for reform coming from the county landowners in those counties which contained the unrepresented cities, such as Yorkshire, who were increasingly finding themselves outvoted in their own counties by urban voters. By the early 19th century Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
was more than 60% urban and a dozen other counties were more than 30% urban.
It is important to recognise that few of those who were pushing for reform of the House of Commons were doing so in order to make the political system more democratic. "Democracy" in 1820s Britain was still a term associated with mob rule
Ochlocracy
Ochlocracy or mob rule is government by mob or a mass of people, or the intimidation of legitimate authorities.As a pejorative for majoritarianism, it is akin to the Latin phrase mobile vulgus meaning "the fickle crowd", from which the English term "mob" was originally derived in the...
and the excesses of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. Nearly all political actors accepted that the House of Commons should represent interests (that is to say, property), rather than numbers. One of the leading reformers, Lord John Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC , known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century....
, said in 1831: "Elections carried by money, treating and an appeal to low passions will produce such disorder, and such disgust, that an arbitrary monarchy will sooner or later be the consequence. Our object should rather be to place the power of choice in men of property and intelligence… If you place the franchise too low… you run the risk of creating more evils on the one side than you put down on the other."
By the beginning of the 19th century it was widely felt that the House no longer represented property. It represented only a fragment of property; mostly landed property in the counties. Finance and manufacturing capital, the dominant form of property after the industrial revolution, was not represented. This and not a desire for democracy, was why most Whigs and even some Tories turned against the old system during the 1820s.
End of the Unreformed House
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...
in 1829, which removed barriers to Roman Catholics being elected to the House of Commons. Many Anglican
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
conservatives came to favour a wider franchise, particularly the enfranchisement of the heavily Protestant cities of northern England, Wales and Scotland as a means of reducing Catholic influence and safeguarding British rule in Ireland. This finally led the conservative Whigs to support a moderate reform.
It is a paradox of the old system that when the political class finally decided to accept reform, the electoral system they had denounced for decades as unrepresentative readily allowed them to do so. At the August 1830 election, the Tory administration of the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
lost 40 to 50 seats to the Whigs. On one estimate, of the 250 constituencies in which there was any kind of broad-based electorate, the Tories won in only about eighty. This setback led to Wellington's resignation in November and Earl Grey
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, KG, PC , known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 22 November 1830 to 16 July 1834. A member of the Whig Party, he backed significant reform of the British government and was among the...
formed a ministry pledged to reform.
When Grey's reform bill was narrowly defeated, he was granted a dissolution of parliament and sought a fresh mandate in April 1831. At this election the Whigs won a landslide. In 35 of the 40 English counties they won both seats and in the boroughs where electors were able to decide they made an almost clean sweep. Of the 230 seats the Tories held after that election, most were in rotten
Rotten borough
A "rotten", "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within Parliament....
or "closed" boroughs or else in Scotland, which had almost no broad-based electorates. By one reckoning, the Tories could claim to represent only 50,000 voters, while the four Whig members for Yorkshire
Yorkshire (UK Parliament constituency)
Yorkshire was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England from 1290, then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832...
alone represented 100,000 voters. Faced with this decisive verdict, the House of Lords and the King
William IV of the United Kingdom
William IV was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death...
gave way and the Great Reform Act
Reform Act 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...
was passed.
The Reform Act extended the franchise only slightly (from about 500,000 to about 750,000 voters). It took the first step towards reform: disfranchising the rotten boroughs (56 boroughs were abolished, while another 30 were reduced from two members to one), giving seats to fifty new boroughs and additional seats to the more populous counties, reforming the electoral system in Scotland and introducing a uniform borough franchise. Although the new arrangements were still a far cry from universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
, the Great Reform Act was the decisive step in ending the old system.