Abstract
For the great majority of people in Britain politics existed and was experienced not at Westminster but at the local level. The exercise of political and social control occurred primarily at the local level and often within the framework of parliamentary constituencies. Hundreds of thousands of individuals — voters and non-voters alike — experienced politics at this level. In looking at the role of politics in the parliamentary constituencies, however, historians have too often concentrated on the control exercised by the propertied elite. Not enough attention has been paid to the voters themselves, even though there were several hundred thousand of them and their actions frequently excited the interest of leading politicians and were reported in both the London and the provincial press. It has been too readily assumed that the vast majority of the electorate could not vote as they wished, but had to vote as they were instructed by their superiors. Historians have too often focused their attention on how the propertied elite exploited this patronage in order to gain control of parliamentary constituencies and too many of them have ignored the behaviour of the voters.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
This traditional interpretation of parliamentary elections, emphasised by Sir Lewis Namier and many of his disciples, has been challenged in recent years by a number of historians who have paid more attention to the role of the electorate in parliamentary constituencies. My own conclusions have been very much influenced by such publications as W.A. Speck, Tory and Whig, The Struggle in the Constituencies 1701–1715 (1970);
John A. Phillips, Electoral Behavior in Unreformed England: Plumpers. Splitters and Straights (Princeton 1982);
John A. Phillips, ‘Popular Politics in Unreformed England’, JMH, 52 (1980), 599–625;
John A. Phillips, ‘The Structure of Electoral Politics in Unreformed England’, JBS, 19 (1979), 76–100;
Frank O’Gorman, ‘Electoral Deference in “Unreformed” England: 1760–1832’, JMH, 56 (1984), 391–429;
Frank O’Gorman, ‘Campaign rituals and ceremonies: The Social Meaning of Elections in England, 1780–1860’, P&P, 135 (1992), 79–115;
Ronald M. Sunter, Patronage and Politics in Scotland, 1707–1832 (Edinburgh, 1986);
and, most significantly, Frank O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons and Parties. The Unreformed Electorate of Hanoverian England, 1734–1832 (Oxford, 1989).
See J.H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England 1675–1725 (1967), ch. 6
and John Cannon, Parliamentary Reform 1640–1832 (Cambridge, 1973) ch. 2. In Shrewsbury, for example, there had been about 1900 voters in 1715, but the number was reduced to about 300 voters by 1747 because, in the 1730s, the House of Commons had restructured the franchise by excluding the liberties and most of the suburbs.
James E. Bradley, ‘Nonconformity and the Electorate in Eighteenth-Century England’, PH, 6 (1987), 241.
W.A. Speck, ‘“The Most Corrupt Council in Christendom”: decisions on controverted elections, 1702–42’, in Clyve Jones (ed.), Party and Management in Parliament 1660–1784 (Leicester 1984), pp. 107–21.
J.V. Beckett, ‘The Making of a Pocket Borough: Cockermouth 1722–1756’, JBS, 20 (1980), 140–57.
For a similar competition for control of Appleby, see Brian Bonsall, Sir James Lowther and Cumberland and Westmorland Elections 1754–1775 (Manchester, 1960), pp. 17–34.
James E. Bradley, ‘Nonconformity and the Electorate in Eighteenth-Century England’, PH, 6 (1987), 250, and John Phillips, Electoral Behavior in Unreformed England, pp. 47–51.
Ronald M. Sunter, Patronage and Politics in Scotland, 1707–1832, pp. 199–232; W.L. Burn, ‘The General Election of 1761 at Ayr’, EHR, 52 (1937), 103–9;
and W.R. Ferguson, ‘Dingwall Burgh Politics and the Parliamentary Franchise’, SHR, 38 (1959), 100–7.
Romney Sedgwick (ed.). The House of Commons 1715–1754, i, 203. For a later challenge to the Grosvenor interest in Chester, see Frank O’Gorman, ‘The General Election of 1784 in Chester’, JCAS, 57 (1970–1), 41–50.
For both quotations, see C. Collyer, ‘The Rockinghams and Yorkshire Politics 1743–1761’, TM, 41 (1954), 365.
Frank O’Gorman, ‘The Unreformed Electorate of Hanoverian England: the mid-eighteenth century to the Reform Act of 1832’, SocH, 11 (1986), 39; and R.G. Thome (ed.), The House of Commons 1790–1820, i, 21–42.
Paul Langford, The Excise Crisis (Oxford, 1975), pp. 127–9.
John Broad, ‘Sir John Verney and Buckinghamshire Elections, 1696–1715’, BIHR, 56 (1983), 201.
E.A. Smith, ‘The election agent in English politics, 1734–1832’, EHR, 84 (1969), 26.
J.G.A. Pocock, ‘The Classical Theory of Deference’, AHR, 81 (1976), 516–23;
and Frank O’Gorman, ‘Electoral Deference in Unreformed England: 1760–1832’, JMH, 56 (1984), 394–9.
Frank O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons and Parties, pp. 50–5; Frank O’Gorman, ‘The unreformed electorate of Hanoverian England’, SocH, 11 (1986) 47–8;
Ronald M. Sunter, Patronage and Politics in Scotland. 1707–1832, pp. 3–7; Stephen W. Baskerville, Peter Adman and Katherine F. Beedham, ‘The Dynamics of Landlord Influence in English County Elections, 1701–1734: The Evidence of Cheshire’, PH, 12 (1993), 126–42;
and Paul Langford, ‘Property and “Virtual Representation” in Eighteenth-Century England’, HJ, 31 (1988), 90–3.
L.B. Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edn, 1961), p. 358.
John M. Triffttt, ‘Politics and the Urban Community. Parliamentary Boroughs in the South West of England 1710–1730’, unpublished D. Phil. thesis (Oxford University, 1985), pp. 203–22.
J.F. Quinn, ‘York Elections in the Age of Walpole’, NH, 22 (1986), 176.
J.W.F. Hill, Georgian Lincoln (Cambridge, 1966), p. 86.
P.T. Underdown, ‘Bristol and Burke’ in Patrick McGrath (ed.), Bristol in the Eighteenth Century (Newton Abbot, 1972), pp. 41–62;
and P.T. Underdown, ‘Edmund Burke, the Commissary of his Bristol Constituents, 1774–1780’, EHR, 73 (1958), 252–69.
See also Lucy S. Sutherland, ‘Edmund Burke and the Relations between Members of Parliament and their constituents’, SBT, 10 (1968), 1005–21.
P.T. Underdown, ‘The Parliamentary History of the City of Bristol, 1750–1790’, unpublished MA thesis (Bristol University, 1948), p. 258.
Brian Bonsall, Sir fames Lowther and Cumberland and Westmorland Elections 1754–1775 (Manchester, 1960), p. 21.
Donald R. McAdams, ‘Electioneering Techniques in Populous Constituencies, 1784–96’, SBT, 14 (1972), 30.
E.A. Smith, ‘The election agent in English politics, 1734–1832’, EHR, 84 (1969), 13.
E.A. Smith, ‘The election agent in English politics, 1734–1832’, EHR, 84 (1969), 16, 26.
J.F. Quinn, ‘York Elections in the Age of Walpole’, NH, 22 (1986), 194.
E.A. Smith, ‘The election agent in English politics, 1734–1832’, EHR, 84 (1969), 15.
Eric G. Forrester, Northamptonshire County Elections and Electioneering 1695–1832 (Oxford, 1941), pp. 29–30.
J.H. Plumb, ‘The Growth of the Electorate in England from 1600 to 1715’, P&P, 45 (1969), 90–116.
Frank O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons and Parties, pp. 178–80. These figures may be a little exaggerated because of the existence of plural voting. The existence of plural voting is disputed in Derek Beales, ‘The Electorate Before and After 1832: The Right to Vote, and the Opportunity’, PH, 11 (1992), 144–5 and Frank O’Gorman, ‘The Electorate Before and After 1832’, ibid., 12 (1993), 176.
Frank O’Gorman, ‘The unreformed electorate of Hanoverian England’, SocH, 11 (1986), 37–9.
J.F. Quinn, ‘Yorkshiremen go to the Polls: County Contests in the Early Eighteenth Century’, NH, 21 (1985), 168.
Philip Jenkins, The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan gentry 1640–1790 (Cambridge, 1983), p. 187.
I.G. Doolittle, ‘The Half Moon Tavern, Cheapside and City Politics’, TLMAS, 28 (1977), 328–32;
and Nicholas Rogers, ‘Resistance to Oligarchy: the City Opposition to Walpole and his Successors, 1725–47’, in John Stevenson (ed.), London in the Age of Reform (Oxford, 1977), p. 13.
Nicholas Rogers, ‘Aristocratic Clientage, Trade and Independency: Popular Politics in Pre-Radical Westminster’, P&P, 63 (1973) 75, 94–6.
Linda Colley, ‘Eighteenth-Century English Radicalism before Wilkes’, TRHS, 5th series, 31 (1981), 7–9.
Thomas R. Knox, ‘Wilkism and the Newcastle Election of 1774’, DUJ, 72 (1979), 27.
Michael Weinzierl, ‘The Norwich Elections of 1794, 1796 and 1802: Conflict and Consensus’, PER, 6 (1986), 168–74.
Lucy S. Sutherland, ‘Edmund Burke and the Relations between Members of Parliament and their Constituents’, SBT, 10 (1968), 1006.
Lucy Sutherland, ‘Edmund Burke and the Relations between Members of Parliament and their Constituents’, SBT, 10 (1968), 1005–21;
P.T. Underdown, ‘Edmund Burke, the Commissary of his Bristol Constituents 1774–1780’, EHR, 73 (1958), 252–69; and P.T. Underdown, ‘Bristol and Burke’, in Patrick McGrath (ed.), Bristol in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 41–62.
H.T. Dickinson, ‘Popular Politics in the Age of Walpole’, in Jeremy Black (ed.), Britain in the Age of Walpole (1984), pp. 56–7.
L.B. Namier and John Brooke (eds), The House of Commons 1754–1790, i, 17; and Thomas R. Knox, ‘Wilkism and the Newcastle Election of 1774’, DUJ, 72 (1979), 24.
Ibid., i, 351; and Thomas Knox, ‘“Peace for Ages to come”: The Newcasde Elections of 1780 and 1784’, DUJ, 84 (1992), 3–19.
Frank O’Gorman, ‘The General Election of 1784 in Chester’, JCAS, 57 (1970–1), 45.
H.T. Dickinson, ‘Radicals and Reformers in the Age of Wilkes and Wyvil’, in Jeremy Black (ed.), British Politics and Society from Walpole to Pitt 1742–1789 (1990), pp. 139–40.
R.W. Smith, ‘Political Organization and Canvassing: Yorkshire Elections before the Reform Bill’, AHB, 74 (1969), 1543–6;
and Donald R. McAdams, ‘Electioneering Techniques in Populous Constituencies, 1784–96’, SBT, 14 (1972), 23–53.
Donald R. McAdams, ‘Electioneering Techniques’, SBT, 14 (1972), 37.
Stephen W. Baskerville, Peter Adman and Katharine F. Beedham, ‘Manuscript Poll Books and English County Elections in the First Age of Party: A Reconsideration of their Provenance and Purpose’, Archives, 19 (1991), 400–3.
John Brewer, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III (Cambridge, 1976), p. 147.
On the conduct of elections and popular participation in them, see Frank O’Gorman, ‘Campaign rituals and ceremonies: The social meaning of elections in England 1780–1860’, P&P, 135 (1992), 79–115.
James E. Bradley, ‘Nonconformity and the Electorate in Eighteenth-Century England’, PH, 6 (1987), 247–8;
and Donald R. McAdams, ‘Electioneering Techniques’, SBT, 14 (1972), 36.
Donald R. McAdams, ‘Electioneering Techniques’, SBT, 14 (1972), 35.
J.F. Quinn, ‘York Elections in the Age of Walpole’, NH, 22 (1986), 1944–5.
B.D. Hayes, ‘Politics in Norfolk 1750–1832’, unpublished PhD thesis (Cambridge University, 1958), pp. 432–3.
Donald R. McAdams, ‘Electioneering Techniques’, SBT, 14 (1972), 40.
John Brewer, ‘Theatre and Counter-Theatre in Georgian Politics: the Mock Elections at Garra’, in RHR, 22 (1979–80), 7–40 and in HT, 33 (1983), 15–23.
Donald R. McAdams, ‘Electioneering Techniques’, SBT, 14 (1972), 43.
W.A. Speck, Tory and Whig, passim, and Norma Landau, ‘Independence, Deference and Voter Participation: The Behaviour of the Electorate in Early-Eighteenth-Century Kent’, HJ, 22 (1979), 561–83.
See also Stephen W. Baskerville, Peter Adman and Katharine F. Beedham, ‘The Dynamics of Landlord Influence in English County Elections, 1701–34: The Evidence of Cheshire’, PH, 12 (1993), 126–42.
R. Hopkinson, ‘The Electorate of Cumberland and Westmorland in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Century’, NH, 15 (1979), 102.
W.A. Speck, Tory and Whig, pp. 98–109; Norman Sykes, ‘The Cathedral Chapter of Exeter and the General Election of 1705’, EHR, 45 (1930), 260–72;
Catherine E. Langford, ‘The British General Election of 1713’, in J.J. Murray (ed.), Essays in Modern European History (Indiana 1951), pp. 29–47,
and W.A. Speck, ‘The General Election of 1715’, EHR, 90 (1975), 507–22.
Geoffrey Holmes, The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell (1973), pp. 233–55;
W.T. Morgan, ‘An Eighteenth Century Election in Englan’, PSQ, 37 (1922), 585–604;
Mary Ransome, ‘The Press in the General Election of 1710’, CHJ, 6 (1939), 209–21;
and Mary Ransome, ‘Church and Dissent in the Election of 1710’, EHR, 56 (1941), 76–89.
C. Collyer, ‘The Rockinghams and Yorkshire Politics 1742–1761’, TM, 41 (1954), 364.
Thomas W. Perry, Public Opinion. Propaganda and Politics in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), ch. 7;
Linda Colley, In Defence of Oligarchy, pp. 131, 168; and R.J. Robson, The Oxfordshire Election of 1754 (Oxford, 1949), pp. 31, 82–3, 86–99,103.
Mrs Eric George, ‘Fox’s Martyrs; The General Election of 1784’, TRHS, 4th series, 21 (1939), 133–68.
James E. Bradley, ‘Nonconformity and the Electorate in Eighteenth-Century England’, PH, 6 (1987), 236–7, 244.
W.A. Speck, Tory and Whig, pp. 24–5; S.W. Baskerville, ‘The Political Behaviour of the Cheshire Clergy, 1705–1752’, NH, 23 (1987), 74–97;
and Nancy Uhlar Murray, ‘The Influence of the French Revolution on the Church of England and its Rivals, 1789–1802’, unpublished D. Phil. thesis (Oxford University, 1975), pp. 44–79.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1994 H. T. Dickinson
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dickinson, H.T. (1994). The People and Parliamentary Elections. In: The Politics of the People in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24659-5_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24659-5_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-65733-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-24659-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)