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Arotten orpocket borough, also known as anomination borough orproprietorial borough, was aparliamentary borough orconstituency inEngland,Great Britain, or theUnited Kingdom before theReform Act of 1832 which had very few voters. They could be used by a patron to gain disproportionate influence within theHouse of Commons. The Reform Act of 1832 abolished the majority of these rotten and pocket boroughs.
The same terms were used for similar boroughs represented in the 18th-centuryParliament of Ireland.
Aparliamentary borough was a town or former town whose status could be created through aroyal charter, giving it the right to return representatives (burgesses) to the House of Commons.[1] It was not unusual for the physical boundary of the settlement to change as the town developed or contracted over time, so that the boundaries of the parliamentary borough and of the physical settlement were no longer the same.[2][3]
For centuries, parliamentary representation and the right to vote in elections to the House of Commons remained largely unchanged from medieval times, even as population and economic activity shifted, contributing to an unequal distribution of seats by the early 19th century.[4][5] In some constituencies the electorate was so small that seats could be controlled through patronage, bribery, or coercion, and many seats were treated almost as "property" under longstanding family influence.[4][6] Early 19th-century reformers used the termrotten borough for depopulated constituencies that retained representation, andpocket borough for constituencies effectively "in the pocket" of a patron who could dominate the outcome.[7][6]
Voting was public rather than secret: at the hustings the returning officer held a nomination meeting and might call for a show of hands, while in a contested election the formal poll could last several days; votes were given orally and recorded, which helped enable intimidation as well as bribery.[8][9][10] Uncontested elections were common, and in some seats no poll took place for many years.[4][11] Thus an MP might be elected by only a few voters, while at the same time many rapidly growing towns were inadequately represented in Parliament.[7][12][13] Before 1832, the industrial town ofManchester expanded rapidly during theIndustrial Revolution, yet it had no MPs of its own; reform-era accounts note that the citizens of fast-growing cities such as Manchester could vote only as part of large county constituencies (in Manchester's case,Lancashire), which returned only two MPs.[14][12][15] Manchester was enfranchised as a separate parliamentary constituency in 1832, initially returning two MPs.[16][17] Many of these ancient boroughs elected two MPs. By the time of the1831 general election, out of 406 elected members, 152 were chosen by fewer than 100 voters each, and 88 by fewer than fifty voters.[18]
By the early 19th century, moves were made towards parliamentary reform, with theRepresentation of the People Act 1832 (the "Great Reform Act") disenfranchising many small boroughs and creating new constituencies, thereby redistributing seats in the House of Commons.[5] TheBallot Act 1872 introduced thesecret ballot, allowing voters to vote in private and making it harder to intimidate voters or to verify bribery.[10] Further reforms followed in the 1880s: the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883 increased penalties for corrupt practices including bribery and “treating” (the provision of food and drink), and it also placed limits on election expenses; accounts from the period note that election expenditure fell significantly under these rules.[19][20][21]
The expressionrotten borough is attested from the mid-18th century (with dictionary evidence from 1765), and was popularised by early 19th-century parliamentary reformers as a pejorative label for depopulated constituencies that retained representation.[22][7] In practice, many such seats had very small electorates and could be maintained by the Crown or controlled by aristocratic patrons, making them vulnerable to bribery, coercion, and other forms of influence.[7][23] The adjectiverotten carried a strongly negative sense, implying both decay and moral wrongdoing.[24]
Before the Ballot Act 1872 introduced secret voting, parliamentary elections were conducted publicly, and electors declared their votes openly, which facilitated intimidation by employers and landlords and made it easier to verify bribery.[9][10] In constituencies dominated by a patron, MPs were often expected to serve that interest rather than the broader body of electors.[6]
Typically, rotten boroughs were places that had once been larger or more significant but later declined, sometimes dramatically, while still retaining the right to return MPs.[23][25]Old Sarum is a well-known example. English Heritage describes it as a major centre of secular and ecclesiastical government for about 150 years, but notes that the cathedral was moved to nearbySalisbury in 1226 and thatOld Sarum nonetheless continued as a 'rotten borough' electing MPs until 1832.[26] A Historic England listing similarly records that the site was totally abandoned by 1514 but continued as a rotten borough sending MPs to Westminster until it was disenfranchised by the Reform Act 1832.[27] Contemporary accounts of the move emphasise the development of the new city around the cathedral:Salisbury Cathedral's official history states that a new site in the river valley was chosen, work began in 1220, and "the City of Salisbury … grew under the direction of Bishop Poore", with a large workforce involved in building the cathedral and associated settlement.[28] English Heritage's teachers' materials add that by 1226 most of the clergy had left Old Sarum and by 1240 the majority of the local population had moved to Salisbury (New Sarum).[29] Despite the loss of population, Old Sarum retained the right to elect two MPs; English Heritage notes that its MPs could effectively be nominated by a single influential landowner, making it a classic "pocket borough".[29] For example, the UK Government History blog notes thatWilliam Pitt (the Elder) entered Parliament as member for "the Pitt family's pocket borough of Old Sarum".[30]
Many rotten and pocket boroughs were controlled by aristocratic patrons, includinglandowners andpeers, who could place their own (often non-resident) followers in parliamentary seats, sometimes effectively choosing members for both seats.[31] In such constituencies representatives were often expected to please their patrons rather than their constituents.[6] This influence could rest on property rights: in some boroughs the vote was attached toburgage property, and wealthy individuals could buy up the burgages (or acquire burgage tenures) to control the election outcome.[31][32] Scholarship has also noted that "patronal peers" could thereby control large blocs of seats in the House of Commons.[33] Because electorates could be extremely small, rotten boroughs returned MPs in ways that were easy to influence or control; despite having very few voters, many still returned two MPs for much of their existence.[23] Contemporary critics even alleged that seats in such boroughs could be bought and sold "in the market".[34]
| Borough | County | Houses | Voters | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Old Sarum | Wiltshire | 3 | 7 | |
| Gatton | Surrey | 23 | 7 | |
| Newtown | Isle of Wight | 14 | 23 | |
| East Looe | Cornwall | 167 | 38 | |
| Dunwich | Suffolk | 44 | 32 | Most of this formerly prosperous town had fallen into the sea |
| Plympton Erle | Devon | 182 | 40 | One seat was controlled from the mid-17th century to 1832 by the Treby family ofPlympton House |
| Bramber | West Sussex | 35 | 20 | |
| Callington | Cornwall | 225 | 42 | Controlled by the Rolle family ofHeanton Satchville andStevenstone in Devon |
| Trim | County Meath | Parliament of Ireland |
Pocket boroughs were boroughs which could effectively be controlled by a single person who owned at least half of the "burgage tenements", the occupants of which had the right to vote in the borough's parliamentary elections. A wealthy patron therefore had merely to buy up these specially qualified houses and install in them his own tenants, selected for their willingness to do their landlord's bidding, or given such precarious forms of tenure that they dared not displease him. As there was nosecret ballot until 1872, the landowner could evict electors who did not vote for the two men he wanted. A common expression referring to such a situation was that "Mr A had been elected on Lord B's interest".
Some rich individuals controlled several boroughs; for example, theDuke of Newcastle is said to have had seven boroughs "in his pocket". One of the representatives of a pocket borough was often the man who controlled it, and for this reason they were also referred to asproprietorial boroughs.[35]: 14
Pocket boroughs were seen by their 19th-century owners as a valuable method of ensuring the representation of the landed interest in the House of Commons.[citation needed]
Significantly diminished by the Reform Act 1832, pocket boroughs were for all practical purposes abolished by theReform Act 1867. This considerably extended the borough franchise and established the principle that each parliamentary constituency should hold roughly the same number of electors.Boundary commissions were set up by subsequent Acts of Parliament to maintain this principle as population movements continued.[citation needed]
There were also boroughs which were controlled not by a particular patron but rather by the Crown, specifically by the departments of state of theTreasury orAdmiralty, and which thus returned the candidates nominated by the ministers in charge of those departments.[36]
In the late 18th century, many political societies, such as theLondon Corresponding Society and theSociety of the Friends of the People, called for parliamentary reform.[37] Specifically, they thought that the rotten borough system was unfair and they called for a more equal distribution of representatives that reflected the population of Britain.[38] However, legislation enacted byWilliam Pitt the Younger caused these societies to disband by making it illegal for them to meet or publish information.[39]
In the 19th century, there were moves toward reform, which broadly meant ending the over-representation of boroughs with few electors. The culmination of the process ofCatholic emancipation in 1829 finally brought the reform issue to a head. The reform movement had a major success in theReform Act 1832, which disfranchised the 56 boroughs listed below, most of them in the south and west of England. This redistributed representation in Parliament to new major population centres and places with significant industries, which tended to be farther north.
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A substantial number ofTory constituencies were rotten and pocket boroughs, and their right to representation was defended by the successive Tory governments in office between 1807 and 1830. During this period they came under criticism from figures such asThomas Paine andWilliam Cobbett.[35]
It was argued in defence of such boroughs that they provided stability and were also a means for promising young politicians to enter Parliament, withWilliam Pitt the Elder being cited as a key example.[35]: 22 Some MPs claimed that the boroughs should be retained, as Britain had enjoyed periods of prosperity while they were part of the constitution of Parliament.
Because British colonists in theWest Indies andBritish North America, and those in theIndian subcontinent, had no representation of their own at Westminster, representatives of these groups often claimed that rotten boroughs provided opportunities forvirtual representation in Parliament for colonial interest groups.[40]
The Tory politicianSpencer Perceval asked the nation to look at the system as a whole, saying that if pocket boroughs were disenfranchised, the whole system was liable to collapse.[41]
The magazinePrivate Eye has a column entitled "Rotten Boroughs", which lists stories of municipal wrongdoing.[42] In this instance, "boroughs" refers to local government districts rather than parliamentary constituencies.
In his bookThe Age of Consent (2003),George Monbiot compared small island states with one vote in theUnited Nations General Assembly to "rotten boroughs".
The term "rotten borough" is sometimes used to disparage electorates used to gain political leverage. In Hong Kong and Macau,functional constituencies (with small voter bases attached to special interests) are often referred to as "rotten boroughs" by long-time columnist Jake van der Kamp. InNew Zealand, the term has been used to refer to electorates which, by dint of an agreement for a larger party, have been won by aminor party, enabling that party to gain more seats under the country'sproportional representation system.[43]The Spectator has described theLondon Borough of Tower Hamlets as a "rotten borough",[44] and in 2015The Independent reported that Tower Hamlets was to be the subject of an investigation into electoral fraud.[45]
TheElectoral Reform Society produced a list of "Rotten Boroughs" for the2019 United Kingdom local elections, withFenland District Council at the top.[46]
The Corporation of theCity of London has been referred to as the UK's Last Rotten Borough[47] due to the fact that only four of its 25 electoral wards hold elections where voting by residents decides the result. The other wards are decided on votes cast by business leaders, not residents, making this the only local government authority in the UK that now lacks a popularfranchise.
The county of Yorkshire, which contains near a million souls, sends two county members; and so does the county of Rutland which contains not a hundredth part of that number. The town of Old Sarum, which contains not three houses, sends two members; and the town of Manchester, which contains upwards of sixty thousand souls, is not admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these things?
Sir Joseph Porter:
I grew so rich that I was sent
By a pocket borough into Parliament.
I always voted at my party's call,
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
Chorus:
And he never thought of thinking for himself at all.
Sir Joseph:
I thought so little, they rewarded me
By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!
Fairy Queen: Let me see. I've a borough or two at my disposal. Would you like to go into Parliament?
"Could you not spend an afternoon at Milport, to meet the electors? There are not many of them, and those few are all my tenants, so it is no more than a formality; but there is a certain decency to be kept up. The writ will be issued very soon."
When Colonel Dobbin quitted the service, which he did immediately after his marriage, he rented a pretty country place in Hampshire, not far from Queen's Crawley, where, after the passing of the Reform Bill, Sir Pitt and his family constantly resided now. All idea of a peerage was out of the question, the baronet's two seats in Parliament being lost. He was both out of pocket and out of spirits by that catastrophe, failed in his health, and prophesied the speedy ruin of the Empire.
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