Both the privy council and elections in early modern Scotland are understudied. The council itself has largely been described as a tool for crown management of elections. But it was fundamentally a court and standing committee charged with government administration, which was often supplicated to deal with cases of electoral impropriety and controversy. As elections became increasingly contested throughout the later 17th century, so the council's role developed into a form of elections committee which adjudicated over controverted elections. This, in some ways, reflected the business conducted by parliament's own elections committee, although the council was largely concerned with elections in the royal burghs while it also dealt with other electoral issues. This article explores the privy council's engagement in a complex range of electoral business between the Revolution of 1689 and its abolition in 1708.
{"title":"Controverted Elections, Electoral Controversy and the Scottish Privy Council, 1689–1708*","authors":"Robert d. Tree","doi":"10.1111/1750-0206.12722","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12722","url":null,"abstract":"Both the privy council and elections in early modern Scotland are understudied. The council itself has largely been described as a tool for crown management of elections. But it was fundamentally a court and standing committee charged with government administration, which was often supplicated to deal with cases of electoral impropriety and controversy. As elections became increasingly contested throughout the later 17th century, so the council's role developed into a form of elections committee which adjudicated over controverted elections. This, in some ways, reflected the business conducted by parliament's own elections committee, although the council was largely concerned with elections in the royal burghs while it also dealt with other electoral issues. This article explores the privy council's engagement in a complex range of electoral business between the Revolution of 1689 and its abolition in 1708.","PeriodicalId":44112,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary History","volume":"308 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139969725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cambridge University has been featured in a wide range of studies of the long 18th century, but few have focused exclusively on the dynamics behind its politics. This is surprising since many of the Cambridge University electors were close to leading parliamentarians. The Cambridge University constituency was contested at each of the three successive general elections from 1780 onwards until 1796. Parliamentary contests often brought Cambridge University's political tensions into focus, which is why a detailed analysis of the poll books can demonstrate how different networks within the university behaved and could define the performance of candidates for the constituency. The relationships between the chancellors, vice-chancellors, high stewards, university officers, college heads, fellows, senate members and members of parliament who collectively made up the leadership are fundamental to understanding the electorate of Cambridge University. These relationships, in terms of friendships, alliances and rivalries, also influenced political and patronage networks within the university. William Pitt the Younger's success in changing the political complexion of Cambridge University is part of the broader realignment in British politics during the final two decades of the 18th century. Under the pressure of these events, Whig unity would come to an end as new divisions between ministerialists and reformers emerged. The experience of Cambridge University can shed light on the national shifts as well as how electioneering was carried out in the university parliamentary constituencies.
{"title":"Pittite Triumph and Whig Failure in the Cambridge University Constituency, 1780–96*","authors":"David Cowan","doi":"10.1111/1750-0206.12724","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12724","url":null,"abstract":"Cambridge University has been featured in a wide range of studies of the long 18th century, but few have focused exclusively on the dynamics behind its politics. This is surprising since many of the Cambridge University electors were close to leading parliamentarians. The Cambridge University constituency was contested at each of the three successive general elections from 1780 onwards until 1796. Parliamentary contests often brought Cambridge University's political tensions into focus, which is why a detailed analysis of the poll books can demonstrate how different networks within the university behaved and could define the performance of candidates for the constituency. The relationships between the chancellors, vice-chancellors, high stewards, university officers, college heads, fellows, senate members and members of parliament who collectively made up the leadership are fundamental to understanding the electorate of Cambridge University. These relationships, in terms of friendships, alliances and rivalries, also influenced political and patronage networks within the university. William Pitt the Younger's success in changing the political complexion of Cambridge University is part of the broader realignment in British politics during the final two decades of the 18th century. Under the pressure of these events, Whig unity would come to an end as new divisions between ministerialists and reformers emerged. The experience of Cambridge University can shed light on the national shifts as well as how electioneering was carried out in the university parliamentary constituencies.","PeriodicalId":44112,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary History","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139969337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In terms of the unreformed franchise operative in the early 18th century, the University of Oxford made up an unusual parliamentary constituency. Here it was the votes of non-resident members that could be decisive to the outcome if the seat was contested. In late Stuart and early Hanoverian Oxford, Tories were almost certain to be returned but, in the general election of 1722, the Tory vote was split between rival candidates offering a possible opening for Oxford Whigs. This essay considers the varieties of electoral behaviour inside the university at this time of exceptional political flux nationally, how the candidates confronted the practical problem of getting ‘outvoters’ into Oxford, and the extent to which the heads of the colleges could rely on a sufficiently stable corporate identity to have their resident members vote in an approved way. The 1722 general election again raised questions as to who exactly was entitled to vote in a university constituancy, how much illegal voting was going on, and whether it was in a candidate's best interests either to connive or draw attention to it. The eventual choices made by the Oxford electorate would signal where the university stood in the wider political picture of the early 1720s, how far it – and the varieties of toryism it contained – was prepared to endorse the legitimacy of the new Hanoverian order.
{"title":"Tory Travails and Collegiate Confusion: The Oxford University Election of 1722*","authors":"Nigel Aston","doi":"10.1111/1750-0206.12723","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12723","url":null,"abstract":"In terms of the unreformed franchise operative in the early 18th century, the University of Oxford made up an unusual parliamentary constituency. Here it was the votes of non-resident members that could be decisive to the outcome if the seat was contested. In late Stuart and early Hanoverian Oxford, Tories were almost certain to be returned but, in the general election of 1722, the Tory vote was split between rival candidates offering a possible opening for Oxford Whigs. This essay considers the varieties of electoral behaviour inside the university at this time of exceptional political flux nationally, how the candidates confronted the practical problem of getting ‘outvoters’ into Oxford, and the extent to which the heads of the colleges could rely on a sufficiently stable corporate identity to have their resident members vote in an approved way. The 1722 general election again raised questions as to who exactly was entitled to vote in a university constituancy, how much illegal voting was going on, and whether it was in a candidate's best interests either to connive or draw attention to it. The eventual choices made by the Oxford electorate would signal where the university stood in the wider political picture of the early 1720s, how far it – and the varieties of toryism it contained – was prepared to endorse the legitimacy of the new Hanoverian order.","PeriodicalId":44112,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary History","volume":"31 3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139969339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<h2> Introduction</h2> <p>This special issue of <i>Parliamentary History</i> is one product of ‘Eighteenth-Century Political Participation and Electoral Culture’ (ECPPEC), a research project funded from January 2020 to June 2023 by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council.1 ECPPEC was designed to shed new light on participation in parliamentary elections in England in the long 18th century, from about 1695 to the Reform Act of 1832. It was concerned with ‘participation’ interpreted broadly, both in the sense of voting, and also through other means: for instance, by attending – or being an active part of – the rituals of parliamentary elections, or by consuming – or creating – electoral print, song, dress, or other artefacts. ECPPEC thus had a dual focus on polling data and electoral culture, and an ambition to discover how these two aspects of elections worked together, with electoral culture potentially affecting election results.</p> <p>The principal output of the project is its sophisticated website, which is available online at https://ecppec.ncl.ac.uk/. This is a vast resource. It includes a directory of all surviving poll books from the period; new information on how many parliamentary elections took place between 1695 and 1832 (the count at the time of writing this being 11,676, of which 3,312 were contested); and a record of voting behaviour at parliamentary elections in twenty case-study constituencies, carefully selected to be as representative as possible of different kinds of constituencies in different parts of England. This case-study constituency data comprises 483,060 individuals, casting 797,105 votes. The data is presented in ways designed to be visually appealing and accessible. It also aims to enable new kinds of analysis and understanding of 18th-century elections: for instance, it will allow researchers to explore poll book data in detail, to look at voting patterns across the duration of a multi-day election, to map voters geographically, and to reveal their voting tactics. In addition to this data, the website includes a wide selection of electoral print and artefacts, which have been found, collected and photographed. These range from ceramics to cockades, fans to furniture, weapons to watercolours. Electoral songs have been arranged and recorded, engravings have been analysed, and several online ‘exhibitions’ of electoral material have been curated. All of this material is accompanied by contextualising text for each constituency and each election, and by many ‘Feature’ essays (currently 36) explaining different aspects of electoral history, as well as election processes, practices and behaviours. These Features are informative and purposefully accessible, aimed at different kinds of audiences, from those coming to the site with close to no knowledge of 18th-century elections to experts in the field. Some are interactive, allowing readers to manipulate data, learn about who could vote in a fun way, or investigate an
{"title":"Elections in 18th‐Century England: Polling, Politics and Participation","authors":"M.O. Grenby, Elaine Chalus","doi":"10.1111/1750-0206.12719","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12719","url":null,"abstract":"<h2> Introduction</h2>\u0000<p>This special issue of <i>Parliamentary History</i> is one product of ‘Eighteenth-Century Political Participation and Electoral Culture’ (ECPPEC), a research project funded from January 2020 to June 2023 by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council.1 ECPPEC was designed to shed new light on participation in parliamentary elections in England in the long 18th century, from about 1695 to the Reform Act of 1832. It was concerned with ‘participation’ interpreted broadly, both in the sense of voting, and also through other means: for instance, by attending – or being an active part of – the rituals of parliamentary elections, or by consuming – or creating – electoral print, song, dress, or other artefacts. ECPPEC thus had a dual focus on polling data and electoral culture, and an ambition to discover how these two aspects of elections worked together, with electoral culture potentially affecting election results.</p>\u0000<p>The principal output of the project is its sophisticated website, which is available online at https://ecppec.ncl.ac.uk/. This is a vast resource. It includes a directory of all surviving poll books from the period; new information on how many parliamentary elections took place between 1695 and 1832 (the count at the time of writing this being 11,676, of which 3,312 were contested); and a record of voting behaviour at parliamentary elections in twenty case-study constituencies, carefully selected to be as representative as possible of different kinds of constituencies in different parts of England. This case-study constituency data comprises 483,060 individuals, casting 797,105 votes. The data is presented in ways designed to be visually appealing and accessible. It also aims to enable new kinds of analysis and understanding of 18th-century elections: for instance, it will allow researchers to explore poll book data in detail, to look at voting patterns across the duration of a multi-day election, to map voters geographically, and to reveal their voting tactics. In addition to this data, the website includes a wide selection of electoral print and artefacts, which have been found, collected and photographed. These range from ceramics to cockades, fans to furniture, weapons to watercolours. Electoral songs have been arranged and recorded, engravings have been analysed, and several online ‘exhibitions’ of electoral material have been curated. All of this material is accompanied by contextualising text for each constituency and each election, and by many ‘Feature’ essays (currently 36) explaining different aspects of electoral history, as well as election processes, practices and behaviours. These Features are informative and purposefully accessible, aimed at different kinds of audiences, from those coming to the site with close to no knowledge of 18th-century elections to experts in the field. Some are interactive, allowing readers to manipulate data, learn about who could vote in a fun way, or investigate an","PeriodicalId":44112,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary History","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140018802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
As contemporaries frequently pointed out, and often in disparaging terms, the governing institutions of the British East India Company contained an almost unprecedented ‘democratical’ element. By this, they were referring to the Company's General Court of Proprietors, its sovereign deliberative body, composed of all East India stockholders. Ownership of certain proportions of stock conferred the rights to participate in debate, to vote on policy, and to elect on an annual basis the directors who governed the day-to-day affairs of the Company. These electoral rights were granted solely by virtue of stock-ownership and made no distinctions based on sex, social status, nationality or religion. This article examines the ways in which women, non-Britons and religious minorities, in particular, took advantage of the opportunities for political participation opened up by the politicisation of the East India Company's general court in the 1760s, as well as the ways in which this was discussed and debated by contemporaries both in parliament and the press. Tracing the political activities of Mary Barwell, William Bolts and Joseph Salvador provides a unique window into a variety of ways in which the Company offered an alternative venue for political activity for groups often otherwise excluded from the formal politics at Westminster. In doing so, it also shows how the democratic elements of the Company's general court played a significant role in shaping the reform of the East India Company between 1767 and 1784, a process which ultimately led to their curtailment.
{"title":"‘No distinction exists as to religion, profession, or sex’: Imperial Reform and the Electoral Culture of the East India Company's Court of Proprietors, 1760–84","authors":"Ben Gilding","doi":"10.1111/1750-0206.12726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12726","url":null,"abstract":"As contemporaries frequently pointed out, and often in disparaging terms, the governing institutions of the British East India Company contained an almost unprecedented ‘democratical’ element. By this, they were referring to the Company's General Court of Proprietors, its sovereign deliberative body, composed of all East India stockholders. Ownership of certain proportions of stock conferred the rights to participate in debate, to vote on policy, and to elect on an annual basis the directors who governed the day-to-day affairs of the Company. These electoral rights were granted solely by virtue of stock-ownership and made no distinctions based on sex, social status, nationality or religion. This article examines the ways in which women, non-Britons and religious minorities, in particular, took advantage of the opportunities for political participation opened up by the politicisation of the East India Company's general court in the 1760s, as well as the ways in which this was discussed and debated by contemporaries both in parliament and the press. Tracing the political activities of Mary Barwell, William Bolts and Joseph Salvador provides a unique window into a variety of ways in which the Company offered an alternative venue for political activity for groups often otherwise excluded from the formal politics at Westminster. In doing so, it also shows how the democratic elements of the Company's general court played a significant role in shaping the reform of the East India Company between 1767 and 1784, a process which ultimately led to their curtailment.","PeriodicalId":44112,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary History","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139969726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article pioneers a new methodological approach to the study of electoral politics by combining an analysis of the politics of reading, library association and the reading habits of electors in an English urban constituency in the early 19th century. By integrating an examination of reading practices and intellectual context into our analysis of electoral contests, political history scholars can go further in their examination of the unreformed electoral system and attempt to gauge the motivations behind voting habits and partisan identification in this period. Using electoral voting data and the records of an urban subscription library, this article explores the interrelation between the Bristol Library Society and Bristol's electoral politics, as well as conducting an analysis of which books were being borrowed and read by electors in a politically tumultuous year. Although few in number compared with the total size of Bristol's electorate, Bristol Library members were among some of the most politically and culturally influential individuals in Bristol society and were active participants in electoral contests in the city, either as candidates, campaigners, civic officials or voters. An analysis of their voting habits reveals that the library's membership reflected the Tory political hegemony that became pronounced in the city's civic politics. Moreover, an analysis of their reading habits in 1812 reveals an interest in political texts that were conservative and anti-Gallic in tone, that were representative of the political climate in Bristol in 1812, and which contributed to the defeat of candidates for reform in its electoral contests.
{"title":"Reading against Reform: The Bristol Library Society and the Intellectual Culture of Bristol's Elections in 1812*","authors":"Joshua j. Smith","doi":"10.1111/1750-0206.12725","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12725","url":null,"abstract":"This article pioneers a new methodological approach to the study of electoral politics by combining an analysis of the politics of reading, library association and the reading habits of electors in an English urban constituency in the early 19th century. By integrating an examination of reading practices and intellectual context into our analysis of electoral contests, political history scholars can go further in their examination of the unreformed electoral system and attempt to gauge the motivations behind voting habits and partisan identification in this period. Using electoral voting data and the records of an urban subscription library, this article explores the interrelation between the Bristol Library Society and Bristol's electoral politics, as well as conducting an analysis of which books were being borrowed and read by electors in a politically tumultuous year. Although few in number compared with the total size of Bristol's electorate, Bristol Library members were among some of the most politically and culturally influential individuals in Bristol society and were active participants in electoral contests in the city, either as candidates, campaigners, civic officials or voters. An analysis of their voting habits reveals that the library's membership reflected the Tory political hegemony that became pronounced in the city's civic politics. Moreover, an analysis of their reading habits in 1812 reveals an interest in political texts that were conservative and anti-Gallic in tone, that were representative of the political climate in Bristol in 1812, and which contributed to the defeat of candidates for reform in its electoral contests.","PeriodicalId":44112,"journal":{"name":"Parliamentary History","volume":"2015 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139969574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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