The unreformed electoral system and the pressure for reform

Overview

Rotten borough, pocket or nomination borough and political union.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Define the county franchise as it stood before 1832.

   Model answer

   Men holding freehold land worth at least forty shillings a year could vote, a qualification unchanged since the fifteenth century.

2. 2

   Why did the borough franchises vary so widely before 1832?

   Model answer

   Each borough voted on the terms of its own ancient charter or custom, so the right might belong to ratepayers, freemen, holders of particular properties or a tiny corporation.

3. 3

   Define a rotten borough.

   Model answer

   A borough that had shrunk to a handful of electors, or almost none at all, but still returned members to Parliament.

4. 4

   Give an example of a notorious rotten borough.

   Model answer

   Old Sarum, an uninhabited mound in Wiltshire that returned two members.

5. 5

   Define a pocket or nomination borough.

   Model answer

   A borough where one patron controlled enough of the electorate or the property to name the members himself.

6. 6

   Which growing towns had no members of their own before 1832?

   Model answer

   Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield among others, along with Merthyr Tydfil in Wales.

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