When our ancestors headed to the polls in 1774, the general election could hardly have looked more different to the one now called for 4 July 2024. Instead of a single day, it took five weeks to conclude, different constituencies opening and closing their poll on dates of their choosing, some lasting mere hours, others four weeks. There were no private polling booths or lidded boxes to slip anonymous ballot papers into; all votes were cast aloud, in front of crowds of spectators – where the seats were contested, that is. A staggering 70 per cent were not, with the new members of parliament (MPs) simply nodded into the House of Commons, irrespective of the local electorate’s opinion. It was raucous, alcohol-fuelled and dogged by civil disturbances, and absolutely typical of an 18th century election.
The custom of counties and boroughs sending representatives to Parliament dates back to at least the 14th century, but active election of members was uncommon before the late 1600s, and still not routine by the late 1700s. Most of Britain’s constituencies had two seats – even those like Old Sarum in Wiltshire, one of the famous ‘rotten boroughs’ with no residents whatsoever – and where only two candidates were nominated, or rival factions agreed on one seat each to represent their differing interests, no poll needed to be held.
Where there were contests, canvassing involved everything from distributing handbills to paying calls and promising patronage – along with supplying plenty of free drink. The wining and dining of prospective voters – known as ‘treating’ – was strictly illegal, yet ubiquitous, as was the paying of generous poll-day travel expenses for those living in the distant corners of the district. Even more barefaced bribery was commonplace, too. In the run-up to the 1774 election householders in Hindon, Wiltshire, were given up to 20 guineas each (approximately £2,000 today). And if all that failed, some candidates resorted to threats.
Facilitating the ‘buying’ (or bullying) of votes was the very public nature of the poll. A voter’s two votes were cast orally in front of election officials, candidates and agents in the district’s temporary polling booth. This was usually a wooden structure situated, with the hustings platform from which candidates addressed electors, in the marketplace or by the town hall, and around which gathered large and lively crowds, perhaps including a voter’s friends, neighbours, customers, employer or landlord. All votes were then recorded – with the voter’s name, address and occupation – in poll books, the contents of which might eventually be splashed across the newspapers or printed in a pamphlet.
The process conferred a certain power on the community’s non-voters – who might sway shopkeepers by threatening boycotts, for example – but equally, made it easy for the already powerful to control the result. One candidate in Newark, Nottinghamshire, was forced to withdraw in 1774 amid reports that the wealthy “Mr C–” had told his 200-odd tenants that “they must all turn out” of their houses if they voted for him. The locals, resentful of Mr C’s coercion, duly broke his windows.
Georgian elections were rarely unaccompanied by such violence and disorder. Free drink, combined with flag-waving processions, noisy chanting of partisan ballads, hourly ‘state of the poll’ announcements, and stirring speeches from the hustings, whipped up just the sort of febrile and divisive atmosphere that fostered it. In fact, such was the risk of harassment and intimidation (even kidnap!) that, for protection, voters typically proceeded to the poll in ‘tallies’ – groups of 10–20 men supporting the same candidate. Peaceable polls might conclude with a good-natured ‘chairing’ of the new MPs, carried through the constituency by their supporters, but many others ended with carriages set on fire, as in Cambridge in 1774; stones raining through the windows of the town hall at the returning officers, as in Bedford that year; or the winning candidates narrowly escaping from an angry mob, as in Morpeth, Northumberland.
By the time our ancestors voted in 1874’s general election, some things had changed. The electorate had only marginally expanded; Reform Acts in 1832 and 1867 had seen voters in boroughs like Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, increase four- or five-fold, although overall eligible voters still represented less than 10 per cent of the population, and women were now specifically excluded from the franchise by law, rather than by custom as before. The process of polling, however, had been transformed.
Gone, by 1874, was the suspense of long-running polls; legislation had limited them to a single day, with all voters to pre-register and votes to be cast between 8am and 5pm, minimising opportunities for ‘treating’ (or incapacitating the opposition’s supporters) with alcohol. Gone were journeys across hill and dale to vote; every voter was to be within four miles of a polling place. Gone were the rotten boroughs, their seats reallocated to rapidly growing cities like Manchester. And gone were the live poll updates, and the whole parade of voting in public – although the last only recently.
Bizarre as it seems to us, secret voting was controversial. The race-day feel of public polling was popular, and its sense of accountability cherished. “Damn the secret ballot,” one particularly forthright Berkshire MP put it. “Give me the bold-faced Englishman who, with his hat on one side, swaggers up to the polling booth, and when the clerk says, ‘For whom do you vote?’, answers manfully and IN THE FACE OF HIS NEIGHBOURS.”
But election-day violence and intimidation had only got worse in the Victorian era. There were 17 deaths and at least 37 full-scale riots during the 1868 general election, besides innumerable smaller brawls. Prompted by growing concerns about safety – and bribery – Parliament had eventually legislated for the secret ballot in 1872, introducing ballot papers, pencilled crosses and private, compartment-style polling booths, road-tested in a by-election in Pontefract, the West Riding of Yorkshire, that year.
Problems emerged with the new system, particularly enabling illiterate electors, of which there were still some 35,000 by 1880, to vote secretly. And the South Wales Daily News complained in 1872 that elections, formerly festive occasions, had become “the most monotonous of monotonies”. But, when combined with new anti-corruption laws in 1883, which set limits on campaign expenses for the first time, and made bribery potentially punishable by prison sentence, there was little doubt that elections were safer.
The 20th century saw elections evolve even further. By the general election of 1924, all districts nationwide were returning just one MP, and all voting took place on the same day – now between 8am and 8pm, for the greater convenience of employed voters. In 1935, that national polling day became – by convention, not law – a Thursday. And in 1969, Britain reduced the voting age to 18, which had been set at 21 since 1695. Some things remained the same; as recently as 1951, MPs were elected unopposed, and theoretically still could be. But with today’s turnouts ever-falling and technology ever-improving, there seems little doubt that further change is inevitable.
