Major support for this research was provided through a research grant from the Committee on Research of the Academic Senate, University of California, Riverside. I am particularly indebted to my colleagues Van Perkins and Kenneth Barkin for their criticism of a draft of this paper.

¹ The Tory expenditure was £20,068/1/2, and the total cost of the election probably exceeded 40,000. Robson, Robert, The Oxfordshire Election of 1754 (London, 1949) p. 158Google Scholar. A few of the other references to the expensiveness of this election are: Townsend, James, The Oxfordshire Dashwoods (London, 1922)Google Scholar; Owen, John, The Eighteenth Century, p. 101Google Scholar; Watson, J. Steven, The Reign of George III (Oxford, 1960, p. 59)Google Scholar; and even Namier, Lewis and Brooke, John, The House of Commons, 1754-1790 (hereafter, Commons) (New York, 1964) p. 4Google Scholar.

² Possibly the worst offender in this category is Porritt, Edward, The Unreformed House of Commons (Cambridge, 1903)Google Scholar, but the more recent accounts are little better, if less descriptive. See Owen, John B., The Eighteenth Century (New York, 1976) p. 101Google Scholar, and Briggs, Asa, The Making of Modern England (New York, 1959) pp. 100–17Google Scholar. These oft-cited stories of corruption, along with the publication of John Robinson's papers by Laprade in 1922, that considered elections only in terms of influence led C.E. Fryer to warn historians against ever again speaking of the election of 1784 as the “choice of the people,” Fryer, C.E., “The General Election of 1784,” History, 9 (1925), p. 223Google Scholar.

³ For other discussions of the importance of popular politics, see Plumb, J.H., “Political Man,” in Clifford, J.L. (ed.), Man Versus Society in the 18th Century (New York, 1968)Google Scholar, and the works of George Rudé, Ian Christie, and E.C. Black on extra-parliamentary behavior.

⁴ Owen, John, “Political Patronage in Eighteenth Century England,” in Fritz, P. (ed.), The Triumph of Culture (Toronto, 1972), p. 369Google Scholar. The level of patronage at particular points was assessed by contemporaries and has attracted much attention from historians. See particularly the 1792 Report of the Society of the Friends of the People in The Annual Register, XXXV (London, 1793), 81–97Google Scholar; Oldfield, T.H.B., History of the Boroughs of Great Britain (London, 1794)Google Scholar; Sedgewick, Romney, The House of Commons, 1715-1754 (hereafter, House of Commons) (London, 1970)Google Scholar; Namier and Brooke, Commons; Cannon, John, Parliamentary Reform (hereafter, Reform) (Cambridge, 1973) p. 50Google Scholar; and Christie, Ian, The End of North's Ministry, 1780-82 (hereafter, North's Ministry) (London, 1958)Google Scholar.

⁵ Namier adopted the distinction maintained by the Society of the Friends of the People between nomination, “that absolute authority in a borough which enables the patron to command the return,” and influence, “that degree of weight … which accustoms the electors in all vacancies to expect the recommendation by a patron, and induces them either from fear, from private interests, or from incapacity to oppose, because he so recommended, to adopt him.” Namier, Lewis, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (hereafter, Structure of Politics) (London, 1963) p. 143Google Scholar. Also, Aspinall, A. and Smith, E.A., English Historical Documents, (London, 1959), XI, 220–21Google Scholar.

⁶ Namier, and Brooke, , Commons, pp. 432–34Google Scholar.

⁷ Namier, Lewis, England in the Age of the American Revolution (New York, 1961) p. 409Google Scholar; Namier, , Structure of Politics, pp. 9, 137Google Scholar.

⁸ Although D.C. Moore suggests “deference communities” ended in the 1860s, deferential behavior remains a topic of considerable interest even in studies of modern Britain. Moore, D.C., The Politics of Deference (Hassocks, 1976) pp. 401–15Google Scholar; Butler, David and Stokes, D., Political Change in Britain (New York, 1971) pp. 120–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McKenzie, R.T. and Silver, A., Angels in Marble (London, 1968)Google Scholar; and Nordlinger, E.A., The Working Class Tories (London, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ For a complete discussion of the meaning of deference and its role in the political system, see Davis, R.W., “The Whigs and the Idea of Electoral Deference,” Durham University Journal, LXVII, (1974)Google Scholar; Davis, R.W., “Deference and Aristocracy in the Time of the Great Reform Act,” American Historical Review, 81, (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pocock, J.G.A., “The Classical Theory of Deference,” American Historical Review, 81, (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spring, David, “Walter Bagehot and Deference,” American Historical Review, 81, (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ H.M.C, Lothian MSS, 62, 373.

¹¹ Ibid, pp. 430-31.

¹² A Narrative of the Contested Election in Norwich (Norwich, 1785) p. 15Google Scholar. One of the poems stated:

May its sons ever hold

Their rights dearer than gold

Nor bow to the nod of a Peer.

Mr. Hobart—Adieu—You're allied to a Peer.

¹³ Hayes, B.D., “Politics in Norfolk, 1750-1832,” (hereafter, “Politics in Norfolk”) (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1958)Google Scholar; Jewson, C.B., Jacobin City (Glasgow, 1975)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Oldfield, T.H.B., History of the Boroughs of Great Britain (London, 1794), II, 288Google Scholar.

¹⁵ The uncertainty in identifying patronage also is illustrated by Hoffman's recent assertion that Rockingham influenced the return of Robert Gregory for Maidstone in 1768, when earlier assessments attributed the decision to the influence of the Earl of Aylesford, and others denied that anyone had enough influence to insure a return. Hoffman, Ross J.S., The Marquis (New York, 1973) p. 192Google Scholar; Namier, and Brooke, , Commons, I, 313–14Google Scholar.

¹⁶ For detailed accounts of the gyrations of English parliamentary and electoral politics over the century, see Speck, W. A., Tory and Whig (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Hill, B.W., the Growth of Parliamentary Parties, 1689-1742 (London, 1976)Google Scholar; O'Gorman, F., The Rise of Party in England (London, 1975)Google Scholar, or more generally if less acceptably, part 1 of Bulmer-Thomas, Ivor, The Growth of the British Party System (London, 1965)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ These estimates of patronage are based on the following assessments: 1690—Plumb, J.H., “Elections to the House of Commons in the Reign of William III,” unpublished doctoral dissertation (Cambridge, 1936)Google Scholar. 1734—Sedgewick, House of Commons. This list was compiled from an evaluation of each consituency and each member. 1761—Namier, Structure of Politics. The second edition list is much more complete than the original. 1761-revised—Namier, Structure of Politics; Namier and Brooke, Commons; Cannon, Reform, p. 50. 1780—Christie, , North's Ministry, p. 53Google Scholar. 1790—The Society of the Friends of the People, in Wyvill, C., Political Papers (London, 1796) vol. III, appendix, pp. 189–251Google Scholar; the Annual Register (London, 1793) XXXV, 81–97Google Scholar.

Since the Society was agitating for parliamentary reform when its list was drawn up, its accuracy might be suspect. However, rather than positively biased, the list seems conservative, if anything. The compiler, George Tierney, disagreed with Oldfield's assessments in many boroughs and lists a total of 309 controlled seats as opposed to Oldfield's total of 359. By eliminating the Welsh and county seats (the latter excluded on principle to conform to Namier's estimates), the number of controlled seats was reduced to 264. Even so, the revised 1761 list is more inclusive than Namier's original estimate and thus more appropriate for comparison to 1790. Ian Christie's estimate of patronage in 1780 supports the general pattern. Applying Namier's standards, Christie counted 221 privately influenced seats, an increase over Namier's 205, and a total of 240, up from Namier's 235. Christie, , North's Ministry, p. 53Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Discussing patronage from the standpoint of the total amount of patronage is necessary because it is frequently quite difficult to distinguish government control and private control. For example it is not clear whether Hythe was controlled by the government or by Dorset. An even more troublesome problem is the occasional incidence of patrons selling seats to the government; such was the case with East and West Looe in 1734. The government obviously received the benefit of the patronage, but from an electoral perspective, the patron (Sir John Trelawney in this case) was still the key. See Sedgwick, , House of Commons pp. 214 and 365–70Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Namier, and Brooke, , Commons, p. 24Google Scholar; Cannon, Reform, p. 49.

²⁰ Besides the general acceptance of the society list by both Namier and Cannon, and its moderation in comparison to Oldfield, its general credibility is enhanced by a specific comparison with Mary Ransome's figures for Wiltshire. Citing Robinson's contemporary assessment of the extent of patronage in Wiltshire, Ransom drew up a list of influenced boroughs that differs from the society list in four instances: Chippenham, Devizes, Hindon, and Wooton Bassett. Surprisingly, the History of Parliament Trust volumes support the society assessments unquestionably in three of the four constituencies, and in the fourth (Devizes), there is too little evidence for a resolution of the difference. Ransome, Mary, “Parliamentary History,” Victoria County History of Wiltshire (hereafter, “Parliamentary History”) (London, 1953), V 210–30Google Scholar; Annual Register, XXXV, 81–97Google Scholar; Namier, and Brooke, , Commons, pp. 408–22Google Scholar.

²¹ Ransome, , “Parliamentary History,” p. 209Google Scholar.

²² The lists of patron-influenced seats for 1734 and 1761-revised were drawn from the wealth of information in the History of Parliament Trust volumes for the respective periods, and the standards used to determine patronage were applied uniformly. The other estimates of patronage should be relatively comparable, but the fact that each was compiled at a different time for a different reason creates a problem of comparability largely overcome by the consistency of the figures for 1734 and 1761-revised. See n. 17.

²³ The same sources used to produce the lists of patron-influenced seats were used to draw up the lists of patrons. In the case of the 1790 estimate, the original society figures of 71 peers and 91 commoners were reduced to 67 and 83 respectively by the elimination of the Welsh and county seats. See n. 17.

²⁴ Peerages were not a prerequisite for successful patronage, although peers tended to he slightly more successful in acquiring seats; the peerage and gentry shared the boroughs fairly equally among themselves. Patronage did produce peerages, but only rarely. A successful but base borough monger could cling to the hope of a reward commensurate with his often great effort, and occasionally, as in the case of Sir James Lowther (created Earl of Lonsdale) and Edward Eliot (created Baron Eliot), such hopes were rewarded.

²⁵ For a more complete discussion of the increasing importance of electoral politics after 1768. see Black, E.C., The Association (Cambridge, 1963)Google Scholar and Cannon, Reform.

²⁶ Ransome, . “Parliamentary History.” p. 209Google Scholar. According to the Society of the Friends of the People Report, one of Thetford's seats and the two Castle Rising seats were controlled in Norfolk in 1790, leaving seven other borough seats free. Annual Register. XXXV. 81–97Google Scholar.

²⁷ Namier, Lewis, England in the Age of the American Revolution, p. 199Google Scholar. The regions were: (1) the southeast—Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Suffolk: (2) the southwest—Hants, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Monmouth; (3) the midlands—Lancashire, Cheshire, Salop, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Bedfordshire: (4) the northeast—Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingtonshire, Rutland, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland.

²⁸ Thirty-one of the 39 additional seats influenced in 1790 were in the southwest (comparing the revised 1761 figure to 1790).

²⁹ The regional proportions of borough seats and borough electorates were:

³⁰ There were no lists of qualified voters in any of the boroughs. Therefore, the electorate can be gauged accurately in the corporation and burgage boroughs, but in the inhabitant and freeman boroughs the number of electors is only an estimate based on the number actually voting. Those constituencies without contests at all pose a serious problem; nothing more than a guess is possible.

³¹ These figures are based on the borough franchises of 1761. The franchise qualifications were not stable over the century, particularly among the burgage boroughs. Speck lists 41 burgage boroughs in Anne's reign and this number shrank to 30 burgages in 1734 along with six freehold franchises. Those changing (and their new franchises) were: Aldborough (scot and lot), Castle Rising (freeman), Corfe Castle (scot and lot), Droitwich (corporation), Lichfield (freeman), Newton (corporation), Saltash (corporation), and Malton (freeman). After 1734, Malton reverted to its original status, and Honiton and Newport, Cornwall, became burgage boroughs. Speck, , Tory and Whig, pp. 126–31Google Scholar. Also Sedgewick, House of Commons, and Namier and Brooke, Commons.

³² Using the Namier and Brooke estimates of the electorates, the freeman boroughs included approximately 71,070 voters.

³³ The regional proportions (percent) of franchise types in 1761 were:

³⁴ Figure 1 is based on John Cannon's list of contested elections in Reform, pp. 278-89, and Henry Horwitz's list for 1690. Horwitz, Henry, “The General Election of 1690,” JBS XI, 1(1971), 90Google Scholar.

³⁵ The exceptions were London and Weymouth/Melcombe Regis, returning tour members each, and the single-member constituencies of Abingdon, Banbury, Bewdley, Higham Ferrers, and Monmouth.

³⁶ The fourteen frequently contested yet controlled at some point were: Bedford, Boston, Bridgewater, Cirencester, Dorchester, Dover, Evensham, Great Marlow, Honiton, Ilchester, Leominster, Lewes, Okehampton, and Shaftesbury.

³⁷ The official electoral manager for the government, John Robinson, estimated at least 116 “open” boroughs in the 1780 elections. Laprade, W.T., “The Parliamentary Papers of John Robinson,” Camden Miscellany, Third Series, XXXIII (London, 1922), 71–82Google Scholar.

³⁸ Of the 33 large boroughs (+ 1,000), all but Northampton (potwalloper), and Southwark, Newark, and Westminster (all scot and lot) had freeman franchises.

³⁹ The 33 large boroughs contained approximately 70,200 electors in the 1760s. Estimated from Namier, and Brooke, , Commons, IGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁰ See notes 32 and 39.

⁴¹ For a discussion of contested but unpolled elections, see Smith, R.W., “Political Organization and Canvassing: Yorkshire Elections Before the Reform Bill,” American Historical Review, 74, (1969) p. 5438CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and George, M.D., “Fox's Martyrs: The General Election of 1784,” Transactions of Royal Historical Society, fourth series XXI (1939), 135–36Google Scholar.

⁴² For an example, see the description of Northampton in 1780 in Namier, and Brooke, , Commons, p. 346Google Scholar.

⁴³ Norwich is an excellent example. See A Correct Copy of the Evidence on the Norwich Petition by Which the Election of Henry Hobart Was Declared Void (Norwich, 1787)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Nossiter, T.J., Influence, Opinion and Political Idioms in Reformed England (Brighton, 1975)Google Scholar, recto of dedication page.

⁴⁵ Pole, J.R., Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American Republic (London, 1966), p. 459CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nossiter, T.J., “Elections and Political Behavior in County Durham and Newcastle 1832-74” (Ph.D. thesis, Oxford University, 1968), p. 369.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Parliamentary Papers: Municipal Corporations Report, 1835, 2710Google Scholar. Also see Mirror of Parliament (London, 1835), II, 1747Google Scholar. Repeated in Hammond, J.L., The Village Laborer (London, 1912), p. 12Google Scholar and Porritt, Edward, The Unreformed House of Commons (hereafter, Unreformed Commons) (Cambridge, 1903), p. 66Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Municipal Corporations Report, p. 35.

⁴⁸ The Bristol Pollbook (Bristol, 1774), p. 8Google Scholar. This massive increase in the number of electors actually established a precedent for allowing votes from freemen “whose copies were taken after the test of the writ.”

⁴⁹ Menzies, E.M., “The Freeman Voter in Liverpool 1802-1935,” Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire Transactions, 4 (1972), p. 85Google Scholar; Speight, M.E., “Politics in the Borough of Colchester—1812-47” (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1969), p. 144Google Scholar. See also, Nossiter, , “Elections and Political Behavior,” pp. 6–11Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Hammond, J.L. and Hammond, B., The Village Laborer (London, 1912), p. 12Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Moses, John H., “Elections and Electioneering in the Constituencies of Nottinghamshire: 1702-1832” (Ph.D. thesis, Nottingham University, 1965), pp. 412–13Google Scholar.

⁵² Namier, and Brooke, , Commons, I, 17–18Google Scholar. For a contradictory argument, see Jupp, Peter, English and Irish Elections (London, 1973), p. 90Google Scholar.

⁵³ Porritt, , Unreformed Commons, pp. 64–65Google Scholar; Northampton Register of Freemen: 1730-1802, in Northampton City Recorder's Office, Northampton, Northants.

⁵⁴ There are a series of suspicious entries in the Norwich Freeman Admissions Book for 1773 and 1778. Usually each page contained three names, but during those years, several pages (18 and 17 respectively) were either left blank or only contained one entry. Names could have been added later, but never were. Norwich and Norfolk Record Office, Case 17, Shelf c, Rep. 135, vols. 1-4. Also there was an increase in the number of admissions in 1783 to 292, following a ten-year average of 82.7. In the ten years after 1783, an average of 81.8 freemen were admitted.

⁵⁵ Kentish Chronicle or Canterbury Journal, Friday, May 27, 1796, No. 1705.

⁵⁶ SirJennings, William Ivor, Party Politics (Cambridge, 1961), I, 83Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Gash, Norman, Politics in the Age of Peel (London, 1953), p. 125Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Municipal Corporations Report, p. 2486.

⁵⁹ A Correct Copy of the Evidence for the Norwich Petition, pp. 1-29.

⁶⁰ British Library Additional Manuscripts (hereafter BL Add. MS.) 37908, ff. 15. Windham agreed to pay 2,500 pounds of the election expenses if victorious and 1,500 pounds if he lost. Eight thousand pounds was spent by Windham and Frere in 1802, and probably more than 5,000 pounds by the Free Blues. BL Add. MS 37885, ff. 10-11. By-elections could be as expensive as general elections. Scrutiny of the Norwich 1786 contest revealed an expenditure of almost £8,000.

⁶¹ Hayes, B.D., “Politics in Norfolk,” p. 432Google Scholar.

⁶² BL Add. MS. 37908, ff. 213.

⁶³ BL Add. MS. 37908, ff. 259 and 305 are excellent examples. Also see Earl of Rosenbery, (ed.) The Windham Papers (London, 1913) II, 192–93Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ Porritt, , Unreformed, p. 71Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Oldfield, T.H.B., Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1816) III, 457Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ Speight, M.E., “Politics in the Borough of Colchester, 1812-1847” (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1969) p. 164.Google Scholar

Also see an excellent contemporary account of bribery in Man, John, Stranger in Reading (London, 1810), pp. 176–78Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ Kentish Gazette, September 9, 1780, No. 1276, “Ode on the General Election.”