Clarifying the workings of England’s historic electoral system, Philip Salmon examines who could vote following the changes made by the ‘Great’ Reform Act of 1832. This article covers the system which was in operation until the next major Reform Act in 1867.

Potwallopers, ten-pounders, scot and lot voters, copyholders, burgage holders, freemen, forty-shilling freeholders, tenants-at-will – these are just some of the archaic terms for Victorian voters that often bemuse modern observers. Coupled with most electors being able to cast either a ‘plumper’, ‘split’ or ‘straight’ at the poll – not to mention ‘objections’ and ‘claims’ in courts run by ‘revising barristers’ – one could be forgiven for finding the vocabulary of Victorian elections utterly baffling. Even contemporary figures like Gladstone and Disraeli struggled to understand some franchises, as the muddles over rate-paying and ‘compounding’ in the 1866-7 reform debates amply demonstrate. Historians too have been been responsible for a fair share of misinterpretations, especially regarding the so-called ‘grandfathering’ of pre-1832 voting rights possessed by freemen.

This article will examine each type of post-1832 voting qualification, looking at the two main categories of constituency that elected MPs: counties (which usually covered a whole county or part of a county) and boroughs (usually a town or city). First, however, it’s worth noting how the Reform Act altered some of the underlying principles governing enfranchisement.

Historical studies of the 1832 Reform Act have traditionally focused on the way it increased the size of the electorate, as part of a first step on the so-called ‘road to democracy’. What this overlooks is the very substantial number of people who lost their ‘old’ voting entitlements in 1832, the ‘victims’ of reform as the Tory opposition liked to portray them.

For every three new borough voters enfranchised in 1832, at least one former elector effectively lost their right to vote. As well as voters in the disfranchised boroughs which were no longer constituencies, anyone not resident within their borough constituency was deprived of their ‘vested rights’. The rules for determining non-residence were much stricter for those claiming to vote using a pre-1832 qualification, the ‘ancient-right’ voters, than for the new borough franchise. Certain categories of ‘freeman’ voter were also disqualified (see below), unless they had been enrolled before 1 March 1831. In addition, for the first time, as Sarah Richardson’s work has ably shown, the Reform Act specifically limited the electorate to ‘male persons’ only.

These new restrictions meant that in borough constituencies, residence now became the primary requirement underpinning voting rights, dramatically enhancing the importance of borough boundaries, a subject recently explored in a new study by Dr Martin Spychal. Voters were also subject to a raft of extra stipulations concerning the value and type of property occupied, the length of residence, the payment of local rates and the payment of an annual one-shilling registration fee. Any potential voters who failed to meet all these conditions might in theory qualify instead to vote for the county constituency in which their borough was located – provided of course they fulfilled all the requirements of being a county voter.

The principles underpinning county voting rights were rather different. Residence was not required for all voters. Forty shilling freeholders, meaning those owning any type of property within the county worth more than £2 per year in terms of potential rent or income, could continue to qualify, even if they lived outside the county. Certain leaseholders and copyholders could also reside elsewhere. These propertied ‘outvoters’, as they were known, made up a significant proportion of some county electorates. Many lived in London, helping to inject rural politics with an important metropolitan dimension, especially once the railway networks became fully established. All the other county franchises introduced in 1832 required the voter to be ‘in occupation’ of a property and in practical terms usually resident. As with borough voters, a length of time possessing a qualification was also required before county voters could be admitted to the new annual electoral registers. County voters, however, were not subject to quite so many additional stipulations as borough electors. This perhaps explains why a large number of borough freeholders ended up on the county registers, again helping to inject a significant ‘urban’ element into the electoral politics of many counties.

So who could vote after 1832?

Borough Voting Qualifications

All borough voters had to have resided for at least six months within seven miles of the borough. For ‘ancient-right’ voters claiming under pre-1832 qualifications this distance was measured from the borough’s former principal polling place. For the new £10 householder franchise, however, this was measured from any point inside the borough’s new boundaries as measured in a straight horizontal line, which usually encompassed a much larger area. In addition, electors could not have received parish alms or poor relief during the previous year. One unintended consequence of this was that anyone receiving some form of charity or public aid, even a free vaccination, could potentially lose their voting rights. All boroughs which had returned MPs before 1832 retained their ‘ancient-right’ qualifications (unless, of course, the borough had been disfranchised), subject to the strict conditions set out below, as well as having the new £10 household franchise. In the boroughs which were enfranchised in 1832, there was only a £10 household franchise.

£10 householders / ten-pounders (franchise created in 1832)

Adult males owning or occupying (i.e. renting or leasing) any house, warehouse, counting-house, shop, or other building, which either on its own or in combination with other property or land had a yearly market rental value of at least £10 provided:

1) that at the start of each year’s registration (31 July) the householder had possessed the property for at least one year and had resided in the borough for at least six months.

2) that all property had been rated for the purposes of the parish poor rate (if there was one) and that all local taxes due by 6 April had been paid before 20 July.

3) that the elector had paid an annual one shilling registration fee, which was collected alongside local rates.

Freemen, also known as burgesses / liverymen in the surviving freeman boroughs

All non-resident former freemen were disqualified. ‘Honorary’ freemen, meaning those admitted to a borough’s freeman rolls ‘by gift’, and all freemen ‘by marriage’ were also disfranchised if they had been enrolled after 1 March 1831. This left:

1) All resident freemen who were entitled to vote on or before 1 March 1831. These electors could continue to exercise the vote during their lifetime, hence the term ‘grandfathered’ rights.

2) Resident freemen ‘by birth’ who enrolled after 1 March 1831. These voters qualified either as the son of someone who had been entitled to be a freeman before 1 March 1831, or as the son of someone who had become a freeman at any time by serving an apprenticeship (see below). Local customs varied as to how many sons could ‘inherit’ a freeman’s rights. In Derby, for instance, all sons over 21 qualified. In other places, however, it only applied to the eldest son.

3) Resident freemen ‘by servitude’ who enrolled after 1 March 1831. These voters qualified by serving a seven-year apprenticeship in the trade of any existing freeman and being admitted to the relevant local guild or trade body as a freeman.

In addition to these rules, a freeman permanently lost his entitlement to the vote if his name was omitted from the electoral register for two successive years.

Other ‘ancient-right’ voters

The following categories of voter who were qualified before 1832 could continue to vote during their lifetime provided that at the start of each year’s registration (31 July) they retained their original entitlement and that their names had not been omitted from the electoral register for two successive years:

1) Scot and lot voters: all residents paying locally levied taxes, such as poor rates or municipal rates. The term ‘scot’ was derived from Anglo-Saxon silver coins known as ‘sceats’ or ‘sceattas’ (left), while ‘lot’ simply meant a portion or part, making the phrase roughly equivalent to ‘penny portion’. The phrase getting off ‘scot free’ has similar roots.

2) Potwallopers / potwallers: all resident householders who boiled their own pots, i.e. had their own cooking facilities. This was effectively a household franchise, also known as an inhabitant householder franchise. In Preston there was a slightly broader inhabitants-at-large qualification, covering all residents.

Provided that their qualification had existed before 1 March 1831 or, in the case of property which had been acquired by inheritance, marriage, or promotion to a benefice or office, before the passing of the Reform Act, the following types of ‘ancient-right’ voters also kept their voting rights:

3) Burgage holders / tenants: the occupiers of special burgage properties conferring the vote.

4) Freeholders: resident freeholders in boroughs that had a pre-1832 freehold franchise.

In boroughs with a pre-1832 freehold franchise which were also ‘counties by themselves’, resident freeholders could also continue to be newly qualified after 1832.

County Voting Qualifications

Property had to have been legally possessed for at least six months before a man could register for the freehold or copyhold franchise and for at least twelve months before qualifying as a leaseholder or occupier, but any property which had been acquired by inheritance, marriage, or promotion to a benefice or office was exempt from these conditions. There were no residence requirements, beyond those implied by the need to ‘occupy’ certain types of property, and no requirement to have paid local rates.

Freeholders

1. Adult males in full legal possession of a freehold property worth at least 40 shillings (£2) per year in terms of the rent or income which could be derived from it.

2. Adult males with a lifetime interest in a 40 shilling freehold property under any one of the following conditions:

i) if the freehold had been acquired before the passing of the Reform Act (7 June 1832).

ii) if it was acquired since through inheritance, marriage, or promotion to any benefice or office.

iii) if the freeholder was resident and in ‘bona fide’ occupation of the property.

3. Adult males with a lifetime interest in a freehold property worth at least £10 per year.

All sorts of ‘property’ apart from land and buildings could in practice confer these freehold votes, including church pews, burial plots, shares in mines, canals, gasworks and cemeteries and ownership of rights to collect tithes and tolls. Some even claimed for sewers and beam steam engines. An 1846 inquiry identified almost 600 distinct types of county freehold qualification.

Copyholders

Adult males with property worth at least £10 per year which was held by ancient custom (e.g. a copy of court-roll) or by any form of tenure other than freehold and conventional leasehold.

Leaseholders

1. Adult males in possession of a leasehold property worth at least £10 per year provided that the original term of the lease was for sixty years or more.

2. Adult males in possession of leasehold property worth at least £50 per year provided that the original term of the lease was for twenty years or more.

3. The sub-lessees or assignees of the above, such as tenants who were sub-letting, but only if they were resident and in actual occupation of the leasehold premises.

Fifty-pounders, occupiers or £50 tenants-at-will

Adult males occupying property for which they paid rent of at least £50 per year.

A person could not qualify for the county franchise in respect of property which would qualify them for a borough vote. However, property within a borough which was worth less than £10 annual value, or which was not occupied by its owner or was otherwise ineligible to confer the borough franchise, could be used to instead give its owner a county vote.

All of the above, of course, excludes voting qualifications for university constituencies. Universities not only enrolled but also polled their electors in a completely different way to boroughs and counties. This will be the subject of a follow-up article.

Given the variety and complexity of the different qualifications to vote after 1832, it is hardly surprising that voters and party activists found the system extremely difficult to navigate, and the annual work of compiling the electoral register took a significant amount of time, money and effort.

Further reading:

P. Salmon & K. Rix, ‘Who should have the vote? What electoral rights did Britons have in the century before 1918’, History Today, lxviii. (August 2018), 24-35 VIEW

‘The English reform legislation, 1831-32’, in The House of Commons, 1820-32, ed. D. Fisher (Cambridge University Press, 2009), i. 374-412 VIEW

This is an updated version of an article originally published on the Victorian Commons website on 7 November 2024, written by Dr Philip Salmon.