franchise

franchise. Prior to 1832 the qualifications for voting in parliamentary elections were complex and widely varied, reflecting the gradual and unplanned evolution of law and practice. In the 32 counties, each of which sent two MPs to parliament, an act of 1542 gave the vote to 40‐shilling freeholders. The two MPs for Trinity College, Dublin, were elected by the 22 fellows and 70 scholars. The 117 boroughs that returned the remaining 234 Irish MPs fell into five categories. In 57 corporation boroughs the voters were the members of the corporation, generally 13 in number. In 34 freeman boroughs corporation members were joined by those who had been granted the freedom of the borough. In 12 boroughs ‘potwallopers’, householders controlling their own front door and cooking facilities, had the right to vote. In 6 manor boroughs the 40‐shilling freeholders voted. Finally there were 8 country boroughs, all substantial urban centres, in which the vote was given to members of the corporation, freemen, and 40‐shilling free‐holders.

One hundred and seven boroughs were ‘close’, in the sense that a single patron controlled the outcome of the election. In corporation and freeman boroughs this happened because a patron had ensured that the unelected corporation was run by his dependants and that the freedom of the borough, where this carried voting rights, was granted sparingly and only to reliable persons. In manor and potwalloping boroughs, proprietorial control arose from the social and economic influence of a single landlord over all or the majority of voters. The open constituencies were the country boroughs (Dublin, Cork, Galway, Drogheda, Waterford, Kilkenny, Carrickfergus, and Limerick), along with Derry and Swords, Co. Dublin, each of which had an electorate too large for any one patron to dominate. There, as in the countries, there was scope for a genuine contest between rival interests, although the individual voter might be just as much under the control of a social superior as in a close borough.

The Act of Union, reducing the Irish constituencies to the 32 countries, Trinity College, and the large boroughs, sharply increased the proportion of open to close constituencies. The granting of Catholic emancipation in 1829 was balanced by legislation to raise the country franchise to £10, disenfranchising the 40‐shilling freeholders whom O'Connell had so effectively mobilized. This reduced the country electorate from 216,000 to 37,000. The first major Parliamentary Reform Act, in 1832, retained the £10 franchise in the counties, but admitted some categories of leaseholder. The multiplicity of borough franchises was replaced by a single qualification of occupation of property valued at £10 or more per annum. This brought the county electorate back to around 60,000, and the borough electorate to 30,000. However, the complexities of the registration system, and the use of leasehold as the basic qualification for voting in the countries, produced an arbitrary and unpredictable system. One Irish urban dweller in 26, and one country dweller in 116, had the vote, compared to one in 17 and one in 24 in England. After 1832, moreover, the Irish electorate declined, reflecting both the unwillingness of land‐lords to grant leases and, later, the ravages of the Great Famine.

The Irish Franchise Act of 1850 was the single most important reform measure of the 19th century. The borough franchise was reduced to £8. The country franchise was set at £12, but this was now linked to occupation rather than ownership or leasehold. The registration system was thoroughly restructured. The result was to increase the Irish electorate from 45,000 to 164,000, admitted on a reasonably coherent and consistent basis. The Reform Act of 1868, affecting only the boroughs, reduced the franchise to ‘over £4’, and admitted lodgers occupying premises valued at £10 or more per year. By 1871 16 per cent of the adult male population could vote, compared to 34 per cent in England. The Representation of the People Act (1884) created a uniform franchise of £10 or more for the whole of the United Kingdom. The result was to admit the majority of heads of households among labourers and small farmers, while continuing to exclude lodgers, servants, and adult men living with parents. Meanwhile a Redistribution of Seats Act (1885) abolished all but nine boroughs, replacing them with new constituencies created by dividing the counties and the boroughs of Belfast and Dublin. The electorate rose from 226,000 to 738,000.

The last major extension of the franchise was in 1918, when men over 21 and women over 30 gained the vote. The electorate rose from 700,000 in 1910 to just under 2 million. Women aged between 21 and 29 were enfranchised in the Irish Free State in 1923. In Northern Ireland, as else‐where in the United Kingdom, they had to wait until 1928.

Bibliography

Hoppen, K. T. , Elections, Politics and Society in Ireland 1832–1885 (1984)
Johnston, E. M. , Great Britain and Ireland 1760–1800: A Study in Political Administration (1963)