Forty-shilling freeholders
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Forty-shilling freeholders were those who had the parliamentary franchise to vote by virtue of possessing freehold property, or lands held directly of the king, of an annual rent of at least forty shillings (i.e. £2 or 3 marks), clear of all charges.[1]
The qualification to vote using the ownership and value of property, and the creation of a group of forty-shilling freeholders, was practiced in many jurisdictions such as
.History
During the
In 1430, legislation limited the franchise to only those who owned the freehold of land that brought in an annual rent of at least 40 shillings (forty-shilling freeholders).[2] For comparison: In the mid 1340s, a knight received a daily pay of two shillings while on campaign, an ordinary man-at-arms the half of it, a foot archer was paid two or three pence (12 pennies to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound). A war-horse could value from five to 100 pounds.[3]
The legislation did not specify the gender of the property owner, however the franchise became restricted to males by custom.
England and Wales
Until legislation in the fifteenth century the franchise for elections of
The Yale historian Charles Seymour discussing the original county franchise, suggested that "it is probable that all free inhabitant householders voted and that the parliamentary qualification was, like that which compelled attendance in the county court, merely a "resiance" or residence qualification". Seymour explains why Parliament decided to limit the county franchise: "The Act of 1430, after declaring that elections had been crowded by many persons of low estate, and that confusion had thereby resulted, accordingly enacted that the suffrage should be limited to persons qualified by a freehold of 40s".[7]
Electors of Knights of the Shires Act 1429 | |
---|---|
Act of Parliament | |
Other legislation | |
Repealed by | Representation of the People Act 1918 |
Status: Repealed |
Electors of Knights of the Shire Act 1432 | |
---|---|
Act of Parliament | |
The
Over the course of time many different types of property were accepted as being forty-shilling freeholds and the residence requirement disappeared.
According to Seymour, "this qualification was broader in practice than would appear at first glance, since the term freehold was applicable to many kinds of property. An explanatory act of parliament, it is true, confined it to lands of purely freehold tenure; but notwithstanding this purely formal declaration, the wider interpretation of the meaning of freeholder persisted, and we read of many freehold voters who were enfranchised by such qualifications as
Because of the above interpretations and as the qualifying figure was not uplifted or based on backdated valuations (to take account of
Taxpaying qualifications in connection with the freehold franchise were first required in 1712. In that year the exercise of the franchise became contingent upon the assessment[emphasis added] of the land or tenements, in respect of which the vote was conferred, (
20 George III, c. 17)...[b]
When the question of voting rights came up in 1832, general sentiment in the House of Commons favoured retaining the qualification in counties, notwithstanding the well known desire of the King who regarded this franchise as too democratic and would have liked to see it raised to £10 value, if it were not to be entirely [replaced]. Royal wishes did not however coincide with the interests of either party. The electoral strength of the
Tories, on the other hand, looked to the support of the small freeholder in the country districts. Neither party favoured the abolition or the increase in value of the freeholder qualification; instead the Commons voted [for] a continuation of the 40 s. franchise and agreed to impose limitations upon it: freehold estates lesser than [inherited] estates were to confer the vote only under certain conditions; and when the estate was for life (or lives) only, there must be actual and bona fide occupation for it serve as a qualification. The wider interpretation of the meaning of freehold, which admitted as qualifications such holdings as pew rights, annuities and church offices, was not restricted by the Act of 1832.
A disputed point, on which the Whig majority in the Commons prevailed, was that freeholders in boroughs who did not occupy their property should vote in the counties in which the borough was situated. The Tories objected that urban interests would affect the representation of agricultural areas. The Whigs pointed out this had always been the case with urban areas not previously represented as
It was found that about 70% of the county constituency electorate after passage of the Reform Act 1832 still qualified to vote.
From 1885 the property-owning franchise became less important than the occupancy one. Only about 20% of the county electorate were freeholders in 1886 and the proportion declined to about 16% in 1902.
In 1918, with the introduction of a full adult male franchise, property qualifications only affected some of the new women voters (who were not occupiers of a dwelling or the wife of an occupier, in the constituency) and plural voting business property owners. They needed respectively a £5 and £10 qualification — the forty shilling qualification ended. Universal adult suffrage was enacted in 1928 and the remaining plural votes were abolished by the Representation of the People Act 1948 so that by and since the 1950 United Kingdom general election no voters have qualified on the basis of the ownership of land.
Ireland
Similarly in
The Parliamentary Elections (Ireland) Act 1829, enacted on the same day as the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, raised the franchise qualification to the English threshold level of ten pounds. This eliminated the middling tenantry who had risked much in defying their landlords on Daniel O'Connell's behalf in the 1828 Clare by-election that helped finally force the issue of Catholic access to parliament, and it reduced the overall electorate in the country from 216,000 voters to just 37,000.[8][9]
O'Connell's erstwhile ally in Ulster, George Ensor predicted as the price for allowing "a few Catholic gentlemen to be returned to Parliament", the sacrifice of the forty-shilling freeholder and "indifference" it demonstrated to the cause of parliamentary reform would prove "disastrous" for the country.[10] In Ensor's home county Armagh, "Emancipation" reduced an electorate of over 8,000 by three quarters so that even after the Reform, and the Representation of the People (Ireland), acts of 1832, it stood at just 3,487.[11]
The forty-shilling qualification continued after 1829 in the comparatively small number of Irish boroughs which had the status of a
See also
- Parliamentary franchise in the United Kingdom 1885–1918 including a summary of the qualifications for the forty-shilling freehold franchise during the final years of its existence.
- Montfort's Parliament
- Knights of the Shire
- Henry III of England
- Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester
- Weighted voting
Notes
- 10 Ann.c. 31)
- 20 Geo. 3. c. 17)
References
- ^ Robert Simpson (1839). The history of Scotland, from the earliest period to the accession of Queen Victoria. Oliver & Boyd. pp. 338–. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
- ISBN 978-1-154-34110-2. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
- ^ Curry, A. (ed.) (1994) Arms, armies and fortifications in the Hundred Years War. Boydell & Brewer, Woodbidge. p. 24.
- ^ "Ancient voting rights", The History of the Parliamentary Franchise, House of Commons Library, 1 March 2013, p. 6, retrieved 16 March 2016
- ISBN 9780748626724.
- ISBN 978-0-563-48714-2.
- ^ Seymour, Charles (1915). Electoral Reform in England and Wales: The Development and Operation of the Parliamentary Franchise, 1832-1885. New Haven: Yale University Press – via Internet Archive.
- ISBN 0713990104.
- ^ Johnston, Neil (1 March 2013). "The History of the Parliamentary Franchise (Research Paper 13-14)" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 November 2021. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- ^ MacAtasney (2007), p. 176.
- ISBN 0856404578.
- .
Bibliography
- Chronological Table of the Statutes: Part 1 1235-1962 (The Stationery Office Ltd 1999)
- The Constitutional Year Book 1900 (William Blackstone & Sons 1900)
- Representation of the People Act 1918 (printed by authority in the Statutes for 1918)
- The Statutes: Revised Edition, Vol. I Henry III to James II (printed by authority in 1876)
- The Statutes: Second Revised Edition, Vol. XVI 1884-1886 (printed by authority in 1900)