At the same time the franchise was made regular all over England. Previously it had varied in the most arbitrary fashion; some towns had practically manhood suffrage; in others the corporation had been the only electors. Now, in the boroughs, the power to vote was given to all resident occupiers of premises of £10 yearly value—so that all the shopkeeping class and the wealthier artisans got the franchise, but not the poorer inhabitants. In the counties freeholders, copyholders, and holders of leases for 60 years to the annual value of £10, with occupiers paying a yearly rent of £50, were enfranchised. Thus the farmers and yeomen ruled the poll, and the agricultural labourers had no voice in the matter. The franchise in Ireland was assimilated to that in England, thus depriving of their power the £2 householders who had hitherto been allowed to vote in that country. In Scotland, on the other hand, the rule was slightly more liberal than in England, as occupiers of £10 farms were given the franchise, instead of £50 being left as the limit.
Thus the United Kingdom acquired its first representative Parliament. But the new body was as yet representative of the middle classes alone; it was thought, wisely enough, that the agricultural labourers and the town poor were as yet unfit to be electors. For thirty years no serious attempt to extend the limits of the franchise was made, and fifty were to elapse before simple household suffrage in town and county alike was to be made the rule. Meanwhile, the first Reform Bill amply justified itself, and gave England two generations of quiet and orderly government.
FOOTNOTES:
Addington had been created Lord Sidmouth long before this, but to avoid confusion his better-known name is still used.
See page [409].
Lambeth, Greenwich, Marylebone, Finsbury, Tower Hamlets.