The canvass aimed to get the vote out, but also linked candidates to communities [25-minute read] Canvassing was, according to David Eastwood, ‘the critical electoral institution of later-Hanoverian England’, or, as Frank O’Gorman has argued, the ‘critical point of contact’ between the electoral system and the voters prior to Reform.[1] Canvasses were organized by local […]
The Bedford election of 1830 provides an example of both riot and respectability [20-minute read] Hotly contested elections in the long eighteenth century were public participatory events that were often turbulent, and occasionally violent. While the reasons for election riots varied widely, and the riots themselves frequently resulted in little more than torn clothing and […]
Learn how dress and decoration, made and worn by women, was part of campaigning [20-minute read] Paying heed to eighteenth-century women’s use of fashion for political ends, calls attention both to an understudied aspect of women’s political involvement as well as to the importance of material culture, visual impact, and the use of space in […]
Though excluded from the franchise, women found many ways to influence the vote [20-minute read] Five months before the 1768 general election, Lord Breadalbane complained to his daughter, Marchioness Grey, that the ‘Rage of Electioneering’ had already infected Scotland, and that the ‘epidemical Madness’ of the upcoming elections was more virulent than ever. At the […]
Tracing the history of the kiss as symbolic gesture and campaign strategy [10-minute read] Eighteenth-century elections were rumbustious affairs that revolved almost exclusively around local issues and local personalities. Despite the fact that many contests never went all the way to a poll, there were few seats that were totally secure. Election contests frequently involved […]
