An introduction to how many people could, and did, vote in the eighteenth century [5-minute read] The ‘electorate’ is the group of individuals who were entitled to vote in an election. This is different from the number of people who actually cast their votes at a poll, a group which we might call the ‘voterate’. […]
Edmund Green gives the definitive guide to their varieties, formats and contexts [40-minute read] Voting is a means of aggregating individual preferences into collective decisions, and through which the authority to enforce those decisions is legitimated.[1] The point of voting is to have one’s vote counted. This makes the study of historical voting unusual, in […]
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 […]
Following an election, collections of printed ephemera were sometimes published [20-minute read] These compendia might contain handbills, songs, visual prints, advertisements and addresses that had been published as part of the campaign. Such volumes have come to be known as ‘squib books’. A ‘squib’ is a short piece of satirical writing, generally taking the form […]
