Slavery and abolition could be contentious platform issues in 18th-century England [15-minute read] Understandings of Slavery In eighteenth-century political discourse, ‘slavery’ was a potent but often imprecise term, used across the century to describe many kinds of personal, political or religious oppression rather than specifically the ownership of people as property, as we now generally […]
Find out how dancing was used to mobilize voters and their families. [5-minute read] In eighteenth-century elections, candidates were not just assessed on their speeches and campaign promises, they were also measured by the way they carried themselves, whether on the hustings or in the ballroom. While dancing may seem like an activity designed solely […]
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 […]
Standing as an MP was an expensive undertaking. Success often needed to be bought [15-minute read] The costs of campaigning remain expensive today, as they were in the eighteenth century. Over the course of centuries, however, the types of expenditures have shifted dramatically. In the eighteenth century, food and drink were key for ‘treating’ the […]
