A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom that had very few voters. They could be used by a patron (or local landlord) to gain disproportionate influence within the House of Commons. The Reform Act of 1832 abolished most of the rotten and pocket boroughs in existence previously.
The same terms were used for similar boroughs represented in the 18th-century Parliament of Ireland.
Background A parliamentary borough was a town or former town whose status could be created through a royal charter, giving it the right to return representatives (burgesses) to the House of Commons. It was not unusual for the physical boundary of the settlement to change as the town developed or contracted, so that the boundaries of the parliamentary borough and of the physical settlement were no longer the same.
For centuries, parliamentary representation and the right to vote in elections to the House of Commons remained largely unchanged from medieval times, even as population and economic activity shifted, contributing to an unequal distribution of seats by the early 19th century. In some constituencies the electorate was so small that seats could be controlled through patronage, bribery or coercion and many seats were treated almost as "property" under longstanding family influence. Early 19th-century reformers used the term rotten borough for depopulated constituencies that retained representation, and pocket borough for constituencies "in the pocket" of a patron who could dominate the outcome.
Voting was public rather than by ballot; at the hustings the returning officer held a nomination meeting and might call for a show of hands, while in a contested election the formal poll could last several days; votes were given orally and recorded, which helped enable intimidation as well as bribery. Uncontested elections were common, and in some seats no poll took place for many years. An MP might be elected by only a few voters, while at the same time many rapidly growing towns were inadequately represented in Parliament. Before 1832, the industrial town of Manchester expanded rapidly during the Industrial Revolution, yet it had no MPs; reform-era accounts note that the citizens of fast-growing cities such as Manchester could vote only as part of large county constituencies (in Manchester's case, Lancashire) that returned only two MPs. Manchester was enfranchised as a separate parliamentary constituency in 1832, initially returning two MPs. Many of these ancient boroughs elected two MPs. By the time of the 1831 general election, out of 406 elected members, 152 were chosen by fewer than 100 voters each and 88 by fewer than fifty voters.
By the early 19th century, moves were made towards parliamentary reform, with the Representation of the People Act 1832 (the "Great Reform Act") disenfranchising many small boroughs and creating new constituencies, redistributing seats in the House of Commons. The Ballot Act 1872 introduced the secret ballot, allowing voters to vote in private and making it harder to intimidate voters or to verify bribery. Further reforms followed in the 1880s: the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883 increased penalties for corrupt practices including bribery and "treating" (the provision of food and drink), and it also placed limits on election expenses; accounts from the period note that election expenditure fell significantly under these rules.
Rotten boroughs
The expression rotten borough is attested from the mid-18th century (with dictionary evidence from 1765), and was popularised by early 19th-century parliamentary reformers as a pejorative label for depopulated constituencies that retained representation. In practice, many such seats had very small electorates and could be maintained by the Crown or controlled by aristocratic patrons, making them vulnerable to bribery, coercion, and other forms of influence. The adjective rotten carried a strongly negative sense, implying both decay and moral wrongdoing.
Before the Ballot Act 1872 introduced secret voting, parliamentary elections were conducted publicly, and electors declared their votes openly, which facilitated intimidation by employers and landlords and made it easier to verify the results of bribery. In constituencies dominated by a patron, MPs were often expected to serve that interest rather than the broader body of electors.
Typically, rotten boroughs were places that had once been larger or more significant but later declined, sometimes dramatically, while still retaining the right to return MPs. Old Sarum is a well-known example. English Heritage describes it as a major centre of secular and ecclesiastical government for about 150 years, but notes that the cathedral was moved to nearby Salisbury in 1226 and that Old Sarum nonetheless continued as a 'rotten borough' electing MPs until 1832.
A Historic England listing similarly records that the site was totally abandoned by 1514 but continued as a rotten borough sending MPs to Westminster until it was disenfranchised by the Reform Act 1832. Contemporary accounts of the move emphasise the development of the new city around the cathedral: Salisbury Cathedral's official history states that a new site in the river valley was chosen, work began in 1220, and "the City of Salisbury ... grew under the direction of Bishop Poore", with a large workforce involved in building the cathedral and associated settlement. English Heritage's teachers' materials add that by 1226 most of the clergy had left Old Sarum and by 1240 the majority of the local population had moved to Salisbury (New Sarum). Despite the loss of population, Old Sarum retained the right to elect two MPs; English Heritage notes that its MPs could effectively be nominated by a single influential landowner, making it a classic "pocket borough". For example, the UK Government History blog notes that William Pitt (the Elder) entered Parliament as member for "the Pitt family's pocket borough of Old Sarum".
Many rotten and pocket boroughs were controlled by aristocratic patrons, including landowners and peers, who could place their own (often non-resident) followers in parliamentary seats, sometimes effectively choosing members for both seats. In such constituencies representatives were often expected to please their patrons rather than their constituents. This influence could rest on property rights: in some boroughs the vote was attached to burgage property, and wealthy individuals could buy up the burgages (or acquire burgage tenures) to control the election outcome. Scholarship has also noted that "patronal peers" could thereby control large blocs of seats in the House of Commons. Because electorates could be extremely small, rotten boroughs returned MPs in ways that were easy to influence or control; despite having very few voters, many still returned two MPs for much of their existence. Contemporary critics even alleged that seats in such boroughs could be bought and sold "in the market".
+Examples of rotten boroughs Borough County Houses Voters Notes Old Sarum Wiltshire 3 7 Gatton Surrey 23 7 Newtown Isle of Wight 14 23 East Looe Cornwall 167 38 Dunwich Suffolk 44 32 Most of this formerly prosperous town had fallen into the sea Plympton Erle Devon 182 40 One seat was controlled from the mid-17th century to 1832 by the Treby family of Plympton House Bramber West Sussex 35 20 Callington Cornwall 225 42 Controlled by the Rolle family of Heanton Satchville and Stevenstone in Devon Trim County Meath Parliament of Ireland
Pocket boroughs Pocket boroughs were boroughs which could effectively be controlled by a single person who owned at least half of the "burgage tenements", the occupants of which had the right to vote in the borough's parliamentary elections. A wealthy patron therefore had merely to buy up these specially qualified houses and install in them his own tenants, selected for their willingness to do their landlord's bidding, or given such precarious forms of tenure that they dared not displease him. As there was no secret ballot until 1872, the landowner could evict electors who did not vote for the two men he wanted. A common expression referring to such a situation was that "Mr A had been elected on Lord B's interest".
Some rich individuals controlled several boroughs; for example, the Duke of Newcastle is said to have had seven boroughs "in his pocket". One of the representatives of a pocket borough was often the man who controlled it, and for this reason they were also referred to as proprietorial boroughs.
Pocket boroughs were seen by their 19th-century owners as a valuable method of ensuring the representation of the landed interest in the House of Commons.
Significantly diminished by the Reform Act 1832, pocket boroughs were for all practical purposes abolished by the Reform Act 1867. This considerably extended the borough franchise and established the principle that each parliamentary constituency should hold roughly the same number of electors. Boundary commissions were set up by subsequent Acts of Parliament to maintain this principle as population movements continued.
Government controlled boroughs There were also boroughs which were controlled not by a particular patron but rather by the Crown, specifically by the departments of state of the Treasury or Admiralty, and which thus returned the candidates nominated by the ministers in charge of those departments.
In many cases, placemen under William III exercised their control over Parliament simply by showing up. Attendance at legislative sessions during William's reign was generally low, so a bloc determined to vote could pass its favoured measures by default.
Reform In the late 18th century, many political societies, such as the London Corresponding Society and the Society of the Friends of the People, called for parliamentary reform. Specifically, they thought that the rotten borough system was unfair and they called for a more equal distribution of representatives that reflected the population of Britain. However, legislation enacted by William Pitt the Younger caused these societies to disband by making it illegal for them to meet or publish information.
In the 19th century, there were moves toward reform, which broadly meant ending the over-representation of boroughs with few electors. The culmination of the process of Catholic emancipation in 1829 finally brought the reform issue to a head. The reform movement had a major success in the Reform Act 1832, which disfranchised the 56 boroughs listed below, most of them in the south and west of England. This redistributed representation in Parliament to new major population centres and places with significant industries, which tended to be farther north.
Buckinghamshire Wendover Amersham
Cornwall Bossiney Callington Camelford East Looe Fowey Lostwithiel Mitchell or St Michael's Newport Saltash St Germans St Mawes Tregony West Looe
Devon Beeralston Okehampton Plympton Erle
Hampshire Newtown, Isle of Wight Stockbridge Whitchurch Yarmouth, Isle of Wight
Kent New Romney Queenborough
Northamptonshire Brackley Higham Ferrers
Suffolk Aldeburgh Dunwich Orford
Somerset Ilchester Milborne Port Minehead
Surrey Bletchingley Gatton Haslemere
Sussex Bramber East Grinstead Seaford Steyning Winchelsea
Wiltshire Downton Great Bedwyn Heytesbury Hindon Ludgershall Old Sarum Wootton Bassett
Yorkshire Aldborough, West Riding Boroughbridge, North Riding Hedon, East Riding
Other counties Appleby, Westmorland Bishop's Castle, Shropshire Castle Rising, Norfolk Corfe Castle, Dorset Newton, Lancashire Weobley, Herefordshire
Contemporary defences