Talk:Unreformed House of Commons

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Excellent article
Might be interesting to have a table showing numbers of MP per county (including burgesses) and the total estimated electorate and estimated population for those constituencies. Morwen - Talk 09:03, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I could do that. I am also going to rewrite Reform Act of 1832 which is seriously deficient. Perhaps we could start a linked series of articles on The History of the Westminster Parliament. Adam 11:01, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Monmouthshire
The article implies that Monmouthshire had representation before 1536, as one of the 40 traditional counties of England. This is not true. It was created and annexed to the Kingdom of England by the same instrument that annexed the other 12 Welsh counties, and the Monmouthshire boroughs had the same arrangement regarding shared seats as the other Welsh boroughs did. Morwen - Talk 14:40, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it does imply that, given that the table is in a section which lists the electorate as it was in 1800. Your note 'Monmouthshire is included here as part of England, rather than Wales' seems adequate. Owain 15:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm talking about the prose, not the table, in particular the first paragraph ofUnreformed_House_of_Commons. Morwen - Talk 15:25, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Durham
Apparently County Durham didn't send members until after the restoration, either. Because it was a county palatine. Lancashire and Cornwall nontheless did. Morwen - Talk 20:58, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

In reply: in relation to both Monmouthshire and Durham, you are correct. I am not quite sure what to do about this, since this article is intended to be a picture of the House of Commons as it was before 1832, rather than a complete History of the British House of Commons, which would indeed be a worthy project, if a very big one. Adam 23:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Scottish Boroughs
Is the material here really right? Looking at the House of Commons lists on Leigh Rayment's site, it looks like there were only a small number of groups of boroughs, and a number of individual borough seats appear to have existed - Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, and so forth...anyone know for sure? john k 03:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Never mind - should've looked more closely. john k 03:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Numbers don't add up, Anglicans
In the section on English Boroughs, it gives the number for each type. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to line up properly with the actual list. As far as I can gather, only the number for Householder Boroughs is apparently correct at 12. The text gives 92 freemen boroughs, but I could only count up to 83 in the chart. It gives 37 Scot and lot boroughs, but I count 45. It gives 27 corporation boroughs, but I count only 25. It gives 29 Burgage Boroughs, but I count only 27. And it gives 6 Freeholder boroughs, but I count 8. What's the deal? john k 07:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The House of Commons consisted entirely of men, most of them men of substantial property, and (after the Glorious Revolution of 1688) entirely of Anglicans.

But surely the Scots members would have been of the established Church of Scotland, no? john k 07:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

In reply: You are correct on both counts. The discrepancies in the numbers appear to arise because I got the numbers in the text from Brooke (The House of Commons 1754-1790), while the tables come from Thorne (The House of Commons 1790-1820 (Volume II, Constituencies)). I presume the difference between the two sources arises from the difficulty in classifying some of the boroughs by franchise type, particularly those which were rarely contested. There were frequent disputes before the House over who had the right to vote in particular constituencies, based on conflicting interpretations of mediaeval charters, and often they would be decided in different directions at different elections, depending on the partisan circumstances of the time. Since we have to be consistent, I would suggest altering the figures in the text to conform to those in the tables, while noting that no set of figures is beyond doubt or dispute. Adam 10:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

That seems like the way to go. However, I'm not sure exactly how to classify some of them. There are all the ones that are "freemen and freeholders," for instance - I imagine those count as freemen boroughs. Also the "Freemen and Householders" - do those count as householder boroughs? And what about Aylesbury, with its "inhabitant householders and also freeholders from neighboring areas"? Or New Shoreham with "40 shilling freeholders"? john k 16:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Each borough had its own charter, and there were many variations in the possible franchises that these charters conferred, particularly once they had been interpreted and reinterpreted by the courts and the House of Commons over the years. The franchise types given in Thorne are broad categories which contain a number of local variations. The descriptions I have given come from Thorne, but without detailed local knowledge I can't elucidate them further. Maybe it would be better to delete the figures in the text and just give general indications that some types were more common than others. Adam 00:40, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

vote totals?
Does anyone know the vote totals for pre-reform act Britain? BillMasen (talk) 17:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

women?
Are you sure this article is correct in saying that women did not have the franchise before 1832? I've seen it said elsewhere that technically before 1832 there was no restriction of the county franchise to men. So a woman who in her own right met the county property qualification did have a vote, but the riotous way elections were conducted meant that none of them ever tried their luck. --Browne-Windsor (talk) 08:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Calais
Calais was represented in the House of Commons for a time; I believe for several of the 16th-century parliaments? The article should say something about that. 81.139.200.134 (talk) 18:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC).
 * Do you have any sources that show that? If so please share them and we can add it to the article...  RP459 (talk) 19:18, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * See Calais (constituency). — ras52 (talk) 13:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Counties corporate
Was a county corporate a county constituency or a borough constituency? In the Parliament of Ireland they were called "county boroughs", which I guess is a type of borough. jnestorius(talk) 15:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)


 * My semi-informed guess is that they were borough constituencies (although that's an anachronistic term). MPs for counties, who were elected at a county court, were formally known as a "Knight of the Shire".  Counties corporate weren't shire counties, so....  Andrew Gwilliam (talk) 10:08, 10 August 2011 (UTC).
 * The counties corporate were rather like the dozens of "county boroughs" created by the Local Government Act 1888 for local government purposes. There was no automatic connection with parliamentary representation, although the counties corporate probably did all get representation long before the Commons was reformed. To take two examples, Carmarthen was a parliamentary borough before it was a county corporate, whereas Haverfordwest was a county corporate before it gained its own representation in parliament as a borough. Moonraker (talk) 07:20, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Continuity of government
While this is an important concept, the article linked to is about the concept of a post-nuclear apocolypse continuity of government, not that envisioned in this context. I suggest therefore that the term in this article be delinked, but am more interested in collegiality than being bold. 75.252.119.134 (talk) 04:15, 25 September 2011 (UTC)