Unreformed House of Commons - Composition of The House

Composition of The House

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 (except in Scotland). All of these restrictions were in conformity with the dominant ideology of the time. Women could neither vote nor stand for election, and this was not questioned by any substantial number of people until well after 1832. Members of Parliament were not paid, which meant that only men of wealth could take the time to serve. In any case, candidates had to be electors, which meant that in most places they had to have substantial property, usually in the form of land.

Virtually all members representing county seats (see below) were landed gentlemen. Many were relatives or dependants of peers, but others took pride in being independent squires who did not have titles. These independent country gentlemen, sometimes called "the country party" although they were not an organised party, were often the only source of opposition to the government of the day, since they had no need to gain government favour through their votes in the House.

Members for borough seats (see below) were sometimes also local squires, but were more frequently merchants or urban professionals such as lawyers. A large number of borough members were placed in their seats by the government of the day in order to provide support to the government: these were known as "placemen," and it was a long-standing objective of parliamentary reformers to get the placemen out of the House of Commons. Some borough members were men of little means, sometimes in debt or insolvent, who agreed to become placemen in return for government funds. All 18th century governments depended on this corrupt element to maintain their majorities. Some boroughs were under the control of particular ministers or government departments. The members representing the Cinque Ports, for example, were traditionally dependants of the Admiralty and spoke for the interests of the Royal Navy.

Although there was no religious restriction on the right to vote, in practice most Catholics were prevented from voting between the reign of Elizabeth I and the Papists Act 1778, because they could not own or inherit land, making them unable to meet the property requirement (although many Catholic families circumvented this prohibition). Even after 1778, eligibility for election to the House of Commons was restricted by the fact that members had to take an Anglican oath to take their seats. This excluded Catholics, non-Anglican Protestants (English Dissenters), Jews and atheists from the House. (This restriction did not apply to Presbyterians in Scotland, where the Church of Scotland was the established church.)

It is a widely held view that the quality of members of the House of Commons declined over the 250 years before its reform in 1832, and this belief was one of the stimulants for reform. Sir John Neale could say of the county members in the reign of Elizabeth I: "It was not sufficient for candidates to belong to the more substantial families...They usually had to show some initiative and will." In the boroughs, he wrote, "competition tended to eliminate the less vigorous, less intelligent and unambitious." This would not be accepted as a description of the situation in the reign of George III, when it was frequently said that the House of full of lazy time-servers, talentless dependants of peers, and corrupt placemen and government agents.

What did not change was the numerical dominance of country gentlemen in the House. In 1584 they comprised 240 members in a House of 460. Two hundred years later this proportion had hardly changed, even though the social composition of Britain had changed radically over that time. But the proportion of independent members had declined. The proportion of these members who were sons or close relatives of peers rose considerably over this period. In 1584 only 24 members were sons of peers: by the end of the 18th century this number had risen to about 130 (in a House of 659, i.e. 19.72%), a fourfold proportional increase.

In the 18th century about 50 members of the House held ministerial or similar government offices. These included a number of officials who today would be career civil servants: the Secretary of the Admiralty, for example. As well, a number of members were given ceremonial Court appointments, usually sinecures, as a means of ensuring their loyalty. These included such archaic posts as eight Clerks of the Green Cloth and a dozen Grooms of the Bedchamber. Many more members held other sinecures of various kinds, mostly clerkships in government departments, posts which usually involved no actual work. This was not necessarily regarded as corrupt – in an age when Members received neither payments nor pensions, a sinecure position was regarded as a legitimate reward for service, but it also served to keep the recipient loyal. More clearly corrupt was the payment of secret pensions to Members by the Treasury. In 1762 sixteen Members were thus secretly in the pay of the government.

Opposition rhetoric at the time, however, tended to exaggerate the corruption of the 18th century House of Commons and the extent to which governments controlled the House by corrupt means. John Brooke's studies of division lists led him to comment: "The majority of Members voting with Government held no office and did so through honest conviction." The lists show, he said "that Members were given office because they voted with Government, not that they voted with Government in order to obtain office." As he points out, at a time when there were no formal political parties and hence no party discipline in the House, governments had to resort to other expedients to secure a majority and allow the continuity of government.