Forty shilling freeholders were a group of (mostly) landowners who had the Parliamentary franchise to vote in county constituencies in various parts of the British Isles. In England it was the only such qualification from 1430 until 1832. It remained one of the qualifications (after 1918 at a higher financial level) until the mid twentieth century, although with declining importance after Reform Acts gradually enfranchised voters who were not freeholders.
Some Borough constituencies, for example those that had the status of counties of themselves, included forty shilling freeholders in the pre-1832 electorate and this was preserved by the Reform Act 1832. By 1885 this provision still applied to Bristol, Exeter, Norwich and Nottingham.
In Ireland the forty shilling qualification (£2) was replaced in 1829 by a higher property qualification of £10 (in the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829).
Read more about Forty Shilling Freeholders: England and Wales, Ireland
Famous quotes containing the word forty:
“It is scarcely exaggeration to say that if one is not a little mad about Balzac at twenty, one will never live; and if at forty one can still take Rastignac and Lucien de Rubempre at Balzac’s own estimate, one has lived in vain.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)