Rotten and Pocket Boroughs - Historical Background

Historical Background

A "borough" was a town that possessed a Royal charter giving it the right to elect two members (known as burgesses) to the House of Commons. It was unusual for such a borough to change its boundaries as the town or city it was based on expanded, so that in time the borough and the town were no longer identical in area. The true rotten borough was a borough with a very small electorate.

Typically, rotten boroughs had gained representation in parliament when they were flourishing centres with a substantial population, but had become depopulated or even deserted over the centuries. Some had once been important places or had played a major role in England's history, but had fallen into insignificance.

For centuries, constituencies electing members to the House of Commons did not change to reflect population shifts, and in some places the number of electors became so few that they could be bribed. A member of Parliament for one borough might represent only a few people, whereas some large population centres were poorly represented. Manchester, for example, was part of the larger constituency of Lancashire and did not elect members separately until 1832. Examples of rotten boroughs include the following:

• Old Sarum in Wiltshire had 3 houses and 7 voters
• East Looe in Cornwall had 167 houses and 38 voters
• Dunwich in Suffolk had 44 houses and 32 voters (most of this formerly prosperous town having fallen into the sea)
• Plympton Erle in Devon had 182 houses and 40 voters
• Gatton in Surrey had 23 houses and 7 voters
• Newtown on the Isle of Wight had 14 houses and 23 voters
• Bramber in West Sussex had 35 houses and 20 voters
• Callington in Cornwall had 225 houses and 42 voters

Each of these boroughs could elect two members of the Commons. By the time of the 1831 general election, out of 406 elected members, 152 were chosen by fewer than 100 voters, and 88 by fewer than 50 voters each.

Many such rotten boroughs were controlled by peers who gave the seats to their sons, other relations, or friends, thus having influence in the House of Commons while also holding seats themselves in the House of Lords. Prior to being awarded a peerage, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, served in the Irish House of Commons as a Member for the rotten borough of Trim in County Meath. A common expression referring to such a situation was that "Mr. So-and-so had been elected on Lord This-and-that's interest".

There were also boroughs who were dependent not on a particular patron but rather on the Treasury or Admiralty and thus returned the candidates nominated by the ministers in charge of those departments.

Such boroughs existed for centuries. The term rotten borough only came into usage in the 18th century, the qualification "rotten" suggesting both "corrupt" and "in decline for a very long time".