Abstract

AbstractNarratives of the mid‐18th‐century state as drifting towards oligarchy and closure have long been superseded by accounts stressing its responsiveness to outside interests and opinion. Participatory election rituals, crowd activity and the expansion of print media demonstrate that political activism was not limited to a narrow circle of elites, even after the passage of the 1716 Septennial Act. Additionally, as an institution after 1688 the Westminster parliament rendered itself useful to propertied society through its passage of greater amounts of legislation. However, while the strength of party and trajectory of electoral participation is well mapped, as are addresses to the crown, the petitioning of interest groups has had few systematic quantitative surveys. This article first sets out the chronology of petitioning to both houses of parliament from 1660 to 1788, demonstrating that petitioning was at its height before 1722, rather than rising to its greatest levels with the reform movements in the 1780s. Second, the article demonstrates the role of petitioning in expanding the political nation beyond the boundaries of parliamentary boroughs, and why, on occasion, petitioning involved women and illiterate men. Third, in order to emphasize the continuity in petitioning and its contribution to the formation of public opinion, the article compares the different roles that concurrent subscription practices envisaged for the public. Finally, the article argues that despite the rising tendency to cite numerical strength to arbitrate political divisions, petitioners continued to legitimise their voices on the basis of representing collections of reasons and interests rather than opinion.

Highlights

  • Narratives of the mid-18th-century state as drifting towards oligarchy and closure have long been superseded by accounts stressing its responsiveness to outside interests and opinion

  • As a generation of scholars have shown, government in the early modern period was frequently done with, rather than to, the people. This held true even following the growth of the ‘fiscal-military’ and ‘information’ state after the revolution of 1688, and the reduction in the public’s role as electors after the passage of the 1716 Septennial Act

  • Collective petitioning, which assumed a new political role in the 1640s, and was given a new lease of life in the form of loyal addresses to the crown and as commentaries on the increasing number of bills considered by parliament after 1688, remained a significant means to represent opinion, demonstrate loyalty and share knowledge

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Summary

PHILIP LOFT Cambridge University

Narratives of the mid-18th-century state as drifting towards oligarchy and closure have long been superseded by accounts stressing its responsiveness to outside interests and opinion. The article reflects on the continuity of petitioning to the Westminster parliament in the 18th century, and the continuing insufficiency of quoting majority support to establish the reasonableness of a measure.10 This was despite an increased desire to seek out large numbers of subscribers, especially compared with the Restoration practice that frequently avoided demonstrating the popularity of a measure. The greatest number of petitions presented to parliament coincided with the ‘rage of party’ from the mid 1690s to 1722, though petitioners were motivated by clashes of interest rather than party politics This early period saw higher rates of petitioning per sitting day and head of population than that experienced during the early reform movements after 1780. Social Relations and Economic Life on Landed Estates, 1600–1850 (Basingstoke, 2014)

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