Reform of the Poor Law Electoral System, 1834-94

Abstract

Undoubtedly, the most visible aspects of the anti-Poor Law movement were the attacks on the workhouse system and the centralized control (more apparent than real) of the Poor Law Commissioners. These were highly emotional issues capable of galvanizing thousands of men and women into dramatic and sometimes violent encounters with government, armed with righteous denunciations of the “Poor Man's Robbery Bill,” the “Bastilles,” and the “Three Bashaws of Somerset House.” But there was another facet to the opposition to the New Poor Law which has received scant attention from historians—the fight against the blatantly undemocratic electoral system created by the act. This article examines the nature of that system and the sporadic attempts to reform it during a sixty-year period, culminating in the radical reforms made by the Local Government Act of 1894.The constitution and electoral system of the Boards of Guardians were vital components of the New Poor Law, which ensured the dominance of many Poor Law Unions by landed magnates. The key provisions were plural votes for landowners and occupiers for elected guardians, and ex-officio membership of the boards for county magistrates. The landowner's franchise was taken directly from William Sturges-Bourne's Select Vestries Act of 1818, which conferred one vote for land of £50 annual value, and an additional vote for each £25 beyond this, to a maximum of six. A separate occupier franchise was in force until 1844. It gave one vote for land valued up to £200, two votes for land of £200 to £400, and three votes for land over £400, and was the result of a compromise.