The register of freeholders. In pursuance of An act passed in the Twenty-eight Year of the Reign of His Majesty King George the Third, intituled An Act for the better securing the Rights of Persons qualified to vote at County Elections.
London.
Printed by Charles Eyre and Andrew Strahan, 1788.
Folio.
[540]pp. ’An Act for the better securing the rights of persons qualified to vote at county elections’ has a caption title on 6L2r with a general title page on 6L1r. Contemporary speckled sheep, cloth ties. Heavily worn and marked, boards held by cords only. Later armorial bookplate of Marmion Edward Ferrers (bap. 1813, d. 1884) to FEP, margins trimmed close, with occasional loss to running-titles and signatures, short tear to head of leaf O1, very occasional light spotting.
A rarely encountered relic of electoral regulation; a book of blank forms for compiling a register of freeholders, designed to be completed in manuscript, prompted by alterations to voting registration directives occasioned by the 1788 act for 'better securing the rights of persons qualified to vote at county elections'.
This radical district polling bill was carried through both Houses and into law primarily due to the assiduous canvassing of dedicated political reformer Charles Stanhope, third Earl Stanhope (1753-1816). It provided for an electoral register in each county constituency. Freeholders were encouraged to put their names forward to the tax collector for inclusion in the register, which, when compiled, would appear in print.
Stanhope's success was short-lived. The technical defects of the act, such as the obligation imposed on freeholders being entirely voluntary, coupled with a series of petitions from English counties, arguing that the costs of the registers (such as these) would be carried by the county rate, led to the repeal of the act, untried in a general election, in 1789 - likely the reason as to why the forms themselves are so uncommon and the present copy remains blank.
ESTC records a single copy (BL).
This radical district polling bill was carried through both Houses and into law primarily due to the assiduous canvassing of dedicated political reformer Charles Stanhope, third Earl Stanhope (1753-1816). It provided for an electoral register in each county constituency. Freeholders were encouraged to put their names forward to the tax collector for inclusion in the register, which, when compiled, would appear in print.
Stanhope's success was short-lived. The technical defects of the act, such as the obligation imposed on freeholders being entirely voluntary, coupled with a series of petitions from English counties, arguing that the costs of the registers (such as these) would be carried by the county rate, led to the repeal of the act, untried in a general election, in 1789 - likely the reason as to why the forms themselves are so uncommon and the present copy remains blank.
ESTC records a single copy (BL).
ESTC T470958.
£ 1,500.00
Antiquates Ref: 27036