Voters, Patrons, and Parties: The Unreformed Electoral System of Hanoverian England 1734-1832

by Frank O'Gorman

Overview

This is a wide-ranging study of electoral politics in England between 1734 and 1832. O'Gorman analyzes the voters, the control of the electoral system by the upper classes, and the function of an election in the unreformed period. He combines computer analysis with traditional historical methods to reconstruct the social and ideological world of the voters, and argues that an understanding of the electoral dimension is vital to a broader understanding of the Hanoverian regime and its popular acceptance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198200567
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/19/1989
Pages:	460
Product dimensions:	9.21(w) x 6.14(h) x 1.00(d)

Editorial Reviews

"O'Gorman has researched this book with exemplary thoroughness...Anecdotal and statistical material of considerable range is sorted and presented with the greatest of care."—Journal of Modern History

"Unquestionably takes its place as the leading study on the last century of the unreformed English and Welsh...electorate...All students of the period should be immensely grateful."—American Historical Review

"[A] startlingly brilliant revision of the role of the electorate in national English politics before the great reform bill of 1832...With patient grace, O'Gorman redefines every major facet of political management by placing the common voter at the center of his focus...O'Gorman's beautifully crafted thesis requires even advanced scholars to severely modify, perhaps scrap, many assumptions about 18th-century common people in general and about their relationship to their 'betters'...The book is certain to ignite controversy."—CHOICE

"^[This book] breaks the mold...O'Gorman not only shows impressive powers of synthesis in bringing this existing material together, however; he also goes a long way beyond it in his own archival contribution—not the least of his book's practical uses will be the invaluable guide that its bibliography and references provide to those setting out into the unexplored hinterland of Hanoverian England—and he casts the whole in a different light."—Albion

"A brilliant success. With superb scholarship, O'Gorman has written the most distiguished book on the subject since 1903: its implications for modern democratic government are as profound as they are understated."—The Times (London)

From the Publisher