Event type：Seminar

Series：British History in the Long 18th Century

Address：Online-via Zoom & IHR Wolfson Conference Suite, NB01/NB02, Basement, IHR, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Speakers：Jonah Miller (University of Cambridge)

Event dates：27 April 2022, 12:00AM - 2:00AM

During the long eighteenth century, fundamental political questions of rights, responsibilities, and electoral procedure were defined and disputed at the lowest level of government: the parish. Every year, parishes elected officers to serve the secular and spiritual needs of the community. Historians have paid little attention to these elections, usually describing them as dull, sparsely attended foregone conclusions orchestrated by local oligarchies. This paper uses previously neglected evidence from the ecclesiastical courts of the diocese of London to show that many parish elections were, in fact, hotly contested disputes over who was entitled to vote and how voting should take place. These contests were driven by London’s rapid expansion and its religious fragmentation, both of which unsettled established notions of who counted as an enfranchised ‘parishioner’. Some parishes were divided over the rights of ratepaying women, lodgers, Dissenters, and Jews, others over the comparative advantages of open polling and the secret ballot. Until parliamentary intervention in 1818, parish elections were governed by local custom more than statute or canon law, so residents were left to argue about these matters themselves. The records of those arguments shed new light on the political culture and conflicts of the capital.

NB this will be a ‘hybrid’ seminar with some (max 35) audience members (including convenors and the presenter) at the IHR. The session will start at the slightly later time of 17:30. Those attending in person are asked to bring a Wi-Fi enabled laptop, tablet or phone.