Marking the anniversary of the passage of the 1883 Corrupt Practices Act, Dr Kathryn Rix, assistant editor of the House of Commons, 1832-1945, begins a series of blog posts on this landmark reform by looking at the key changes made by the act and the motivations behind it.
Part 2 describes more of the demolished properties which used to stand on the eastern side of Beach Street.
Fascinating article about the road widening which took place and required the demolition of several properties on the seaward side of Beach Street.
Information on the cost of living in England in 1888 from an article entitled “Life on a Guinea a Week” in The Nineteenth Century (1888), p. 464.
The Spectator puts forward a proposal to tackle the extreme corruption that existed in the 1880 elections by suggesting that the cost of the election, and of all future elections for the next five or ten years, be paid by the ratepayers.
Spectator commentary on the publication of the Commissioners Report to Parliament in February 1881.
The Deal, Walmer & Sandwich Mercury reported the trial proceedings in its weekly editions listed here.
Text of a letter, ‘signed ” The Sandwich man,” which appeared in a London daily paper questioning why there was no examination of corruption in prior elections, or the fact that the Lliberals had bribed between elections and the Conservatives had no choice but to act in self defence.
The Election Commissions now sitting in England have unearthed a surprising variety of corrupt practices by which the provisions of the Ballot act were evaded or defied at the last election. Petitions for investigation have issued from a large number of boroughs. Commissions have lately been sitting in Oxford, Sandwich, Chester, Canterbury, Knaresborough, and Macclesfield.
Commentary on the ‘heroic scale’ of the bribery uncovered in the various election petitions being heard around the country. ‘It would appear that in the art of corruption, as in the art of advertising, no half-measures are of any avail, and the man who resorts to them merely throws his money away.’
An apology about a previous article overstating the honesty of rascals as demonstrated by the behaviour of voters in the Sandwich Election’s habit of taking bribes from both sides.
Could anything be baser than to swell the votes on either side, by voting for the candidate who paid them most?
Sir Henry James, in moving for a Commission to inquire into the Corrupt Practices at Gloucester, Macclesfield, Chester, Knaresborough, Boston, Oxford, and Sandwich, expressed a rather sanguine opinion that corrupt …
Mr. SPEAKER informed the House, that he had received from Sir Robert Lush and Mr. Justice Manisty, two of the Judges selected, in pursuance of The Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868, for the Trial of Election Petitions, a Certificate and Report relating to the Election for the Borough of Sandwich.
The election of a member to replace Mr. Hugessen is over, and the result is the return of Mr. Crompton Roberts by the large majority of 440 votes. The excitement which prevailed throughout the constituencyduring the polling day, was unprecedented in the electioneering annals of Deal.
