Description:The Sutherland Collection contains a wide range documents relating to the role of bribery and corruption in the electoral system of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Many of these documents concern elections in Newcastle-under-Lyme during the 1790s.
Amongst these documents is a broadsheet examining the impact which the Act of Parliament to Prevent Bribery and Corruption in the electoral system would have on local politics in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
The broadsheet describes rulings which were made in the Act which prohibited voters from receiving rewards in return for votes. Individuals who were found guilty of this could be punished with a fine and have their right to vote or serve as a Member of Parliament permanently taken away. Underneath these passages are queries and notes examining the intricacies of the rulings and how they would affect local politics in Newcastle-under-Lyme. One passage states that if a Burgess of Newcastle received any gift or reward in return for his vote, then he would be ‘liable to all the Disabilities and Penalties mentioned’, and also ‘to Transportation for Perjury’.
Another of the queries asks what the consequences would be if ‘any of the Burgesses of Newcastle’ were ‘unwarily prevailed upon to accept bread’ as a reward in return for a vote.
The Act of Parliament was intended to reform corrupt practices in the electoral system during this period by punishing voters who exploited their right to vote in return for rewards. It is significant that the broadsheet also states that ‘the giver of the Reward’ would be punished and that those who identified offenders would be rewarded for doing so.