the 1883 Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act – The History of Parliament

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.

On 25 August 1883, the final day of the parliamentary session, the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act received royal assent. This landmark legislation, designed to tackle the corruption and expense which were still such a prominent feature of 19th century parliamentary contests, transformed the conditions under which elections were held. For the first time, it placed limits on how much candidates could spend on their election campaign, with the amount fixed according to the type and size of constituency. It increased the penalties for the corrupt practices of bribery, treating (the provision of food and drink), undue influence (the use of intimidation or coercion) and personation (impersonating another voter). It also created the new category of illegal practices, which included illegal employment and illegal payment. Payments for the conveyance of voters to the poll, on which candidates had spent £273,000 at the 1880 general election (the equivalent of over £18,000,000 today), were prohibited, and the number of paid election workers and committee rooms was strictly limited.

It was the events of 1880 which made tackling electoral corruption a priority. Gladstone’s famous ‘Midlothian campaign’ during this election used platform speeches and the press to appeal to voters on the basis of reason and opinion. However, the election petitions which flooded in from numerous constituencies after the contest revealed that many voters were still under the influence of bribery and beer. Disappointing hopes that electoral morality was improving, the 1880 election was followed by the third highest number of successful election petitions since 1832, with 18 MPs unseated on grounds of corruption. Before the year was out, four more MPs had been unseated after petitions following by-elections, and eight royal commissions – the highest ever number – were appointed to inquire further into the worst allegations of corruption. Contemporary concerns were heightened by the strong suspicion that the number of successful petitions represented only the tip of the iceberg, with The Times suggesting that for every constituency exposed as corrupt, another existed.

The royal commission reports confirmed the extent of the problem, listing 9,000 individuals who were guilty of corrupt practices in the eight constituencies they investigated. This electoral immorality could not simply be attributed to the venality of poorer voters, since, as one observer remarked, ‘we find magistrates, mayors, aldermen, and councillors, professional men, merchants, and manufacturers groveling together in this mire of corruption’. While Gladstone had blamed Liberal defeat at the 1874 election on a Conservative ‘torrent of beer and gin’, the inquiries which followed the 1880 election showed that both parties were complicit in corruption, with 14 Liberals – including a Cabinet minister – and 8 Conservatives unseated . Among the worst constituencies was Gloucester, where well over a third of the electors were found to be guilty of corrupt practices, and one local councilor had personally distributed £1,382 in bribes. Existing corrupt practices legislation, passed in 1854, was clearly insufficient, and while the 1872 Ballot Act had helped to curb intimidation, its effects on bribery were less certain.

Introducing the Liberal government’s corrupt practices bill on 7 January 1881, the attorney general, Sir Henry James, declared that ‘we have sat long enough on the bank; but the stream of corruption flows on, and it seems useless to hope that it will cease to flow unless something is done to stop it.’ Although the measure also had the support of the Conservative front bench, and of MPs generally, pressure on parliamentary time – caused in part by the obstructionist tactics of Irish MPs – meant that it failed to progress. When the bill was reintroduced in 1882, The Times remarked that ‘the constitutions take but a languid interest … the scandalous disclosures of Election Commissions are soon forgotten’. MPs, however, continued to take a keen interest in reform, another factor which prolonged the debates, as the conduct of elections was a subject on which every member of the Commons could speak from experience. The bill was discussed for 23 nights at the committee stage when it was brought in for the third time in 1883, and it finally passed that session after being given priority over other government measures.

MPs’ careful attention to the bill’s details stemmed in part from their awareness of how much the measure would affect them personally, particularly in terms of its stringent regulations and the strict penalties for breaking the law. While there was clearly an element of self-interest in this, there were genuine concerns that if the law was too draconian, it would create public sympathy for those convicted. James did make some concessions in this respect, such as reducing the punishment for treatment from his proposed two years’ imprisonment with hard labor (or a £500 fine) to one year with hard labor (or a £200 fine). MPs also feared that some of the restrictions on election expenditure might impede participation in elections, notably the ban on payments for the conveyance of voters to the poll, which it was felt could have an adverse impact on elderly and infirm voters, those in remote areas of Scotland and working-class voters, who might find it more difficult to poll quickly during their dinner hour.

There was, however, much for MPs to welcome when it came to the introduction of election spending limits. Although a small number of candidates had taken a stand against excessive expenditure in 1880 (and before), it was difficult for MPs to resist pressure from their supporters and constituents to open their pockets at elections. Candidates’ total declared expenditure at the 1880 election was £1,737,300 – approximately £750,000 higher than in 1874 – and the true amount spent was reckoned to be somewhere between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000. The Times was not alone in arguing that ‘no election which sweeps away a fortune in legitimate expenses can be said to be free and independent’. Much of this expenditure – such as the £2,000 spent on flags and banners at Sandwich – was unnecessary, and was done simply to put ‘the candidate’s money into circulation among the voters’. A particular problem in 1880 was the employment of ‘crowds of clerks who wrote nothing, and of messengers who never carried messages except from one public-house to another’, who were effectively being bribed under the pretence of doing election work.

James considered this lavish expenditure to be ‘so close to corruption that it was almost the very father of corruption’. Curbing it was fundamental to the 1883 Act, offering MPs the opportunity to renounce the corruption and expense in which many of them, whether willingly or unwillingly, had previously been complicit. The anticipated extension of the franchise before the next general election, which would increase election costs as the electorate grew, made it all the most important to address this issue.

By the time of the next general election, in 1885, the conditions of electioneering had been completely transformed by three major reforms: the 1883 Corrupt Practices Act; the extension of the franchise in the counties in 1884; and the redistribution of seats into mostly single-member constituencies in 1885. The 1883 Act certainly succeeded in curtailing candidates’ election spending: total expenditure at the 1885 election was £1,026,646, over £700,000 less than in 1880. The average cost per vote polled fell by three-quarters, from 18s. 9d. in 1880 to 4s. 5d. in 1885. Only three election petitions succeeded on grounds of corrupt or illegal practices in 1885, unseating four MPs. However, just as in 1880, election petitions alone did not necessarily reveal the full extent of electoral malpractice. The question of how far the 1883 Act achieved its aim of tackling corruption will be the subject of another blog.

KR

Further reading:

C. O’Leary, The elimination of corrupt practices in British elections, 1868-1911 (1962)

Kathryn Rix, ‘“The elimination of corrupt practices in British elections”? Reassessing the impact of the 1883 Corrupt Practices Act’, English Historical Reviewcxxxiii (2008), 65-97