A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



copyholders ; £\o leaseholders for a term originally created for not less than 

 sixty years ; £50 leaseholders for a term created for not less than twenty 

 years ; £50 occupiers. This materially widened the voting basis; but, as was 

 shown before the Bribery Committee of 1835, it diminished the monetary 

 value of the vote without touching the practice of bribery. The Ipswich 

 elections of 1826 and 1835 show little change in the moral atmosphere. In 

 1826 1 the electors were some 1,000 or 1,100 freemen, two-thirds of whom 

 were non-resident, and all were friends and relatives. The practice was for 

 candidates to pay the admission fees for freemen, who, generally speaking, 

 waited for an election to obtain their freedom without cost. The annual 

 borough contests were financed by the members. Votes were looked upon 

 as personal property with right of sale. A poor voter would be content 

 even with 20s. or 301., while a rich one would ask £50. The bribery oath 

 was regularly administered. Their votes once bought, the men were ' cooped ' 

 until they had polled to prevent their being corrupted ; that is, they were 

 housed out of the borough, fed, and treated, and then driven to the poll. The 

 Reform Bill made little difference in the actual number of voters. 2 It 

 disfranchised the non-resident freemen, but the number of £10 householders 

 practically brought the constituency up to the original 1,000. At the 

 election of 1832 there was a feeling that the old system had been condemned, 

 and it was unanimously resolved to discontinue the practice of bribery and 

 treating ; but by 1835 that 'scandal of free institutions' was in full swing 

 again, and jTio was offered for a vote after the first day's poll. The bribery 

 oath was administered and swallowed. One man there had been 

 bribed by a free loan to vote for Kelly and Dundas. 3 As he was about to 

 enter the booth an inspector tendered him the oath, but when he came to the 

 words ' promise and inducement ' he stammered and broke off. The 

 returning officer, standing by, said the voter evidently did not understand 

 the terms of the oath, and twice repeated them slowly before the con- 

 scientious objector ' gulped ' them. Tradesmen refused to vote either way 

 for fear of losing patronage, and one contractor who had promised to remain 

 neutral was forced to vote by threats of loss of work. Working men in 

 Ipswich felt bitterly the class pressure : 'Gentlemen,' they said, 'ought to get 

 us poor men the ballot or else we cannot vote as we like.' The same election 

 at Sudbury was one of the most riotous and drunken ever witnessed. Cooping 

 was in full force, and the Rose and Crown inn was besieged by the Reds to 

 capture three cooped Blues who had preferred unwisely to be lodged in the town. 

 The restriction (1835) of the time of voting to one day reduced the practice of 

 cooping. In the county the landlords still regarded their tenants' votes as 

 their own, and forced them to vote for their candidate. The Reform Bill 

 of 1832 had given Suffolk four county members, while Dunwich, Orford, and 

 Aldeburgh were disfranchised. Sudbury lost its members in 1844, and, with 

 Eye, was in 1885 merged in the five electoral districts into which the county 

 was then divided, while at the same time Bury St. Edmunds was restricted to 

 one member only. 



1 Pari. Returns, vol. viii. ' Ibid. s Ibid. 



198 



