This ballot box was used in a ministerial by-election in Pontefract in 1872.
It is fraught with interest if you are a nerd like me. First, the election was triggered when the incumbent Liberal MP resigned his seat. He had to do so because he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Paymaster General in Gladstone’s government. In those days, prior to 1911, Members of Parliament were not paid. (This was a Good Thing because only Rich Men could afford to stand and they held Sound Opinions.) However, if an MP was appointed to a paid position in the government he was required to resign his seat and stand again, usually in the same constituency. This rigmarole started in the reign of Queen Anne and continued until 1929. There was an excellent reason for these ministerial by-elections but I don’t understand enough to explain it, so let’s move on.
This is the MP in question representing Pontefract in 1872: Hugh Childers. Yes, his cousin wrote The Riddle of the Sands. To digress, when I served in The Honourable Artillery Company in the 1970s, regimental history was sadly neglected. I was told the HAC is the oldest existing unit in the army, dating from the Armada, but I did not know Erskine Childers joined in 1898 and served in the Boer War. Perversely, after serving for five years I am not allowed to wear an HAC tie. Conversely, after barely six months in the Irish Guards I may wear a Brigade (sic) tie.
But Hugh Childers is our subject. He won the by-election getting 658 votes. His only opponent, John Horace Savile, 5th Earl of Mexborough (Conservative) got 578 votes. The turnout was 64 %, not unlike elections today. After the 1832 Reform Act the franchise had been greatly extended, rotten boroughs almost abolished and gifts of Fine Apparel to the First Lord of the Treasury and his Lady Wife forbidden. Nevertheless the population of Pontefract in 1872 very comfortably exceeded 10,000 of whom about 2,000 were on the electoral roll. This was sensible as Rich Men have the best judgement in voting for other Rich Men. This was the first parliamentary election to have secret voting – a ballot box. The idea caught on.
After lunch yesterday I noticed a wooden box in my club’s library. It looks like the one above but has no trace of sealing wax and sports a brass plaque asserting it is the first ballot box used in a parliamentary election: Pontefract 1872. More than one ballot box must have been used but the irony of it turning up in a club in St James’s founded in the 18th century where secret ballots to elect members had been going on for ages is inescapable.