Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 20, 2025
It has been said that Freehold Land Societies, which were established for political objects, had the effect of weaning men from political reform. They were first started in Birmingham, for the purpose of enabling men to buy land, and divide it into forty-shilling freeholds, so that the owners might become electors and vote against the corn-laws.
In both England and Ireland at that time a forty-shilling freehold gave a vote. That was a matter of slight importance in England, as the number of small freeholders was limited, land being usually let for a term of years.
By the influence of O'Connell and the Catholic Association, the forty-shilling freeholders broke away from landlord influence in the great General Election of 1826, and supported the candidates who promised to vote for Catholic Emancipation, in spite of every threat.
Forty-shilling freeholders were of some importance in those days; hence these theatrical performances at Knebworth Park, for Sir Edward wanted their suffrages without bribery or corruption. Those who were the happy possessors of what they called the "frankise" were also distinguished enough, to be invited to the great performances at the candidate's beautiful estate.
Immediately the landlords began to utter bitter complaints of surplus population; they began to ventilate their grievances through the English and Irish press, saying that their land was overrun by cottiers and squatters the main cause of all this being kept in the background, namely, the immense and continuous increase of forty-shilling freeholders, by themselves, and for their own purposes.
Then, again, an Act of Parliament was passed disfranchising the class of voters in Ireland who were called the Forty-shilling Freeholders, who formed a large proportion of O'Connell's constituents.
Mr. Pim writes: "A numerous tenantry having the right to vote, and practically obliged to exercise that right at the dictation of their landlord, was highly prized.... When the Emancipation Act was passed in 1829, the forty-shilling freeholders were disfranchised, and, being no longer of use to their landlords, every means has since been employed to get rid of them."
It was a forty-shilling affair or the option of a week, and in revenge, Dick invited last night's party to dinner at a restaurant. They weren't going to put their money into the pocket of that cad of an inn-keeper. Hayes was the hero of the hour, and he made everybody roar with laughter at the way in which he related his experiences.
The forty-shilling gold piece coined by James V. of Scotland. Sword-blades of peculiar excellence bearing the name of this maker have been known in Scotland since the reign of James IV. Altered from Wordsworth.
If the elective franchise is property, if to disfranchise voters without a crime proved, or a compensation given, be robbery, was there ever such an act of robbery as the disfranchising of the Irish forty-shilling freeholders? Was any pecuniary compensation given to them? Is it declared in the preamble of the bill which took away their franchise, that they had been convicted of any offence?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking