A potwalloper (sometimes potwalloner or potwaller) or householder borough was a voter in a

parliamentary borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

in which the franchise was extended to the male head of any

household A household consists of one or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...

with a

hearth A hearth () is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a low, partial ...

large enough to boil a cauldron (or "wallop a pot").Edward Porritt, A. M. Kelley, ''The Unreformed House of Commons: Scotland and Ireland'' (1963), pp. 348, 354 Potwallopers existed in the

unreformed House of Commons The "unreformed House of Commons" is a name given to the House of Commons of Great Britain (after 1800 the House of Commons of the United Kingdom) before it was reformed by the Reform Act 1832, the Irish Reform Act 1832, and the Scottish Reform ...

prior to the

Reform Act 1832 The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the Reform Act 1832, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. 4. c. 45), enacted by the Whig government of Pri ...

, and in its predecessors the

Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until the end of 1800. The upper house was the Irish House of Lords, House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, ...

and

House of Commons of Great Britain The House of Commons of Great Britain was the lower house of the Parliament of Great Britain between 1707 and 1801. In 1707, as a result of the Acts of Union 1707, Acts of Union of that year, it replaced the House of Commons of England and the Pa ...

(until 1800) and the

House of Commons of England The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England (which Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542, incorporated Wales) from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was re ...

(to 1707). Compared to other types of franchise used by unreformed House of Commons constituencies, potwalloper franchises generally resulted in a larger proportion of the male population of the borough having the right to vote. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century there was a tendency to try and limit the number of eligible electors in potwalloper boroughs by either changing to another franchise or by disenfranchising poorer householders by excluding people supported by the parish through

outdoor relief Outdoor relief, an obsolete term originating with the Elizabethan Poor Law (1601), was a programme of social welfare and poor relief. Assistance was given in the form of money, food, clothing or goods to alleviate poverty without the requirem ...

from voting.

English potwalloper boroughs

From the time of the Restoration, the only English boroughs to elect on a potwalloper or inhabitant franchise were: * Abingdon (1690–1708, and only if electors were not in receipt of

alms Alms (, ) are money, food, or other material goods donated to people living in poverty. Providing alms is often considered an act of Charity (practice), charity. The act of providing alms is called almsgiving. Etymology The word ''alms'' come ...

) *

Amersham Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, south-east of Aylesbury and north-east of High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt. There ar ...

(until 1705; electors in receipt of alms were disfranchised in 1690) * Ashburton (until 1708) *

Aylesbury Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery and the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, Waterside Theatre. It is located in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wycombe and Milt ...

(only if electors were not in receipt of alms; after 1804 freeholders living near the town were enfranchised also) *

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...

(providing electors were not in receipt of alms) * Callington (required one year's continuous residence. The franchise in this borough was in dispute but both definitions amounted to the same people in practice) *

Cirencester Cirencester ( , ; see #Pronunciation, below for more variations) is a market town and civil parish in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire, England. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames. It is the List of ...

Hertford Hertford ( ) is the county town of Hertfordshire, England, and is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of the county. The parish had a population of 26,783 at the 2011 census. The town grew around a Ford (crossing), ford on ...

(providing electors were not in receipt of alms; freemen voted as well) * Hindon (providing electors were not in receipt of alms) * Honiton (1690–1711 and from 1724, but only if electors were not in receipt of alms) * Ilchester (from 1702, but only if electors were not in receipt of alms) * Ludgershall (until 1698) * Milborne Port (until 1702) *

Minehead Minehead is a coastal town and civil parish in Somerset, England. It lies on the south bank of the Bristol Channel, north-west of the county town of Taunton, from the boundary with the county of Devon and close to the Exmoor National Park. T ...

* Mitchell (until 1715, and only if electors were not in receipt of alms) *

Northampton Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...

(from 1715) *

Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, England. It lies to the east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the ...

(from 1783) *

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

(until 1695) * Preston (from 1768) *

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

(until 1708) * St Germans (one year residency) *

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

(until 1702, and only if electors were not in receipt of alms) *

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England. It is a market town and has a Minster (church), minster church. Its population in 2011 was 64,621. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century priory, monastic foundation, owned by the ...

* Tregony * Wendover (providing electors were not in receipt of alms)

Irish potwalloper boroughs

There were eleven such boroughs in Ireland until the Union with

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

in 1801. Ireland also had seven "manor boroughs", in which only freeholders voted. The potwallopers included

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

Lisburn Lisburn ( ; ) is a city in Northern Ireland. It is southwest of Belfast city centre, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with t ...

, Antrim,

Swords A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed ti ...

and

Downpatrick Downpatrick () is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is on the Lecale peninsula, about south of Belfast. In the Middle Ages, it was the capital of the Dál Fiatach, the main ruling dynasty of Ulaid. Down Cathedral, Its cathedral is sai ...

, and before

Emancipation Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure Economic, social and cultural rights, economic and social rights, civil and political rights, po ...

only non-Roman Catholics could vote.Hugh Shearman, ''Modern Ireland'' (1952), p. 30

Quotations

When

Thomas Babington Macaulay Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, (; 25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was an English historian, poet, and Whig politician, who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster General between 184 ...

complained about the insufficiencies of the suffrage system in the early 19th century, he wrote:

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

, in his first novel, '' Desperate Remedies'', used the term

Notes

{{EB1911 Poster, Potwalloper Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (historic)