Political Party Representation and Electoral Politics in England and Wales, 1690-1747 Dan Bogart Department of Economics, UC Irvine
[email protected] This Draft December 2014 Abstract The Whig and Tory parties played an important role in British politics in the decades following the Glorious Revolution. This paper introduces new data on the political affiliation of all MPs in England and Wales between 1690 and 1747. The data have numerous applications for research. The focus here is on majority party representation and the electoral politics of constituencies. I show that the Whigs had stronger representation in municipal boroughs with small and narrow electorates, whereas the Tories were stronger in county constituencies and in boroughs with large and more democratic electorates. The Whigs were stronger in the Southeast region and the Tories in Wales and the West Midlands. After the Whig leader, Robert Walpole, became prime minister in 1721 the Whigs lost some presence in their traditional strongholds including counties where the Dissenter population was large. Finally, I incorporate data on electoral contests and show that the majority party generally lost strength in constituencies following contests. JEL Code: N43, P16, D72 Keywords: Political Parties, Whigs, Tories, Rage of Party, Walpole, Glorious Revolution 1 I would like to thank the many research assistants who helped on this project, specifically Robert Oandasan, Dorothy Cheng, Amanda Compton, Alina Shiotsu, Tom Wheeler, and Larry Bush. I also thank Stuart Handley for comments on an earlier version of this paper. 0 Political parties are one of the most important organizations in modern democracies. This statement is especially true in Britain where political parties have traditionally played a key role in running government.