How Conservative voters dominated civil society in nineteenth century Edinburgh

What is it about?

Despite Scotland's towns returning predominantly Liberal candidates in the decades following franchise reform in 1832, this article shows that Conservative voters dominated the clubs, societies and associations of civil society. Based on a unique database comprising all those who voted at the 1852 general election, and those voters who were then identified as subscribers in civil society, this study shows that despite electoral failure, Conservatives wielded significant social capital in the stateless nation.

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Photo by Gabriele Stravinskaite on Unsplash

Photo by Gabriele Stravinskaite on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This is the first study to demonstrate the hold of Conservative voters over Scottish civil society during the nineteenth century. Its innovative examination of the only surviving electoral poll book for the nation's capital city links male voters to voluntary associations and to the subscriptions of their wives and daughters. The unique evidence that is generated shows civil society to be a 'voting context' that amplified electoral choice. In the capital of a mid-century stateless nation, an example where civil society exercised the greatest independence of action within the UK, the results offer insight into the extent that associational activity projected Conservative political hegemony and questions the liberalising trajectory of civil society.

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