What is it about?
Voting in eighteenth century Scotland was notoriously corrupt, with fictitious landowning arranged to rig elections. A court case in 1795 pressed by a determined failed candidate reveals some of the details. The case failed but the process provides evidence of how corruption worked in practice.
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Why is it important?
The case supplies details to complement existing accounts of electoral corruption, as well as demonstrating how 'new money' gained from imperial service (in this case in India) could challenge the dominance of established landowners.
Perspectives
The case discussed is an important episode in the colourful career of General Patrick 'Tiger' Duff. An example of the Scottish contribution to empire building, I have explored his life and career in much more detail in my Tiger Duff: India, Madeira and Empire in Eighteenth–Century Scotland, (Aberdeen University Press, 2017).
Dr Alistair Mutch
Nottingham Trent University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A Contested Eighteenth-Century Election: Banffshire, 1795, Northern Scotland, May 2011, Edinburgh University Press,
DOI: 10.3366/nor.2011.0003.
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