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Chapter 8 - DEFERENCE AND THE DISSENTING VOTE IN NEWCASTLE, LIVERPOOL, HULL, AND COLCHESTER

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2009

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Summary

The Dissenters at Bristol and Norwich contributed directly to party politics through increasing levels of partisanship and forging rational links between local structures and national issues. As a body, their political independence and the predictability of their behavior in these boroughs were matched only by one other group in the electorate: the Anglican clergy. At Great Yarmouth and Northampton, where party structures were less well developed, the Dissenting elite, whether lay or clerical, worked together with the Dissenting laity to shape what elements of partisanship were present. But further comparative study of other constituencies is needed to assess adequately the role of Nonconformity in atmospheres less conducive to political independence. Many questions remain concerning the alliance between Dissenters and anti-administration Anglicans, the precise role of the ministry in marshalling the Dissenting vote, and the deleterious influence of patronage and corruption. This chapter will examine the Dissenters in four additional boroughs where the American Revolution contributed to political polarization. Newcastle upon Tyne and Liverpool were both large open boroughs, free from corruption for the most part, shaken by the agitation over Wilkes, and susceptible to the rising tide of urban radicalism. Kingston upon Hull and Colchester were somewhat smaller and more easily influenced by patronage and corruption; political issues were characteristically less prominent in parliamentary elections, Wilkite radicalism scarcely touched them and little election literature has survived. The Dissenters at Hull and Colchester, therefore, might reasonably be expected to have found it far more difficult to transcend the entrenched political structures of these two boroughs.

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Religion, Revolution and English Radicalism
Non-conformity in Eighteenth-Century Politics and Society
, pp. 255 - 312
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1990

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