Gloucester Election Petition silver snuff box, rectangular inscribed "Gloucester Election Pe

Gloucester Election Petition silver snuff box, rectangular inscribed "Gloucester Election Petition 1873 "Dismissed with costs" London 1873 (together with a collection of newspaper cuttings from the period) The Gloucester Election Petition of 1873 The City of Gloucester was renowned for bribery and corruption in nineteenth century elections. Unsuccessful candidates for the two seat borough routinely petitioned against the winners on grounds of `illegal practices`. In the 1873 bye-election, William Killigrew Wait, a Bristol corn merchant with interests in Gloucester, stood for the Conservatives and defeated the local Liberal leader: another corn merchant - Thomas Robinson. The failure of the petition commemorated on this snuff box, came about because, unsurprisingly, neither those who paid bribes, nor those who received them, were prepared to admit it ! However, corruption in Gloucester elections was so blatant and rife that a Royal Commission concluded in 1880 that the city was the most corrupt of seven constituencies it investigated and it proposed that parliamentary representation should be removed altogether. Eventually, in 1885, Gloucester was reduced to one MP. Allegations of significant corruption in Gloucester elections persisted, however, and were still being made at the 1910 General Election.