United Kingdom general election, 1832

8 December 1832–8 January 1833

All 658 seats in the House of Commons 330 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Earl Grey	Duke of Wellington	Daniel O'Connell
Party	Whig	Tory	Irish Repeal
Leader since	22 November 1830	22 January 1828
Leader's seat	Earl Grey	Duke of Wellington	Dublin City
Seats won	441	175	42
Seat change	71	60
Popular vote	554,719	241,284	31,773
Percentage	67.0%	29.2%	3.8%

Colours denote the winning party.

PM before election

Earl Grey
Whig

Subsequent PM

Earl Grey
Whig

1830 election • MPs
1831 election • MPs
1832 election • MPs
1835 election • MPs
1837 election • MPs

The 1832 United Kingdom general election, the first after the Reform Act, saw the Whigs win a large majority, with the Tories winning less than 30% of the vote.

Parties and leaders at the general election

The Earl Grey had been Prime Minister since 22 November 1830. His headed the first predominantly Whig administration since the Ministry of all the Talents in 1806–1807.

In addition to the Whigs themselves, Grey was supported by Radical and other allied politicians. The Whigs and their allies were gradually coming to be referred to as Liberals, but no formal Liberal Party had been established at the time of this election, so all the politicians supporting the ministry are referred to as Whig in the above results.

The government Leader of the House of Commons since 1830, was Viscount Althorp (the heir of the Earl Spencer), who also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The last Tory Prime Minister, at the time of the 1832 election, was the Duke of Wellington. After leaving government office, Wellington continued to lead the Tory peers and was the overall Leader of the Opposition.

The Tory Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, was Sir Robert Peel, Bt.

John Wilson Croker had used the term conservative in 1830, but the Tories at the time of this general election had not yet become generally known as the Conservative Party. This distinction would finally take hold after the Liberal Party was officially created.

In Irish politics, Daniel O'Connell was continuing his campaign for repeal of the Act of Union. He had founded the Irish Repeal Association and it presented candidates independent of the two principal parties.

Dates of election

Following the passage of the Reform Act 1832 and related legislation to reform the electoral system and redistribute constituencies, the tenth United Kingdom Parliament was dissolved on 3 December 1832. The new Parliament was summoned to meet on 29 January 1833, for a maximum seven-year term from that date. The maximum term could be and normally was curtailed, by the monarch dissolving the Parliament, before its term expired.

At this period there was not one election day. After receiving a writ (a royal command) for the election to be held, the local returning officer fixed the election timetable for the particular constituency or constituencies he was concerned with. Polling in seats with contested elections could continue for many days.

The general election took place between December 1832 and January 1833. The first nomination was on 8 December, with the first contest on 10 December and the last contest on 8 January 1833. It was usual for polling in the University constituencies and in Orkney and Shetland to take place about a week after other seats. Disregarding contests in the Universities and Orkney and Shetland, the last poll was on 1 January 1833.

Summary of the constituencies

For the distribution of constituencies in the Unreformed House of Commons, before this general election, see the United Kingdom general election, 1831. Apart from the disenfranchisement of Grampound for corruption in 1821 and the transfer of its two seats as additional members for Yorkshire from 1826, there had been no change in the constituencies of England since the 1670s. In some cases the county and borough seats had remained unaltered since the thirteenth century. Welsh constituencies had been unchanged since the sixteenth century. Those in Scotland had remained the same since 1708 and in Ireland since 1801.

In 1832 politicians were facing an unfamiliar electoral map, as well as an electorate including those qualified under a new uniform householder franchise in the boroughs. However the reform legislation had not removed all the anomalies in the electoral system.

Table of largest and smallest electorates 1832, by country, type and number of seats

Country	Type	Seats	Largest constituency	Largest electorate	Smallest constituency	Smallest electorate
England	Borough	1	Salford	1,497	Reigate	153
		2	Westminster	11,576	Thetford	146
		4	City of London	18,584	...	...
	County	1	Isle of Wight	1,167	...	...
		2	West Riding of Yorkshire	18,056	Rutland	1,296
		3	Cambridgeshire	6,435	Oxfordshire	4,721
	University	2	Oxford University	2,496	Cambridge University	2,319
Wales	Borough	1	Flint Boroughs	1,359	Brecon	242
	County	1	Pembrokeshire	3,700	Merionethshire	580
	County	2	Carmarthenshire	3,887	Denbighshire	3,401
Scotland	Burgh	1	Aberdeen	2,024	Wigtown Burghs	316
	Burgh	2	Glasgow	6,989	Edinburgh	6,048
	County	1	Perthshire	3,180	Sutherland	84
Ireland	Borough	1	Carrickfergus	1,024	Lisburn	91
	Borough	2	Dublin	7,008	Waterford	1,241
	County	2	County Cork	3,835	County Kildare	1,112
	University	2	Dublin University	2,073	...	...

Key to categories in the following tables: BC – Borough/Burgh constituencies, CC – County constituencies, UC – University constituencies, Total C – Total constituencies, BMP – Borough/Burgh Members of Parliament, CMP – County Members of Parliament, UMP – University Members of Parliament.

Monmouthshire (1 County constituency with 2 MPs and one single member Borough constituency) is included in Wales in these tables. Sources for this period may include the county in England.

Table 1: Constituencies and MPs, by type and country

Country	BC	CC	UC	Total C	BMP	CMP	UMP	Total MPs
England	186	68	2	256	322	142	4	468
Wales	15	13	0	28	15	17	0	32
Scotland	21	30	0	51	23	30	0	53
Ireland	33	32	1	66	39	64	2	105
Total	255	143	3	401	399	253	6	658

Table 2: Number of seats per constituency, by type and country

Country	BCx1	BCx2	BCx4	CCx1	CCx2	CCx3	UCx2	Total C
England	52	133	1	1	60	7	2	256
Wales	15	0	0	9	4	0	0	28
Scotland	19	2	0	30	0	0	0	51
Ireland	27	6	0	0	32	0	1	66
Total	113	141	1	40	96	7	3	401

Results

United Kingdom general election 1832
		Candidates						Votes
Party		Standing	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	№	Net %
	Whig	636	441				67.02	67.01	554,719
	Tory	350	175				26.60	29.15	241,284
	Irish Repeal	51	42				6.38	3.84	31,773

Total votes cast: 827,776

Party	Candidates	Unopposed	Seats
Whig	636	109	441
Tory	350	66	175
Irish Repeal	51	14	42
Total	1,037	189	658

Voting summary

Popular vote

Whig			67.01%
Tory			29.15%
Irish Repeal			3.84%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats

Whig			67.02%
Tory			26.6%
Irish Repeal			6.38%

Regional results

Great Britain

Party		Seats	Votes	%
	Whig	408	525,706	71.1
	Tory	147	213,254	28.9
Total		555	738,960	100

England

Party		Seats	Votes	%
	Whig	347	474,542	70.8
	Tory	117	193,442	29.2
Total		464	667,984	100

Scotland

Party		Seats	Votes	%
	Whig	43	44,003	79.0
	Tory	10	9,752	21.0
Total		53	53,755	100

Wales

Party		Seats	Votes	%
	Whig	18	6,348	46.6
	Tory	14	7,466	53.4
Total		32	13,814	100

Ireland

Main article: United Kingdom general election, 1832 (Ireland)

Party		Seats	Votes	%
	Irish Repeal	42	31,773	34.6
	Whig	33	29,013	33.3
	Tory	28	28,030	32.1
Total		103	88,816	100

Universities

Party		Seats	Votes	%
	Tory	6	2,594	76.2
	Whig	0	813	23.8
Total		6	3,407	100

References

F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987
British Electoral Facts 1832–1999, compiled and edited by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher (Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2000)
Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland 1801–1922, edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978)
Spartacus: Political Parties and Election Results

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