(in the UK) a borough in which the election of political representatives was controlled by one person or family. Such boroughs were abolished by the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867.
True, the Tories lost ground significantly at the 1715 general election, but in pocket boroughs rather than in counties and popular urban constituencies.
He was elected in 1807 for a pocket borough in the Isle of Wight and subsequently represented Cambridge University 1811-31, Bletchingley 1831-2, Hampshire South 1832-4, and Tiverton 1835-65.
It was this dominance of the town which led them to come to regard Grimsby as its own pocket borough.
The territorial nobility were impregnable in their many surviving ‘pocket boroughs '.
A third of MPs were elected to ‘pocket boroughs’, nominated by a handful of rich landed aristocrats.
Definition of pocket borough in US English:
pocket borough
noun
(in the UK) a borough in which the election of political representatives was controlled by one person or family. Such boroughs were abolished by the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867.
The territorial nobility were impregnable in their many surviving ‘pocket boroughs '.
It was this dominance of the town which led them to come to regard Grimsby as its own pocket borough.
A third of MPs were elected to ‘pocket boroughs’, nominated by a handful of rich landed aristocrats.
He was elected in 1807 for a pocket borough in the Isle of Wight and subsequently represented Cambridge University 1811-31, Bletchingley 1831-2, Hampshire South 1832-4, and Tiverton 1835-65.
True, the Tories lost ground significantly at the 1715 general election, but in pocket boroughs rather than in counties and popular urban constituencies.