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1754 British General Election (Oxfordshire)
The Oxfordshire Election of 1754, part of the British general election of that year and involving the selection of two Members of Parliament (MPs) to represent the Oxfordshire constituency, was probably the most notorious English county election of the 18th century. It was depicted in Hogarth's famous series of paintings and engravings, '' The Humours of an Election''. Background Oxfordshire was a county constituency electing two MPs. The right to vote was held by all the Forty Shilling Freeholders of the county, amounting to about 4,000 in 1754, but because of the expense of a contested election the competing interests tried to reach a compromise without resorting to a poll if at all possible, and in 1754 Oxfordshire had not seen a contested election for 44 years. The expenses entailed not only the cost of campaigning across the county, but the need for the candidates to meet the expenses of their voters in travelling to Oxford (where the poll was held in the grounds of Exeter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Member Of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members often have a different title. The terms congressman/congresswoman or deputy are equivalent terms used in other jurisdictions. The term parliamentarian is also sometimes used for members of parliament, but this may also be used to refer to unelected government officials with specific roles in a parliament and other expert advisers on parliamentary procedure such as the Senate Parliamentarian in the United States. The term is also used to the characteristic of performing the duties of a member of a legislature, for example: "The two party leaders often disagreed on issues, but both were excellent parliamentarians and cooperated to get many good things done." Members of parliament typically form parliamentary groups, sometimes called caucuse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willoughby Bertie, 3rd Earl Of Abingdon
Willoughby Bertie, 3rd Earl of Abingdon (28 November 1692 – 10 June 1760), of Wytham Abbey, Berkshire and Rycote, Oxfordshire, was an English landowner and Tory politician who sat briefly in the House of Commons in 1715. Early life Bertie was the son of James Bertie of Stanwell in Middlesex and Elizabeth Willoughby, and nephew of Montagu Venables-Bertie, 2nd Earl of Abingdon. He matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on 27 November 1707. Career The Berties were Tories, with a strong electoral interest in Westbury, where the Earls of Abingdon were lords of the manor. At the 1715 general election in January, Bertie stood for one of the two seats; the mayor of Westbury as returning officer returned two Tories, Bertie and Francis Annesley, while the constable returned two Whigs, George Evans and Charles Allanson. The Whigs had been sponsored by Lord Cowper to challenge the Bertie interest. The return for Bertie and Annesley was initially accepted on 28 March 1715 a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Returning Officer
In various parliamentary systems, a returning officer is responsible for overseeing elections in one or more constituencies. Australia In Australia a returning officer is an employee of the Australian Electoral Commission or a state electoral commission who heads the local divisional office full-time, and oversees elections in their division, or an employee of a private firm which carries out elections and/or ballots in the private and/or public sectors, or anyone who carries out any election and/or ballot for any group or groups. Canada In Canada, at the federal level, the returning officer of an electoral district is appointed for a ten-year term by the Chief Electoral Officer. The returning officer is responsible for handling the electoral process in the riding, and updating the National Register of Electors with current information about voters in the electoral district to which they are appointed. Before enactment of the Canada Elections Act in 2000, in the case of a tie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1754 British General Election
The 1754 British general election returned members to serve in the House of Commons of the 11th Parliament of Great Britain to be summoned, after the merger of the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland in 1707. Owing to the extensive corruption and the Duke of Newcastle's personal influence in the pocket boroughs, the government was returned to office with a working majority. The old parties had disappeared almost completely by this stage; anyone with reasonable hopes of achieving office called himself a 'Whig', although the term had lost most of its original meaning. While 'Tory' and 'Whig' were still used to refer to particular political leanings and tendencies, parties in the old sense were no longer relevant except in a small minority of constituencies, such as Oxfordshire, with most elections being fought on local issues and the holders of political power being determined by the shifting allegiance of factions and aristocratic families rather than the strengt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Commons Of Great Britain
The House of Commons of Great Britain was the lower house of the Parliament of Great Britain between 1707 and 1801. In 1707, as a result of the Acts of Union of that year, it replaced the House of Commons of England and the third estate of the Parliament of Scotland, as one of the most significant changes brought about by the Union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain. In the course of the 18th century, the office of Prime Minister developed. The notion that a government remains in power only as long as it retains the support of Parliament also evolved, leading to the first ever motion of no confidence, when Lord North's government failed to end the American Revolution. The modern notion that only the support of the House of Commons is necessary for a government to survive, however, was of later development. Similarly, the custom that the Prime Minister is always a Member of the Lower House, rather than the Upper one, did not evolve until ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Parker, 2nd Earl Of Macclesfield
George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, PRS (c. 1695 or 1697 – 17 March 1764) was an English peer and astronomer. Styled Viscount Parker from 1721 to 1732, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Wallingford from 1722 to 1727, but his interests were not in politics. In 1722, he became a fellow of the Royal Society, and he spent most of his time in astronomical observations at his Oxfordshire seat, Shirburn Castle, which had been bought by his father in 1716; here he built an observatory and a chemical laboratory. He was very prominent in making the case in Parliament for the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, with which the Kingdom of Great Britain and the British Empire changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. When his son ran for parliament as a Whig in 1754, his role in the calendar reform was one of many issues raised by the son's Tory opponents; one of Hogarth's satirical series of paintings about these elections (1755) is the only sour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calendar (New Style) Act 1750
The Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 (24 Geo. II c.23), also known as Chesterfield's Act or (in American usage) the British Calendar Act of 1751, is an Act of Parliament, Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. Its purpose was for Great Britain and the British Empire#"First" British Empire (1707–1783), British Empire to adopt the Gregorian calendar (in effect). The Act also rectified other dating anomalies, such as changing the start of the legal year from 25March to 1January. The Act wikt:elide, elided eleven days from September 1752. It ordered that religious feast days be held on their traditional dates—for example, Christmas Day remained on 25 December. (Easter is a moveable feast: the Act specifies how its date should be calculated.) It ordered that civil and market days be moved forward in the calendar by eleven days—for example the quarter days on which rent was due, salaries paid and new labour contracts agreed—so that no-one should gain or lose ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memoirs Of My Life And Writings
''Memoirs of My Life and Writings'' (1796) is an account of the historian Edward Gibbon's life, compiled after his death by his friend Lord Sheffield from six fragmentary autobiographical works Gibbon wrote during his last years. Lord Sheffield's editing has been praised for its ingenuity and taste, but blamed for its unscholarly aggressiveness. Since 1896 several other editions of the work have appeared, more in accordance with modern standards. Gibbon's ''Memoirs'' are considered one of the first autobiographies in the modern sense of the word, and have a secure place in the canon of English literature. Synopsis Gibbon begins with an account of his ancestors before moving on to his birth and education, which was partly private and partly at Westminster School. He matriculated as a student at Oxford University, an institution which he found at a low ebb. To the university of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am wil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its polemical criticism of organised religion. Early life: 1737–1752 Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon at Lime Grove, in the town of Putney, Surrey. He had six siblings, five brothers and one sister, all of whom died in infancy. His grandfather, also named Edward, had lost his assets as a result of the South Sea bubble stock-market collapse in 1720 but eventually regained much of his wealth. Gibbon's father was thus able to inherit a substantial estate. One of his grandmothers, Catherine Acton, descended from Sir Walter Acton, 2nd Baronet. As a youth, Gibbon's health was under constant threat. He described himself as "a puny ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Museum Of London
The Museum of London is a museum in London, covering the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times. It was formed in 1976 by amalgamating collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall, London, Guildhall Museum (founded in 1826) and of the London Museum (1912–1976), London Museum (founded in 1912). From 1976 to 4 December 2022 its main site was located in the City of London on the London Wall, close to the Barbican Centre, as part of the Barbican complex of buildings created in the 1960s and 1970s to redevelop a bomb-damaged area of the city. The museum has the largest urban history collection in the world, with more than six million objects. That site was a few minutes' walk north of St Paul's Cathedral, overlooking the remains of the Roman city wall and on the edge of the oldest part of London, now its main financial district. It is primarily concerned with the social history of London and its inhabitants throughout time. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford in 1677. It is also the world's second university museum, after the establishment of the Kunstmuseum Basel in 1661 by the University of Basel. The present building was built between 1841 and 1845. The museum reopened in 2009 after a major redevelopment, and in November 2011, new galleries focusing on Egypt and Nubia were unveiled. In May 2016, the museum also opened redisplayed galleries of 19th-century art. History Broad Street The museum opened on 24 May 1683, with naturalist Robert Plot as the first keeper. The building on Broad Street (later known as the Old Ashmolean) is sometimes attributed to Sir Christopher Wren or Thomas Wood. Elias Ashmole had acquired the collection from the gardeners, travellers, and collectors Joh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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