The 1802 United Kingdom general election was the election to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

of the second

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

. It was the first to be held after the

Union of Great Britain and Ireland The Acts of Union 1800 (sometimes incorrectly referred to as a single 'Act of Union 1801') were parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ire ...

. The first Parliament had been composed of members of the former Parliaments of the

Kingdom of Great Britain The Kingdom of Great Britain (officially Great Britain) was a Sovereign state, sovereign country in Western Europe from 1 May 1707 to the end of 31 December 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of ...

and the Kingdom of Ireland. The Parliament of Great Britain held its last general election in 1796. The final election for the

Parliament of Ireland The Parliament of Ireland ( ga, Parlaimint na hÉireann) was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until 1800. It was modelled on the Parliament of England and from 1537 comprised two cham ...

was held in

1797 Events January–March * January 3 – The Treaty of Tripoli, a peace treaty between the United States and Ottoman Tripolitania, is signed at Algiers (''see also'' 1796). * January 7 – The parliament of the Cisalpine ...

. The first united Parliament was dissolved on 29 June 1802. The new Parliament was summoned to meet on 31 August 1802, 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.)

Political situation

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

Prime Minister Henry Addington led a war-time administration of pro-government Whigs and Tories, collectively referred to as the "Addingtonians", in office during part of the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

. The previous Prime Minister,

William Pitt the Younger William Pitt the Younger (28 May 175923 January 1806) was a British statesman, the youngest and last prime minister of Great Britain (before the Acts of Union 1800) and then first prime minister of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ire ...

, had been out of office since 1801.

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

had forced Pitt to resign by refusing to agree to

Catholic emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

(allowing Catholics to sit in Parliament) following the Union. His faction in Parliament was generally supportive of the

Addington ministry Henry Addington, a member of the Tories, was appointed by King George III to lead the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1804 and served as an interlude between Pitt. Ministries. Addington's ministry is m ...

, but was semi-detached from it. On 25 March 1802 the

Treaty of Amiens The Treaty of Amiens (french: la paix d'Amiens, ) temporarily ended hostilities between France and the United Kingdom at the end of the War of the Second Coalition. It marked the end of the French Revolutionary Wars; after a short peace it s ...

brought about peace with France, with which Great Britain had been at war since 1792. The international situation remained uneasy and a renewal of war was still possible. In the election the combination of the followers of Addington and Pitt comfortably defeated the Opposition Whigs of

Charles James Fox Charles James Fox (24 January 1749 – 13 September 1806), styled ''The Honourable'' from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was the arch-riv ...

Dates of election

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 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 ...

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 election took place over a period of almost two months. The time between the first and last contested elections was 5 July to 28 August 1802.

Summary of the constituencies

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

Notes

References

* ''British Electoral Facts 1832–1999'', compiled and edited by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher (Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2000). ''Source: Dates of Elections – Footnote to Table 5.02'' * ''British Historical Facts 1760–1830'', by Chris Cook and John Stevenson (The Macmillan Press 1980). ''Source: Types of constituencies – Great Britain'' * ''His Majesty's Opposition 1714–1830'', by Archibald S. Foord (Oxford University Press 1964) * ''Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland 1801–1922'', edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978). ''Source: Types of constituencies – Ireland'' {{British elections 1802 elections in the United Kingdom General election

1802 Events January–March * January 5 – Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, begins removal of the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens, claiming they were at risk of destruction during the O ...

July 1802 events August 1802 events 1800s elections in Ireland

Political situation

Dates of election

Summary of the constituencies

See also

Notes

References