ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the authors deal with a case study of probably the century’s most famous example of female electioneering, Georgiana Cavendish Duchess of Devonshire at the Westminster election of 1784. They explain the role of masculinity at election time, since the ideals and models of behaviour that were expected of men in the electoral drama were highly gendered. Gender should be central to the authors understanding of electoral citizenship in the long eighteenth century, and they show that the electoral tradition established in this period endured into later ones. Britain has an unusual electoral system, known as ‘first past the post’. What the 1784 Westminster election does tell is that gender needs to be central to our understanding of the British electoral process. Participating in the official capacity of a candidate or a voter was limited to men, and the roles that these men were expected to play were articulated in terms of masculinity.