This post is published to coincide with the release of my video presentation for All About That Place 2024: The Rotten and Pocket Boroughs of the Isle of Wight.

The 15-minute video starts with an overview of some useful information and terminology about voting arrangements for counties and boroughs throughout the United Kingdom before the Reform Act of 1832. This could be of relevance to your research interests if you have ancestry or a special place of interest anywhere in the UK. The information presented below the video will help you to find out if your place was a borough or a parliamentary borough; and if the latter, what the voting arrangements were. It will also help you to work out if your place was a rotten or pocket borough, and why. Some of the linked articles are quick and easy to navigate and will provide the information you need. Others are longer, in-depth reads. I hope you’ll find it all useful and interesting.

If you’d like to know more about the three places on the Isle of Wight mentioned in the video, there are links to more information about them too.

Information about the ‘Unreformed House of Commons’ (before 1832)

Check if your place of interest was a borough:
Wikipedia: Ancient Boroughs
Here you’ll find information about the history of boroughs right back to Anglo-Saxon times. Towards the end there is a list of English boroughs during the period 1307-1660 and an incomplete list of Welsh boroughs (with a request for additional information). You’ll notice some surprising ommissions. e.g. Manchester was granted borough status in 1301 but lost it in a court case in 1359.
Wikipedia: List of burghs in Scotland
In this list the ‘earlier burghal history’ of each modern day burgh ‘from the coming into force of the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1892’ is included. This is not, therefore, a complete list of all ancient Scottish burghs.

For a more scholarly and in-depth look at medieval borough charters, see:
John West: Town Records, 1983. London, Phillimore. Chapter 4: Medieval Borough Charters c.1042-1500.
Here we learn, for example, that Birmingham, omitted from the Wikipedia article, was granted the right to hold a weekly market in 1166 but this is known only by virtue of alternative records: no charter has survived.

Check if your place was a parliamentary borough:
Wikipedia: List of counties and boroughs of the unreformed House of Commons in 1800
Constituencies are listed for each of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland by counties and boroughs, then special arrangements for certain Universities.

Check the voting qualification for your parliamentary borough (constituency):
The voting qualification is given in the List of counties and boroughs indicated above, but See also:
Wikipedia: Unreformed House of Commons
Scroll halfway down the page for a description of the different types of borough franchise.
Rural Historia: What is a Medieval Burgage Plot?

***Remember! Depending on the voting qualification type of your borough, there could be name-rich documents showing the names of the voters and how they voted.***

Check if your place was a ‘Rotten borough’ or ‘Pocket borough’:
See:
ECPPEC: Rotten Boroughs
This article includes a map showing all the Rotten Boroughs. They are all in England.
Wikipedia: Rotten and Pocket Boroughs
There’s an interesting list of references to Rotten Boroughs in literature and popular culture at the end of this page.
Wikipedia: List of constituencies enfranchised and disfranchised by the Reform Act 1832
The 1832 Reform Act did not resolve all ills in the political landscape, but it was a start. Some were disenfranchised entirely in 1832; for others, changes were made to their entitlement to political representation.
History of Parliament Online: The Constituencies [1754-1790]
A long read. Scroll down about one fifth of the page to reach the long section on The Boroughs. Dealing with each type of borough in turn (Freeholder, Corporation, etc) it shows how bribery, corruption and ‘patronage’ were at large in almost all of the boroughs at some level or another, not just in Rotten and Pocket boroughs. Examples of specific boroughs are given throughout so you may well find info about your place of interest here.

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Information about Newport, Newtown and Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight

Newport
Wikipedia: Newport, I.O.W. History of Parliamentary Constituency
Wikipedia: Newport, Isle of Wight
Visit Isle of Wight: Newport

Newtown
Wikipedia: Newtown, I.O.W. History of Parliamentary Constituency
Wikipedia: Newtown, Isle of Wight
I.O.W. History Centre: Medieval Newtown and the benefits of failure
This includes a useful modern-day map with medieval overlay showing the location (and preservation) of the original burgage plots.
National Trust: History of Newtown National Nature Reserve and Old Town Hall

Yarmouth
Wikipedia: Yarmouth, I.O.W. History of Parliamentary Constituency
Wikipedia: Yarmouth Town Hall, I.O.W.
Visit Isle of Wight: Yarmouth
C.W.R. Winter: The Ancient Town of Yarmouth, 1981, Isle of Wight Country Press, Newport. Viewed at: Isle of Wight Record Office.
A.G. Cole: Yarmouth Isle of Wight, 3rd edition, 1951,Isle of Wight Country Press, Newport. Viewed at: Isle of Wight Record Office.

There is a detailed discussion of the three Isle of Wight boroughs in:
Jack Donald Lavers: The Parliamentary History of the Isle of Wight 1779-1886, March 1991: M Phil thesis. Viewed at: Isle of Wight Record Office

Hallie Ribenhold: The Scandalous Lady W: an eighteenth century tale of sex, scandal and divorce. 2008, Vintage, London
Relates the story of Lady Seymour Worsley and her abusive husband, Sir Richard Worsley, baronet, of Appuldurcombe House, wroxall, I.O.W. He was MP for Newport 1774-1784, then for Newtown 1790-93 and 1796-1801. A fascinating read, which encompasses the position of women before the Married Women’s Property Acts and the availability of divorce, as well as rotten and pocket boroughs in operation. With the backing of other landed families, the Worsley family regularly represented all three of the Island’s boroughs.