Introduction

Eighteenth-century England is the classic case of state “corruption.” Even today, some of the words we use to describe this ancien regime, such as “unreformed” or “premodern,” tend to confirm the stereotype of rampant corruption. Is this reputation deserved? Moreover, what happened to the system – was it a system? – of patronage during the nineteenth-century transition to mass politics? England was one of the first countries to effect the transition from “corruption” to “meritocracy.” How did this happen? Although between about 1780 and 1860 a fundamental shift in values respecting certain aspects of state patronage occurred and a limited reform of patronage was implemented, the fundamental principle of patronage was not called into question. Why was this the case? This raises the interesting question of the role subsequently played by patronage when a national bureaucracy was established, after about 1830, and successive reform acts established increasingly democratic political structures. To what extent did patronage still play a role in Victorian politics in the second half of the nineteenth century?

That, then, is the agenda of this chapter. The term “patronage” is employed to describe the pattern of allocation of office, influence, and power which obtained in England during the decades preceding the emergence of meritocratic processes for appointments to office. Patronage, in this sense, may be taken to be a premodern spoils system of a limited character, typical of a number, probably a majority, of European and non- European countries characterized by limited popular participation in politics.