A fact from 1866 Helston by-election appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 April 2023 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that both candidates in the 1866 Helston by-election received the same number of votes?
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Most of all have fun editing - that's the reason we all do this, right?!
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Elections and Referendums, an ongoing effort to improve the quality of, expand upon and create new articles relating to elections, electoral reform and other aspects of democratic decision-making. For more information, visit our project page.Elections and ReferendumsWikipedia:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsTemplate:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsElections and Referendums articles
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the article's talk page or
Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
... that at the 1866 Helston by-election, the two candidates received the same number of votes? Source: "Close of the Poll: Campbell ... 153, Brett ... 153." ("
Helston election: The polling". The West Briton & Cornwall Advertiser. Truro, Cornwall. 4 May 1866. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.)
If you are waiting on a third party to confirm that nothing shady involving approval-trading is afoot here, I've taken a look at the article and it looks fine to me. So don't believe Onegreatjoke's review is problematic.
As a passerby question, though: is it just me or are these vote counts insanely low, even given the smaller UK population of 1866? The
rotten borough article says that such tiny constituencies were largely abolished in the 1830s... did the UK still have really restricted suffrage based on property holdings and this was normal, or is this a genuine case of a rotten borough that still existed?
SnowFire (
talk)
22:42, 27 March 2023 (UTC)reply
The latter. It wasn't until the following year that the
Reform Act 1867 was passed, significantly increasing the voting population of the United Kingdom over the subsequent few years.
Harrias(he/him) •talk23:57, 27 March 2023 (UTC)reply
@
Onegreatjoke: Any interest in revisiting your review above? IMO, the QPQ criteria is fulfilled. If you'd rather hand the review off, I can approve myself, but don't really see the need since you already did the review.
SnowFire (
talk)
04:34, 3 April 2023 (UTC)reply
The image is correctly licensed, and the sources are all reliable. Earwig shows no issues.
"The by-election was brought about due to the declaration that": a bit long-winded. How about "The by-election was caused by the declaration that", or perhaps "The seat had became vacant when Adolphus Young's election"?
My prose can end up that way at times! Switched to your first suggestion, as it involved less grammatical tidying later in the sentence.
Harrias(he/him) •talk19:49, 15 April 2023 (UTC)reply
It might be worth mentioning what the franchise qualification was at the time -- my eyebrows went up at the low number of votes, but a look at
Reform Act 1832 tells me there would have been around 1,000 voters in an average constituency. This isn't necessary for GA, but it would be a nice addition for comprehensiveness if you were to take this to FAC.
If you're okay with it as is, I'm going to leave this for the time being. I agree that for a FAC a great deal more contextual background such as this would need adding, but right now I don't have access to suitable local sources, nor the inclination to wrangle too much with the more general political ones.
Harrias(he/him) •talk19:49, 15 April 2023 (UTC)reply
"neither himself nor Major Grylls were presented": I think this should be "neither he nor", or you could make it "neither Young nor".
'Campbell presented himself as a contemporary of Young, with whom he said his "political opinions are in the main identical"'. Suggest 'Campbell said his "political opinions are in the main identical" to Young's, whom he described as a contemporary", to avoid the slightly clumsy "with whom" in the middle. I'm not really sure what point is being made by the "contemporary" comment, though; does it say more than that he shared Young's politics?
I was trying to convey his message that 'you voted Young in, so you should vote me in, because I'm like him'. Clumsily, as you point out. Removed the "contemporary" part for the time being.
Harrias(he/him) •talk19:49, 15 April 2023 (UTC)reply
"He showed general support for the Liberal government, and specific support for the Reform Bill ...": suggest "He supported the Liberal government, and specifically supported the Reform Bill ...".
That's everything from a read-through. Spotchecks:
FN 13 cites "Objections immediately ensued from both sides. The Liberals complained that at 3:56 a voter, Martin, had been prevented from casting a vote for their candidate by the Conservatives "taking possession" of the hall. For their part, the Conservatives rejected this charge, and that by law the Mayor did not hold a casting vote. The town's deputy clerk then formally declared Campbell the elected member for Helston." Verified, but I see that the Mayor had already voted for Campbell, so his casting vote was in addition to his own vote. I think this would be an interesting detail to add.
@
Mike Christie: Cheers Mike, replies above. Not sure I'll ever manage to get this one to FA; my politics history probably isn't up to scratch, and I just don't have ready access to local sources. (I grew up in Helston, but moved away some 15 years ago.)
Harrias(he/him) •talk19:49, 15 April 2023 (UTC)reply
A fact from 1866 Helston by-election appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 April 2023 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that both candidates in the 1866 Helston by-election received the same number of votes?
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cornwall, an attempt to improve and expand Wikipedia coverage of
Cornwall and all things Cornish. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the
project member page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the
discussion.CornwallWikipedia:WikiProject CornwallTemplate:WikiProject CornwallCornwall-related articles
See drop-down box for suggested article edit guidelines:
Be bold - if you know something about
Cornwall then put it in! We value your contributions and don't be afraid if your spelling isn't great as there are plenty of spelling and grammar experts on clean-up duty!
Articles on settlements in Cornwall should be written using the standard set of headings approved by the UK geography WikiProject's guideline
How to write about settlements.
At
WikiProject Cornwall we subscribe to the
policies laid down by Wikipedia - particularly
civility and
consensus building. We are aware that the wording on
Cornish entries can sometimes be a contentious topic, especially those concerning geography. You don't have to agree with everything but there is no excuse for rudeness and these things are best solved through consensus building and compromise. For more information see
WP:CornwallGuideline.
These pages are not platforms for political discussion. Issues relating to Cornish politics should be restricted to those pages that directly deal with these issues (such as
Constitutional status of Cornwall,
Cornish nationalism, etc) and should not overflow into other articles.
Most of all have fun editing - that's the reason we all do this, right?!
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Elections and Referendums, an ongoing effort to improve the quality of, expand upon and create new articles relating to elections, electoral reform and other aspects of democratic decision-making. For more information, visit our project page.Elections and ReferendumsWikipedia:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsTemplate:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsElections and Referendums articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Politics of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Politics of the United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomPolitics of the United Kingdom articles
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as
this nomination's talk page,
the article's talk page or
Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
... that at the 1866 Helston by-election, the two candidates received the same number of votes? Source: "Close of the Poll: Campbell ... 153, Brett ... 153." ("
Helston election: The polling". The West Briton & Cornwall Advertiser. Truro, Cornwall. 4 May 1866. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.)
If you are waiting on a third party to confirm that nothing shady involving approval-trading is afoot here, I've taken a look at the article and it looks fine to me. So don't believe Onegreatjoke's review is problematic.
As a passerby question, though: is it just me or are these vote counts insanely low, even given the smaller UK population of 1866? The
rotten borough article says that such tiny constituencies were largely abolished in the 1830s... did the UK still have really restricted suffrage based on property holdings and this was normal, or is this a genuine case of a rotten borough that still existed?
SnowFire (
talk)
22:42, 27 March 2023 (UTC)reply
The latter. It wasn't until the following year that the
Reform Act 1867 was passed, significantly increasing the voting population of the United Kingdom over the subsequent few years.
Harrias(he/him) •talk23:57, 27 March 2023 (UTC)reply
@
Onegreatjoke: Any interest in revisiting your review above? IMO, the QPQ criteria is fulfilled. If you'd rather hand the review off, I can approve myself, but don't really see the need since you already did the review.
SnowFire (
talk)
04:34, 3 April 2023 (UTC)reply
The image is correctly licensed, and the sources are all reliable. Earwig shows no issues.
"The by-election was brought about due to the declaration that": a bit long-winded. How about "The by-election was caused by the declaration that", or perhaps "The seat had became vacant when Adolphus Young's election"?
My prose can end up that way at times! Switched to your first suggestion, as it involved less grammatical tidying later in the sentence.
Harrias(he/him) •talk19:49, 15 April 2023 (UTC)reply
It might be worth mentioning what the franchise qualification was at the time -- my eyebrows went up at the low number of votes, but a look at
Reform Act 1832 tells me there would have been around 1,000 voters in an average constituency. This isn't necessary for GA, but it would be a nice addition for comprehensiveness if you were to take this to FAC.
If you're okay with it as is, I'm going to leave this for the time being. I agree that for a FAC a great deal more contextual background such as this would need adding, but right now I don't have access to suitable local sources, nor the inclination to wrangle too much with the more general political ones.
Harrias(he/him) •talk19:49, 15 April 2023 (UTC)reply
"neither himself nor Major Grylls were presented": I think this should be "neither he nor", or you could make it "neither Young nor".
'Campbell presented himself as a contemporary of Young, with whom he said his "political opinions are in the main identical"'. Suggest 'Campbell said his "political opinions are in the main identical" to Young's, whom he described as a contemporary", to avoid the slightly clumsy "with whom" in the middle. I'm not really sure what point is being made by the "contemporary" comment, though; does it say more than that he shared Young's politics?
I was trying to convey his message that 'you voted Young in, so you should vote me in, because I'm like him'. Clumsily, as you point out. Removed the "contemporary" part for the time being.
Harrias(he/him) •talk19:49, 15 April 2023 (UTC)reply
"He showed general support for the Liberal government, and specific support for the Reform Bill ...": suggest "He supported the Liberal government, and specifically supported the Reform Bill ...".
That's everything from a read-through. Spotchecks:
FN 13 cites "Objections immediately ensued from both sides. The Liberals complained that at 3:56 a voter, Martin, had been prevented from casting a vote for their candidate by the Conservatives "taking possession" of the hall. For their part, the Conservatives rejected this charge, and that by law the Mayor did not hold a casting vote. The town's deputy clerk then formally declared Campbell the elected member for Helston." Verified, but I see that the Mayor had already voted for Campbell, so his casting vote was in addition to his own vote. I think this would be an interesting detail to add.
@
Mike Christie: Cheers Mike, replies above. Not sure I'll ever manage to get this one to FA; my politics history probably isn't up to scratch, and I just don't have ready access to local sources. (I grew up in Helston, but moved away some 15 years ago.)
Harrias(he/him) •talk19:49, 15 April 2023 (UTC)reply