I'm reading "Britons" by Linda Colley right now, and just finished up a section about John Wilkes, the notorious radical and journalist. As Colley mentions, Wilkes' support for universal suffrage drew him the support of lawyers, tradesmen and other "would-be-gentlemen" - people who, because, of their rising fortunes, felt they deserved the full rights of British political citizenship.
Now, it's my understanding that at the time, the right to vote in Britain depended on the "forty shilling freehold," so hypothetically a lot of lawyers and professionals could vote.
But later on in the book, Colley mentions that the 1760's, the era in which Wilkes was most active, saw the first big movement by men of "movable property" who weren't part of the landed elite to obtain the franchise. To me, that sounds like a good chunk of those lawyers and professionals who supported Wilkes were excluded from the franchise. If that's the case, how did he get elected as MP?
Sorry if this is a long question or confusing question. I'm just curious if anyone can help me out.
TL;DR: What kinds of people/social classes could vote in 18th century Britain? And what kind of restrictions were placed on the franchise to ensure that only those classes could vote?
This is an issue that can be rather confusing especially given the piece-meal reforms that took place in England during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The "Forty Shilling Freehold" refers to any individual who had landholdings valued at Forty Shillings or more. Now this distinction is important because the nature of land reforms in England at the time was that great swaths of land were already enclosed by wealthy land owners across England. With the expansion of the gentry by this new middle-class of Lawyers and Tradesmen it became apparent that wealth and status could no longer be defined by an individual's land holdings, but rather their personal wealth.
Interestingly the vague nature of the franchise in England at the time provided unprecedented rights to aristocratic women who had acquired the estate of a husband or father. Though rare there were some women who were allowed to vote in parliamentary and county elections.
The controversy you cite refers mostly to the fact that wealth urban dwelling men were being excluded from the franchise because they were renters rather than land-owners. The professional classes rarely had the clout to posses as much land as was need for enfranchisement and so felt they were being deprived of their rights as Free-Englishmen.
A move would later come after parliamentary reform that would clarify this threshold as being based upon property alone rather than "freeholdings" or land.
"The forty shilling freehold franchise : the present state of the county constituencies" George Thompson. London, BD Cousins, 1850.
"The Status of Women Under the English Law" Mary Wallis Chapman. London, Routledge & Sons. 1909.