What name was given to the 57 constituencies with very small electorates, such as Old Sarum with two MP's for 11 electors, which were abolished by the 1832 Reform Act?
Old Sarum (UK Parliament constituency) final election, in 1831, there were eleven voters, all of whom were landowners who lived elsewhere. This made Old Sarum the most notorious of the rotten boroughs, being described as "a wall with two niches". The Reform Act 1832 subsumed the Old Sarum area into an enlarged borough of Wilton. In the last years, the spectacle of an Old Sarum election drew a small crowd to observe the ritual presentation of the two candidates and the hollow call for any further nominations. Stooks Smith quotes a contemporary description dating from the 1802 general election: Elections in Old Sarum were conducted
Old Sarum (UK Parliament constituency) the cathedral city of Salisbury in the 14th century. The constituency was abolished under the Reform Act 1832. In 1295, during the reign of King Edward I, Old Sarum was given the right to send two members to the House of Commons of England even though the site had ceased to be a city with the dissolvement of Old Sarum Cathedral in 1226. The seat of the Bishop had moved to New Salisbury - and the location of the new cathedral - in 1217/18. All that remained at Old Sarum was a small hamlet. But that was largely abandoned when