A strong petition was sent up pleading for disfranchisement, and a bill was introduced shortly after the formation of Lord Rockingham’s administration, which was to deliver ministers from temptation to tamper with civil servants, and the better to secure the freedom of election. It is a somewhat surprising fact, looked at in these days, that this bill was warmly contested in all its stages through the House of Commons. But it was eventually passed by considerable majorities, though in no division were more than 110 members present. At that time it was regarded as a very necessary precaution to have passed this Act (22 Geo. III. c. 41), as it was computed that the Revenue officers formed nearly twenty per cent. of the whole electorate. While the Government of the day wielded such power over the destinies of civil servants because of the possession of these votes, and that in point of fact they could by this means influence no less than 140 votes in the House of Commons, it was perhaps far better that civil servants should be disfranchised. But the natural consequence was that all Post-Office servants, whatever their rank, high or low, were excluded from the use of their votes; and this in course of time gave rise to a very grave injustice.
While citizen liberty was everywhere expanding, and the greater majority of the artisan and labouring classes were being gathered into the widening folds of the British electorate, those who happened to serve the Crown in any capacity had to pay for the privilege by the sacrifice of their vote. From allowing too much liberty to Revenue officers and those serving under the Crown, the Government rushed to the other extreme, and an Act was passed in the pre-Reform days (7 & 8 Geo. III. c. 53, s. 9) by which the provisions of former Acts were amended and extended still further by increasing the penalty to be inflicted on any Revenue officer (including postal officials) for voting at election times while still in his Majesty’s service, and for two months subsequent to leaving it. The penalty was increased from £100 to £500. An officer in the Post-Office was not merely liable to this heavy penalty for recording his vote, which in the ordinary course was allowed him as a citizen by the law, but on conviction was declared to be for ever disabled and incapable of holding or executing any office of trust under the Crown, if he committed the heinous crime of voting at Parliamentary elections. The great Reform Act of 1831, which came to be hailed with such joyous satisfaction by the whole community, afforded no relief to the Post-Office official, and it was not till a quarter of a century later that they were thought worthy of being entrusted with a vote. However this deprival of the franchise may have been justified in Lord Rockingham’s time in 1782, times and circumstances had materially changed when the middle of the nineteenth century arrived.