The Gatton by-election, 1803 was a by-election

By-election

A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....

 to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom that took place on 24 January 1803.

The parliamentary borough

Parliamentary borough

Parliamentary boroughs are a type of administrative division, usually covering urban areas, that are entitled to representation in a Parliament...

 of Gatton

Gatton (UK Parliament constituency)

Gatton was a parliamentary borough in Surrey, one of the most notorious of all the rotten boroughs. It elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1450 until 1832, when the constituency was abolished by the Great Reform Act...

 was a notorious "rotten" or pocket borough "in the pocket" of the Lord of the Manor

Lord of the Manor

The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...

 of Gatton

Gatton, Surrey

Gatton was a village near Reigate in Surrey, England. The village lay within the Reigate hundred.-History:Gatton appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Gatone. It was held by Herfrid from the Bishop of Bayeux. Its domesday assets were: 2½ hides; 1 church, of meadow, woodland and herbage worth 7 hogs...

, who at that time was Sir Mark Wood

Sir Mark Wood, 1st Baronet

Sir Mark Wood, 1st Baronet was an army officer and engineer. He was a Member of Parliament for Milborne Port, Gatton and Newark. He received a baronetcy on 3 October 1808.-References:...

. It had, at most, seven voters - all tenants of Wood. At the 1802 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1802

The United Kingdom general election, 1802 was the election to the 2nd Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was the first to be held after the formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

, "Wood returned himself and his brother-in-law (James) Dashwood". Both were members of William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...

's faction of the Tory Party. At Pitt's request, shortly after the election, Dashwood vacated his seat so as to make way for Philip Dundas

Philip Dundas

Philip Dundas, newly appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Penang, arrived at the newly created Presidency of the British East India Company, between the 18th and the 24th of September, 1805, together with his Council and the subordinate officials, including his Deputy Secretary, Stamford Raffles, who...

.

Result

Dundas was to be elected in a simple formality, returned uncontested. This was complicated, however, when "Joseph Clayton Jennings, a barrister and reformer, arrived on the scene", making it unexpectedly a contested election, and found a person who claimed to be entitled to vote in his favour. A voter was therefore also brought in for Dundas. Dashwood, acting as the returning officer, rejected the ballot for Jennings, and Dundas was duly elected with one vote.

Dundas left for India two years later, causing another by-election, wherein Wood procured the seat for William Garrow

William Garrow

Sir William Garrow KC, PC, FRS was a British barrister, politician and judge known for his indirect reform of the advocacy system, which helped usher in the adversarial court system used in most common law nations today...

 - another reformist barrister, who won it uncontested and thereby made his entry in Parliament.

1802 result