pocket borough

American  

noun

1. (before the Reform Bill of 1832) any English borough whose representatives in Parliament were controlled by an individual or family.

2. an election district under the control of an individual, family, or group.

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pocket borough British  

noun

1. (before the Reform Act of 1832) an English borough constituency controlled by one person or family who owned the land Compare rotten borough

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Etymology

Origin of pocket borough

First recorded in 1855–60

Example Sentences

Stanley inherited from his father Alfred the thriving steel works of Baldwins, Ltd., a directorship of the Great Western Railway, and the pocket borough of Bewdley in Worcestershire.

From Time Magazine Archive

Foster, who made the greatest speech in Parliament against the union, received seventy-five hundred pounds for his half share of a pocket borough.

From Irish History and the Irish Question by Smith, Goldwin

Tillietudlem was no poor pocket borough to be disposed of, this way or that way, according to the caprice or venal call of some aristocrat.

From The Three Clerks by Trollope, Anthony

For in every bookseller's window caricatures of the "Last of the Boroughbridges," as the wits called him, after the pocket borough for which he sat, were plentiful as blackberries.

From Chippinge Borough by Weyman, Stanley J.

Let 'em quash every pocket borough to-morrow, and bring in every mushroom town in the kingdom—they'll only increase the expense of getting into Parliament.

From Middlemarch by Eliot, George