page_title: Soke of Peterborough
section_title: Politics
hierarchical_section_title: Soke of Peterborough / Politics
caption_attribution_description: English: Milton Hall, Nr Peterborough
context_page_description: The Soke of Peterborough is a historic area of England associated with the City and Diocese of Peterborough, but considered part of Northamptonshire. The Soke was also described as the Liberty of Peterborough, or Nassaburgh hundred, and comprised, besides Peterborough, about thirty parishes.
  The area forms much of the present City of Peterborough unitary authority area in the post-1974 ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire. The Church of England dioceses of Peterborough and Ely still, however, follow the boundary of the Soke, with only the part of the city that is north of the River Nene lying within the Diocese of Peterborough, while Thorney and urban areas south of the Nene, including Stanground and Fletton, are in the Diocese of Ely.
  The term soke refers to a general legal term in medieval England referring to various concepts, including a jurisdiction of land or rights to hold a court or receive fines.
context_section_description: For parliamentary purposes, the city formed a borough "by prescription," returning two members from 1541, with the rest of the Soke being part of Northamptonshire parliamentary county. The Great Reform Act did not affect the borough, while the rural portion of the Soke was included in the northern division of Northamptonshire. The borough's representation was reduced to one member under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. In 1918 a new borough constituency was formed including the whole of the Soke and neighbouring parts of the administrative county of Northamptonshire. In 1948 the boundaries of the constituency were adjusted to correspond to those of the Soke and they remained much the same until 1970.
  In the unreformed House of Commons in order to be either a candidate or an elector for a county seat, a man had to own (not rent) freehold property valued for the land tax at two pounds a year (women could neither vote nor stand for election). This was known as the 40 shilling freehold. The franchise for borough seats varied enormously. Peterborough was one of 37 boroughs in which suffrage was restricted to those paying scot and lot, a form of municipal taxation. In 1800 there were 2,000 registered voters in Northamptonshire and 400 in Peterborough. By 1835 this had risen to 576, or about one per cent of the population. The Fourth Reform Act widened suffrage by abolishing practically all property qualifications for men and by enfranchising women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications. This system, known as universal manhood suffrage, was first used in the 1918 general election.
caption: Milton Hall (1590–1610), seat of the Earls Fitzwilliam
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