top of page
Search

Timeline of Electoral Reform, Part 1 Beginnings to 1899. Chronology of Proportional Representation (STV, List PR, MMP)

Tom Monto
Dec 9, 2025
30 min read

Updated: Oct 28



(The first in a blog series entitled "Timeline of Electoral reform")


Chronology of history of Proportional Representation (List PR, STV, MMP) pre-1920


(Entries in italics concern places that are not countries and historic events that are not elections.)


Overview of drive to full democracy in Britain

The creation of full democracies is a gradual thing.

John D. Hunt said Britain got Responsible Government under the Georges:

George II who ruled from 1727 to 1760;

George III who ruled from 1760 until his death in 1820;

George IV who ruled from 1820 to 1830.)

but others say Britain did not get responsible government (parliamentary executive composed of ministers depending collectively for their title to office on retaining the confidence of the elected house of the legislature) until the 1840s (thus under Queen Victoria)

and Britain only made a great advance toward true Representative Government with the Reform Bill of 1832, according to John D. Hunt (Dawn of a New Patriotism, p. 133).

Representative government had been promised back in 1792 and Canadian reformers, such as Robert Baldwin, aspired to that form of democracy in the 1820s to 1840s

Not until the implementation of Lord Durham's Report, after the Rebellions of 1837, did the Executive Council became a cabinet of ministers that were heads of departments, and the phrase "responsible government" came to mean that they were responsible to the elected Assembly (instead of just to an appointed colonial Governor).

So although Canada was settled much later than Britain, its political rise to Responsible Government was only about a decade behind that of Britain's. (The democracy of Indigenous cultures of North America before and after Contact may have aided the development of Responsible and Representative Government here.)

=====


Highlights of PR in the world

1856 first use of PR in a government election (STV Denmark)

1867 United Kingdom adopted Limited Voting in some districts, including City of London with four seats.

1897 Tasmania, a British colony at the time, used STV to elect some members

1899 Belgium adopted PR for national elections (list PR)

1909   Australia state elections -- all members in Tasmania House of Assembly elected through STV. first election in the British Empire where all the members were elected through PR.

1915 Ashtabula, Ohio used STV in city election

1917 Calgary used STV in city election

1918 first use of STV in the United Kingdom - to elect MPs representing the university constituencies

1920 first use of PR in legislative election in Canada - STV used to elect Winnipeg MLAs

1921 Malta adopted STV for national elections (first election in the British Empire where members were elected through PR)

1922 Ireland adopted PR (STV) for election of members both in the lower house and upper house.

1926 Alberta first to hold election in North America where some members elected by PR and none by FPTP method

=========


1550 First single-member districts in England Parliament.

Prior to 1550, the English Parliament was filled by members elected in districts with two seats each, and possibly more in some districts.

But after Wales was incorporated into England, single-member districts were brought in. The hope was that the inefficiency of the SMDs would better prevent new voices from the "Celtic Fringe" from being heard in the chamber.


1788 Marquis de Condorcet may have considered a system of Instant-Runoff Voting or TRS - he described it simply as "If, after an initial election, the choice were made between the two candidates with the most votes, when there are three candidates, or generally to exclude the one with the fewest votes," [either to transfer his votes or to compose a runoff vote as in TRS]

then said he was against it -- "there would still be a risk of error, since ... one could then exclude precisely the one in whose favor the majority's wish would have truly been expressed, had the election procedure allowed it." It is unclear that he did not mean TRS. He might not have meant the use of ranked votes (a necessary part of IRV) -- the use of ranked votes in single-winner context was still unproven until at least when W.R. Ware conducted his thought-experiment in 1870. (Condorcet, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat (1788).On the Constitution and the Functions of Provincial Assemblies", p. 243)



1789 - French Revolution, seminal event in drive for democracy (freedom and self-rule). Even reversion to Napoleonic military dictatorship did not end democratic advance. Belief in a king's absolutism and support for the old regime had grown faint. After Napoleon met his Waterloo, his successor, Louis XVIII, then ruled alongside a two-chamber parliament, in a society where men of means had the vote, freedom of the press, equal rule of law, and other civil liberties. (from Sheri Berman, "Lessons from Europe", Journal of Democracy, Jan. 2007, p. 32)


The use of elections in more and more European countries (where free and open was the aspiration) led to successive proposals and experiences of Proportional Representation, which was seen as the best route to freedom and self-rule, as we see below.


1793 2nd Earl Grey (1764-1845)

(moved that a petition of the society, which outlined the abuses of the electoral system and called for parliament "to regulate the right of voting upon a uniform and equitable principle", should be put before a parliamentary committee. ..." (from Wiki "Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey")

(His reform bill was heavily defeated, but the Earl eventually came back, became PM and secured passage of a Reform Bill in 1830s.)



(1821 the principles of PR through STV was suggested by Thomas Wright Hill.) (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "Timeline - explanatory notes") (the date 1819 is also given for this breakthrough) (His son Rowland introduced the use of STV in its first use in a public election in the world, for the Adelaide City Council,  in 1840.)


(info on early electoral reformers in the UK is available online:


1832 British government passed Reform Act, giving more seats to industrial towns and abolishing many pocket boroughs and rotten boroughs, or taking away the second seat in some of the smallest boroughs. (many ridings had two members). Not PR but step toward political equality. (Britain still using many multi-member districts but the ability of single-member districts to (cynically) block out the "Celtic fringe" was clearly seen and appreciated, and over next century more and more districts were converted to SMDs.)

Earl Grey was active in the campaign for electoral justice. The old military general Wellington, by then a government kingpin, opposed the reform, but a wave of protests and riots, culminating in a massive orchestrated bank run, changed his mind.

The advance was partially secured by lobbying by "political unions", mixed groups of middle- and working-class activists.

The Birmingham Political Union, founded by Thomas Attwood, was the best-known example. In "Days of May" 1832, 200,000 attended a rally of the BPU. In late 1831, the Political Unions joined together to form the National Political Union. The government outlawed it as an unlawful society. But it continued on. In deference to government's fears, the BPU discouraged disturbances at the national level.



(1839 Pennsylvania Legislature - used strict form of Limited Voting (actually SNTV) to elect administration officials, not members of legislature. In use from 1839 to at least 1926. Each voter had one vote in 2-seat contest. (The DM of just 2 prevented any real PR.) (Hoag & Hallett (1926), p. 182))


(1840 Australia: Adelaide city election -- a form of quota-based single voting. 19 members elected - two by quorum (quorum equalled 1/19th of the electorate - the Hare quota); the other 17 elected by the other voters using Block Voting.

Rowland Hill (see 1821), son of a father of STV, was colonial kingpin in Tasmania.

Catherine Helen Spence, the daughter of the town clerk, grew up to be one of Australia's leading electoral reformers although as a woman never was able to vote in Australia federal elections.) (see 1861)

(for more information see my blog


(1844/1846 List PR was endorsed by Thomas Gilpin (Philadelphia, 1844) in his work On the Representation of minorities of electors..." and Victor Considerant (Geneva, 1846). (Enid Lakeman, How Democracies Vote))


1850 Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey (1802-1894) (he of the tea, and uncle of the man who gave Canada the Grey Cup), Colonial Secretary at the time, weighed in on the form of elections that should be conducted in the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). Cumulative Voting was adopted and used with success until 1909. (see 1853)


(1853-1858  two reform-minded books by Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey

1853 a history and defence of colonial policy in the form of letters to Lord John Russell (Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Administration, 1853). In it, he states that "if it is desired that the elected body should not be a representation of a single interest and a single class of opinions, some means must be adopted to guard against its falling entirely into the hands of of the dominant party" He recommended Cumulative Voting (already in use in South Africa see 1850)

1858 - Parliamentary Government. Considered with reference to a Reform of Parliament. An Essay. London: Richard Bentley. 1858. (Full text online at Internet Archive.) "Earl Grey managed to explain the P.R. system in simple language and to make it comprehensible to working men...." (Jenifer Hart, PR Critics of the British Electoral System 1820-1945, p. 122)

(see 1864)

(his successor as Earl, nephew Albert, the 4th Earl Grey, later Governor General of Canada, appears in this chronology starting in 1885.)


1854 Lord John Russell's 1854 Reform bill put forward Limited Voting (voter would have two votes in a 3-seat district) as way to have minority representation. Others considered his proposal as being "strange, unnatural, irrational, unconstitutional, oligarchic and anti-popular", showing how little it was understood. He did not include it in his 1860 Reform bill. (but the advantages of Limited Voting and its resulting minority representation were appreciated by enough that Limited Voting was adopted for use to elect the governing body of Oxford University when it was reformed in 1854.) (Hart, Proportional Representation, Critics of the British electoral system, p. 21-23)


1856  Denmark used STV for election of the Parliament in 1856. Carl Andrae's variant did not include transfer of votes of eliminated candidates. Hare quota. Random transfer of surplus votes. Denmark was divided into 29 electoral districts.

(Denmark soon switched to FPTP, switching to mixed member proportional in 1915.)

STV was used in indirect election of Denmark's upper house (Landsting) from 1867 to at least 1926. The use of Andrae's quota (equivalent to the Hare quota) meant that careful consideration was made of how many candidates to run and how votes should be shared out, but perhaps that was not difficult with fewer than 400 electors and all of them in one room.) (Hoag and Hallet, PR (1926), p. 75; Newman, Hare-Clark, p. 296; Droop, On Methods of Electing Representatives, p. 33; Curtis, PR (1908))

[International Almanac of electoral history, p. 87 says first STV election was for the Council of the Realm (1861-1866) and for the Landsting after 1860s reforms] (see 1915)


(1857 Britain -- Thomas Hare's book The Machinery of Representation was published, to advocate for electoral reform, PR and a form of STV. Another book by him on the same subjects, A Treatise on Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal, was published in 1859. 

In these books, Hare proposed at-large country-wide election for all of the United Kingdom where each voter had one vote (and could mark back-up preferences), Hare quota was the amount that would guarantee election, and surplus votes of successful candidates were to be transferred. (But he did not envision transfers arising from elimination of least-popular candidates). He prescribed a random method to be used for transfer of surplus votes (according to Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 141) (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")

(The use of Hare versus Droop quota (see 1868) was not important -- In Hare's proposal, DM was to be 658 - a quota of 1/658th of votes cast (Hare) is very close to a quota of 1/659th of votes cast plus 1 (Droop). (Droop, On Methods of Electing Representatives, p. 33))

(see Floyd Parsons' published thesis Thomas Hare and PR in Victorian Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009))


(Later, others advocated various forms of fair voting using multi-member districts instead of the country-wide district proposed by Hare. Lord John Russell (limited voting in 3-seat districts) (see 1854); Catherine Helen Spence (STV in MMDs) (Spence credited Sir John Lubbock for the innovation of multi-member districts); Droop and others also supported use of MMDs. (Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 26; Spence, A Plea, p. 23; Report of meeting on "Proportional representation," or effective voting, held at River House, Chelsea, on Tuesday, July 10th 1894. Addressed by Miss Spence, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Courtney, Sir John Lubbock and Sir John Hall)  (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")


1859-1874 United Kingdom - U.K.'s first attempts to get PR.

Representative Reform Association founded but plagued by Hare's overly-intricate proposal. (see 1872)

(perhaps Hare published his early views on STV in a 1859 work entitled Personal Representation In that work, he is said to have hypothesized that 2/5ths of voters were un-represented under a plurality election system, a stat confirmed by U.S.'s Salem Dutcher in 1867-1870s. (cited in McCracken, Arena magazine vol. 7 1893, p. 290)

In 1893 W.D. McCracken estimated that the situation had deteriorated further: "As matters now stand in these countries [U.S. and UK], the powers of government are entrusted to a majority of the majority who may be a minority of the whole electorate." (McCracken, PR, Arena magazine vol. 7 1893, p. 290 (online internet archives)

(With medium to low voter turnout, only a fraction of the whole electorate elect the government, even if the party in power receives a majority of votes cast.

And with election to government of parties with as little as 40 percent of the votes cast, the situation now is that the powers of government are entrusted to a mere majority of the minority of the voters who bother to vote -- and certainly a minority of the whole electorate. Possible that even only a third of votes in just a bit more than half the districts - a total of just 1/6th of votes cast - will elect a majority government.)


1861 John Stuart Mill's book Considerations on Representative Government extolled the benefits of Hare's STV.

(As of 1857 (if not earlier) he voiced support for Cumulative Voting. Mill endorsed CV in his 1859 work Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform. He thought it, unlike Hare's STV, "allowed for intensity of preference to carry weight in addition to preference." (Hart, PR Critics..., p. 21)


1861 Australia -- Catherine Helen Spence (see 1840) in a pamphlet A Plea for Pure Democracy put forward a system of STV where votes would be transferred both to address surplus votes held by winners and votes held by un-electable candidates. Multi-member districts, not at-large, was to be the districting. (At the time South Australia, her subject area, was using two-member districts and Spence might have thought it was easier just to go with the existing districting, rather than to try to force a state-wide at-large contest.)

In her notion of STV she pictured votes passing from a candidate in one district to a candidate in another district if that was choice of voter; as well, a district was not guaranteed to have a certain number of members or any members at all. (Such is done in some list PR systems under the name Apparentment.) (see 1896) (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")


[1861 the idea that alternative election systems would have prevented the election of Lincoln and the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War is made in John Lubbock's essay PR [1884?]

Another says that the Borda Count could have prevented the war by not seeing Lincoln elected -- (likely this applies to the IRV system as well):

"Four candidates from three different parties battled for the presidency, and all four received a significant number of votes. We ask whether Lincoln's victory was sound, or was it due to a fluke in the electoral system? Did a Lincoln win plausibly represent the will of the voters, or would a different voting system have represented their preferences more accurately? Would the outcome have been the same had one or more of the candidates dropped out of the race?"

(Alexander Tabarrok and Lee Spector. Would the Borda Count Have Avoided the Civil War?


How PR would have prevented U.S. Civil War

if P.R. had been used in 1850s, "it would have introduced into Congress a large number of Northern Democrats and Southern Whigs occupying the middle ground and holding the balance of power - men out of favour at home but strong enough both in numbers and position to check the violence that led at last to civil war. 

But the aggressive pro-slavery party having, finally, under the majority rule, outvoted and silenced all opposition at home and their Northern allies, who might have held them in check, being also outvoted and silenced, no middle-men were left, and a breach became inevitable." (from William Ware, Machinery of Politics (p. 28))

==========================


1861 Malta -- Limited Voting used for election of members of the council of seven, each voter had only four votes. (Curtis, PR (1908))


1864 - Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey (1802-1894) published the second edition of his 1858 book: Parliamentary Government. Considered with reference to Reform. Containing Suggestions for Improvement of our Representative System, and an Examination of The Reform Bills of 1859 and 1861, He endorsed proportional representation under the name "Representation of the People" (p. 66).

 (His nephew and successor as earl, the 4th Earl Grey (Canada's Governor-General), was a fanatic on the subject of PR -- see 1885.)


1865 Britain -- Thomas Hare advocated for a form of STV with elimination of candidates with fewest votes as well as transfer of surplus votes from successful candidates. (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")


(1867 Canada - Confederation authorized in British North America Act. The BNA Act dictated that Halifax riding was to have two members (Block Voting was implied). Later eleven other ridings had two members, each used Block Voting. FPTP otherwise in use. (In the period from Confederation to the 1990s, every province except Quebec has used one or more multi-member districts at one time or another or continuously throughout the period. The last multi-member federal riding was broken up in 1968; the last multi-member provincial constituency was broken up in 1995.) (see 1886, 1920, 1924)


1867 United Kingdom -- Representation of the People Act 1867. Craven MP Walter Morrison's contribution to the debates extolled the benefits of representation of minorities and proportional representation (see 1859-1872; Wiki: "Walter Morrison (politician)")


1867-1884 United Kingdom -- following passage of the Representation of the People Act 1867, Limited Voting was used to elect some MPs -

- Birmingham and 12 other districts elected 3, each voter cast up to two votes.

-The City of London riding elected four, each voter cast up to three votes.

This mostly prevented a clean sweep of district seats by one party, although on two occasions a one-party sweep happened. (Farrell and McAllister, Australian Election Systems, p. 33; Humphreys, PR (1917), p. 64; Lakeman and Lambert, Voting in Democracies (1959), p. 75; Wiki: Birmingham (UK Parliament constituency); (Phillips, Challenges to the Voting System, 1867-1974, p. 17)

(see Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")


(1868 Britain -- H.R. Droop introduced the Droop quota, a smaller proportion of votes cast compared to Hare quota. He published his ideas in the books Methods of Electing Representatives, and PR applied to the election of local governing bodies.  (see "Evolution of STV" in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes")


1870 

1870 U.S. -- W.R. Ware, an M.I.T. professor, held a demonstration STV election to have M.I.T. students elect their four favourite English authors.

Thinking ahead to a possible by-election, he took the ranked ballots of STV and put them into a single-winner contest, where all but two candidates were eliminated before the second round of counting and a majority winner was guaranteed.

Ware proposed optional-preferential voting. In certain contexts, optional-preference voting in conjunction with STV or PR can devolve into SNTV. But even if that happens, waste of votes is no more than under FPTP and mixed representation is elected under SNTV so still more fair than FPTP.)

Ware's Contingent Voting (sometimes called the Ware system), alongside Block Voting, was used in Queensland state elections starting in 1893. The "Ware system" later became known as Instant-Runoff Voting (but now is known as "supplementary voting" or "contingent voting").



1870 U.S. -- Illinois adopted Cumulative Voting -- each district elected three, each voter could cast three votes but could place them on one, two or or three candidates.

In use until 1980, except for 1964 when state-wide Block Voting was used.

The Illinois House of Representatives elected in 1872 contained 153 members, three from each of the state's 51 districts. (After 1901, until 1980, 177 elected in 59 districts.)

(Weakness of CV was shown in 1904 when 9th District saw a majority of votes go to Republican candidates, but Democrats took two of the three seats. Republican vote was inefficiently allocated.  (Curtis, PR (1908))

("The main practical objection to CV and Limited Voting is that they give power to the party machines and prevent independent movements," [do not sufficiently encourage election of independent candidates], so said Curtis, PR (1908))

(also see my blog on the progress of PR in North America:


1870 - United Kingdom -- Cumulative Voting adopted for school board elections. (Lakeman and Lambert, Voting in Democracies, p. 291)


1870 U.S. -- Pennsylvania law passed allowing Cumulative voting in Bloomsburg for election of two or more. Law later amended to allow CV in other municipalities. (Curtis, PR (1908))


1872 United Kingdom -- Walter Baily, of Leeds, in essay PR in Large Constituencies, called for districts with members "not less than five nor more than 15," and of variable DM where districts would cover whole cities. He also called for transfer of surplus votes and elimination of un-electable candidates, echoing Hare's 1865 book.

Transfer of surplus votes was to be by the random method.

He went on to suggest a form of Indirect STV. Voters do not use ranked votes - instead transfer lists are drawn up and registered, and when a candidate achieves quota, he or she receives no more votes but instead subsequent votes are shifted to other candidates as per the list. (Later proposed forms of indirect STV were simpler - transfers from a successful candidate or eliminated candidate were to be dictated by the candidate involved.

But Indirect STV of any sort has never been used in any government election.

(Baily's book is available online:


1872 United Kingdom - Walter Morrison, Member of Parliament, innovated simplifications of Thomas Hare's STV proposal - districts with 6 to 16 seats; transfers of both surplus votes and votes belonging to least-popular candidate. His proposal was adopted by the Representative Reform Association, as opposed to Thomas Hare's scheme. (Jenifer Hart, P.R. (1992), p. 84, 99) (see Montopedia blog "British electoral reform in 1800s..."

For other early versions of STV, see Ashworth and Ashworth, P.R. Applied to Party Government (1900), p. 145-159.


1872 United Kingdom - many campaigners agreed on the suitability of Walter Morrison's variant of Hare's scheme, using multi-member districts, and transfers of both surplus votes and eliminated candidates' votes. (Hart, PR - Critics..., p. 84, 99; Ashworth and Ashworth, PR Applied to Party Government (1900) (see Wiki: "Walter Morrison (politician)")

(in July 1872, Morrison, MP for the riding of Craven, moved the second reading of a Proportional Representation Bill he had brought in that February with Thomas Hughes, Henry Fawcett and Auberon Herbert. Adopting Hare's scheme, he held that the best way to district was "to take population as a basis and apportion Members according to population" (thus apparently using cities and counties as basis of districts). A friendly amendment expressing the natural extension of this - the need to extend rep. to Scotland and Ireland - was unattainable at that time, and thus his attempt at PR ended.)

see "Proportional Representation Bill [Bill 67]—Second Reading". Hansard 1803–2005. UK Parliament. 10 July 1872. Retrieved 18 June 2026. HC Deb 10 July 1872 vol 212 cc890–926. First reading: HC Deb 28 February 1872 vol 209 c1123.

(Limited voting adopted in some districts 1867, STV in 1918 for University seats)


1872 U.S. -- Senator Charles Buckalew called for PR in his 1872 book Proportional representation; or, The representation of successive majorities in federal, state, municipal, corporate and primary elections. He described use of Limited Voting. mentions Thomas Hare but barely mentioned STV. (available on Hathitrust website)


1873 Argentina -- Province of Buenos Aires adopted constitution prescribing PR “for all public elections”. List PR used until 1926. PR again adopted in 1996. (Hoag & Hallett 1926, footnote p. 65)


1873 United Kingdom - Thomas Hare's book The Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal covered Ware's work with IRV.

======


1874 -- Switzerland began to use referendums at the national level. It was brought in as a compromise. (Pomeroy, By the People, p. 86


(1874 -- U.S. -- New York provided for election of aldermen in three-seat districts with each voter only being able to vote for one or two. [Limited Voting] (Curtis, PR (1908))


1874 -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia adopted Limited Voting for election of police magistrates. In 1875 legislation allowed 25 judges to be elected using general ticket [plural voting?], with each voter having about 16 votes each. [I don't know how that combo worked] (Curtis, PR (1908))


1875 Brazil -- Limited Voting adopted for municipal, provincial and national Assemblies. (Curtis, PR (1908)


1878 - Spain -- Limited Voting used for election of deputies. (Curtis, PR (1908))


1879 Cuba -- Limited Voting adopted.  (Curtis, PR (1908))


1881 Social Democratic Federation of England. ascribed to Marxist socialism. Its constitution (as of 1897) called for "Adult suffrage. Annual parliaments. Proportional representation. Second ballot [Two-Round System?]. Initiative and referendum. Canvassing to be made illegal. Abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords..."

========


1882 -- Italy used Limited Voting for election of Parliament. LV used until 1891.


1884 - Portugal -- Limited Voting used for election of deputies. (Curtis, PR (1908))


1884/1885 United Kingdom - Prime Minister Gladstone pursuing a Reform Bill

1884  British reformer John Westlake, Q.C. in his 1884 book Proportional Representation A Practical Proposal suggested a form of list PR combined with Cumulative Voting.(https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiuo.ark:/13960/t3bz6j72c&view=1up&seq=13)

(Wikipedia has article on "John Westlake (law scholar)")


John Lubbock, Proportional Representation (pamphlet)

In a pamphlet produced at the time, Proportional Representation, John Lubbock affirmed that PR is about fair rep to both majority and minority/minorities, and that it was needed to make the chamber "a mirror of the people." (p. 11)

H.O. Arnold-Forster (at the time only 25 years old) in an accompanying essay "A Test Election" (p. 14-18) recounted how he had got 184 school children to be voters and perform an STV election, electing three "MPs" from a list of kings and queens (apparently people of whom the children had knowledge). (p. 14)


In a failed attempt to get PR, Sir John Lubbock organized a meeting of British proportionalists. They founded the (British) Proportional Representation Society (PRS). It was a successor to the 1859-1874 Representative Reform Society.

Jones, Politics of Reform (1972), says that Lubbock (PRS's first president), Leonard Courtney and Albert Grey were absurd. Hart though said Lubbock put the case for PR in sensible and moderate terms. (Hart, PR Critics of the British Electoral System 1820-1945, p. 122) 

The PR campaign was plagued by the usual resistance from elected politicians and the public, and also by divergence of opinion on the best replacement for FPTP (not resolved until December 1884), and by difficulty in presenting the case for ER. (Jenifer Hart, PR Critics of the British Electoral System 1820-1945, p. 100, 101, 122)


1884 Gladstone Reform Bill/Representation of the People Act passed into law.


1884 -- Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) published his 1884 pamphlet ''The Principles of Parliamentary Representation'', which gave a general explanation of PR and endorsed large District Magnitude multi-member districts [I don't know how large DM he was discussing] with each voter casting one vote only. [SNTV?]


1884-1885  United Kingdom -- The radical newspaper The Democrat covered the electoral reforms that were happening in the United Kingdom.

In the December 13, 1884 issue (page 4), it said that the formation of single-member districts as indicated under the proposed Redistribution Bill would affect change to a system "that  stands in great need of improvement," but the move to SMDs was not "by any means the best plan that could be adopted."

MMDs should be retained ("large boroughs should remain undivided") and "the wants of all electors being provided for by giving each man one vote." 

The writer looks at Liverpool (at the time the district had three members but the city was to have nine MPs in nine SMDs under the new Redistribution Bill), and states that if large MMDs were used, the nine members for Liverpool would be elected in one district, and each tenth part of the voters there would elect a member, "and the different phases of opinion would be represented." 

"Put in this way, the system of PR has suddenly become clear to many persons who hitherto have been hazy on the subject. The plan is now seen to be very simple. We have only to widen the district to secure the representation of all classes of the community in proportion to their numbers... 

"Most of us have gone through our lives without ever having had an opportunity of voting for any man about whom we had any personal knowledge, and yet we flatter ourselves that we have been represented. Such is the force of habit and custom that we are contented to have our members selected for us, and we vote for them in utter blindness and ignorance. Thus the community loses the advantage it might gain from the exercise of the judgement and direction of each elector. 

"But if a number of candidates are presented, each voter would probably know something of some of them, and then give the public the benefit of experience by voting for a suitable candidate.

"A large constituency returning several members with the one man one vote system is proportional representation. An area comprising say 100 members would afford ample scope for proportional representation, and it would be well within manageable compass. As the object of representation is to represent, and as each elector has an equal right to representation, it is clear that we ought to adopt a system that will give effect to the professed object of our electoral system, which, it is perfectly obvious, our present system does not do.

"Safeguards may be added to secure the utilization of votes by allowing each elector to put ten or more names on the ballot paper [preferential ballot, bearing back-up preferences]... it is difficult to see why this should be called complicated. Nothing however can be simple and plain to those who do not think about it, and therefore there are still some persons who declare that they cannot understand PR."

If this route was taken, "we may safely assume that the Redistribution Bill will not be altered for the worse, and that we shall realize a great gain, sufficient to reward and stimulate political activity, and secure at least some representation for the industrial classes, who are now almost wholly excluded from the House of Commons."

"... The Bill may be improved by keeping the large constituencies together and limiting each elector to one vote. It would be still better to enlarge the area of constituencies and thus increase the effect of PR. By these means we may become assured that no considerable section of the community will be without representation, and that artificial majorities will become a thing of the past."



1885  Redistribution Law was passed. Moved U.K. elections to just single-member districts, thus stopping the use of Limited Voting that had been in effect in 13 three-seat ridings since 1867. (Jenifer Hart, PR Critics of the British Electoral System 1820-1945, p. 119)

The move to SMDs was done purposefully to prevent representation of "the masses."(see Matthew Roberts, "Electoral reform dilemmas: are single-member constituencies out of date?" https://historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/electoral-reform-dilemmas-are-single-member-constituencies-out-of-date/)


Not achieving PR in 1884/5 was seen as a setback for the PR campaign.

"PR Society (Britain) showed common weaknesses of organizations run almost wholly by volunteers - unrealistic optimism amongst some in the cause, combined with defeatism amongst others, but it also displayed some of the common strengths of such bodies, namely an immense amount of devoted labor performed by its supporters and largely voluntary  staff. 

Its main mistake [in pursuing PR in 1884/5] was probably not to settle on the form of PR it recommended until December 1884. That left many people confused about the subject, though discussion about the means of obtaining PR should not have prevented them from understanding the principle." (Jenifer Hart, PR Critics of the British Electoral System 1820-1945, p. 100, 101, 122)


The settling on a system to replace FPTP has never been permanently resolved. (UK held a referendum on adoption of Alternative Voting in 2011.)

In Canada, STV was not decided on as the best alternative until around 1900, from what I understand.

And now (in 2025) most countries in the world use one or another form of list PR (almost all using MMDs of various sizes), with only three using STV in national elections (Ireland, Malta, Australia), and only a few using MMP (only three using MMP with FPTP and list top-up -- NZ, Germany, Lesotho).

So the options open to us are wider than back in 1900 or in the 1800s, making choosing the most suitable replacement of FPTP more difficult rather than easier.)

===========


(1885  Albert Grey, an MP at the time (later the 4th Earl Grey), helped organize a STV election among British miners. Its success furthered the PR cause in UK. 6645 votes cast; only 40 spoiled. (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 129-130); The Times, Jan. 26, 1885) (Earl Grey served as Canada's Governor General 1904-1911. see 1904))

(Albert Grey 1851-1917)


(1886, 1890 Canada -- Toronto used Limited Voting to elect its 3 MLAs -- three-seat city-wide district, each voter could cast two votes.)


1887 New Zealand - a legislative PR bill failed to become law. Proposal was to have country divided into two MMDs, each of 20 members and to use STV to elect the members. These districts were considered too big; the government anyway was on its last legs; and opposition to the proposal was strong. (see John Hall's speech in Report of meeting on "Proportional representation," or effective voting, held at River House, Chelsea, on Tuesday, July 10th 1894, online hathitrust.) (see 1991)


1890s-1920s U.S. (Canada as well) Progressive movement sought to make government efficient, clean, free from corruption of Party bosses (like in the Tammany Hall in NYC), and expert-driven. Progressives advocated for urban infrastructure; others for help for the poor; others for federal food safety laws and anti-trust legislation.  (Zelizer, In Defense of Partisanship (2025), p. 33)

And many Progressives believed in nonpartisan government, hence support for STV. "Some Progressives also added proportional representation to this reform agenda. They realized that winner-take-all, single-member district elections served to reinforce the power of urban political machines. It was not unusual for a party machine to win almost all the seats on city councils, based on only 50-60 percent of the vote." leaving no seats for the reform-minded minority. see https://electoral-reform.org.uk/latest-news-and-research/publications/a-short-history-of-stv-in-the-us/

(In Canada from 1890s to 1920s, Progressive-style reforms were put forward by labour and farmer activists and clearly by the "Progressive Party" formed in 1921. Clean-government campaigns in cities in western Canada pushed for Commission Plan or Commissioner-Manager government, and sometimes for electoral reform. (see 1913 Edmonton)


1891   Japan was the first country to adopt SNTV for election of government members. In 1891 Japan adopted SNTV for provincial politicians (and in 1900 for national politicians - members of House of Representatives), where administrative areas were used as electoral districts, with DM ranging from 1 to 12. Later redistribution was done by adding or subtracting members, not by redrawing boundaries.

Already by 1891 it was noticed that "in certain of the administrative areas a minority of the voters often obtained a majority of the elected members. It was almost impossible for political parties to obtain representation in proportion to the strength of their supporters." A system of single voting based on Marshall's Cumulative Voting was devised by Kametro Hayashida, Secretary of the Japanese House of Representatives. This was said to produce district PR and also allowed Independents to be elected.

But the system "lacked the elasticity and adaptability that an election system should have" (Humphreys). Parties needed to regulate the size of their slates.

Robert Tyson described the system in "Electoral Wisdom of Japan", The Arena, Sept. 1904. At the time, he said it used 47 districts with average of 8 members each.

DM ranged from 5 to 15. (Tokyo with 1.5M residents had 15 members) (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 74, 217, 284; Hoag and Hallet, Proportional Representation (1926), p. 45)


(1891/1892 Switzerland -- First documented public use of party-list PR in Europe, in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. A revolution broke out, and a politician was killed and other politicians arrested by the people.  Colonel Kunzli, the investigating federal official, proposed use of PR to establish a body on constitutional reform, and Conservatives passed a law adopting PR for elections. The adoption of PR prevented a civil war, it is said.  (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 129)

(in 2025 Electoral Reform Society of UK's newsletter had article on how the Swiss got PR: https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/how-did-switzerland-get-proportional-representation/)

Geneva adopted list PR in 1892. (Switzerland adopted PR for national elections in 1918.)

Most Swiss canton councils and local governments were using list PR by 1927. Switzerland adopted list PR because it fit in with previous voting practice -- Swiss voters were used to voting for party under the scrutin de liste system.

Swiss list-PR allowed voters to cast multiple votes.

The system used in the canton of Zug allowed Cumulative Voting.

Adoption of PR came after several cantons adopted Direct Legislation in 1861. The right of Initiative allowed any 2500 citizens of the 20,000 Geneva citizens to introduce a law.

The campaign for Direct Legislation overlapped with the drive for PR in many parts of the world -- see https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/pantheon-of-reformers-alfred-cridge-annie-denton-cridge-alfred-jr-and-william-denton

(D.R. Record, June 1893 (online p. 74/744); Humphreys, PR (1917), p. 197; Hoag & Hallett 1926, p. 65, 66; Arena, vol. 34, 1904) (see 1900, 1918)



(1892/1893 Sandford Fleming, one of Canada's leading scientists at the time, published two books on electoral reform. One included an essay by Catherine Helen Spence, who toured Canada at that time, and an essay by former Canadian Alfred Cridge.) (Spence, Ever Yours, p. 148) (see my blog https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/fleming-essays-on-rectification-of-parliament-1893-part-1)


1893-1894 Catherine Helen Spence, one of Australia's leading proportionalists, toured U.S.A., Canada and the United Kingdom. Later she said her conversion of Robert Tyson to the PR causes was one of her best achievements in this tour. (C.H. Spence, Ever Yours, C.H., p. 144-163) (Tyson see 1899)


(1893 North America (U.S. and Canada) -- PR League published the PR Review 1893-1895 1914-1928. https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=propreprev)



1893  August 10-12 Chicago - Electoral Reform convention.

Catherine Helen Spence spoke there.

Convention chose two systems as their preference - list PR as per Geneva law and the Gove system (Indirect STV). STV was discussed and endorsed by Montague Leverson, who was billed to speak in favour of a proxy plan, which combined varying number of votes per elected member and what today is called liquid democracy.)

Alfred Cridge on "Majority Myths"

(see also "The Proportional Representation Congress" by Stoughton Cooley, in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 4 (Nov., 1893), p. 112-117 (6 pages).  https://www.jstor.org/stable/1009042?seq=1



1894 Catherine Helen Spence author of article "P.R. the only effective moralizer of politics" Arena, 1894 [online: 10/767]


1894 -- Belgium began its incremental journey toward PR by adopting tentative and partial list PR in the larger municipal councils. (Humphreys, PR (1911), p. 115-116)

Curtis (PR, 1908, p. 14) noted that in Belgium each voter had one vote and either voted for a ticket or for a candidate, in which case vote used as vote for party and for that candidate. (see 1899) (see footnote)


1896 National Direct Legislation League founded in U.S.

Eltweed Pomeroy was president (formerly he had been secretary of the DL League of New Jersey). In 1897 he put article in New Times A Magazine of Social Progress "Representation Does not Represent", saying among other things that geographic representation is all FPTP does and that is no longer good enough.

[The idea that representation is about "people, not trees or acres" is mentioned in James L. McDowall, The Orange-Ballot Election - the 1964 Illinois at-large vote" . https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112103937048&seq=307\]



(1896 Australia -- Catherine Helen Spence (see 1840, 1861) in her book What is Effective Voting? again proposed that multi-member districts, not at-large, be the best way for STV to operate. She suggested no less than 6 seats in each district, with 7 or 8 being preferred. (Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 26; Newman, Hare-Clark, p. 16))


(1897 Tasmania used STV (a variant called Hare-Clark or Hare-Spence) for election of members of state chamber to represent cities of Hobart and Launceston.

First use in the world of STV (with both transfers from eliminated and elected candidates).

10 members elected through district STV; 28 members elected through FPTP.

Hobart elected six members through STV in city-wide district.

Launceston elected four through STV in city-wide district.

Hare quota. Surplus votes held by elected candidates were transferred non-randomly by the Exact Method (the system later used in Canada). (see footnote for clarification)

John H. Humphreys , PR (1911), p. 141-2 states that Hare-Clark form of STV used the exact method for transfer of surplus votes, as does Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 27

The votes' total was recorded as a whole-vote integer.

Semi-optional preferential voting -- voter had to mark as many preferences as half the number of seats in the district. Hare-Spence used again in 1900 election, then Tasmania went back to using FPTP in single-member districts. then switched to permanent STV -- 1909 used STV (Hare-Clark) to elect all members in Tasmania. in use ever since. (see 1909).

Later three other states and two territories in Australia have also switched to using STV for election of members of their upper house, and two have switched to using STV for election of members of their lower house. -- see "Australia's switch to STV." in Montopedia blog "explanatory notes") (Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 27; Newman, Hare-Clark in Tasmania - "Representation of All Opinions", p. 9, 47-48))

see Johnston, Observations on the working results of the Hare System... online:

During the use of STV in Tasmania, in six contests, in every case the leaders in the first count went on to be elected. (Robert Tyson, "Cumulative Voting in Toronto", The Public,  March 19, 1904, tyson-robert_proportional-representation-in-toronto-1904-mar-19.pdf)

==========================================


1899  Belgium adopted PR using list PR. Members were elected in multi-member districts, each having 2 to 18 seats. Seats were allocated to parties using the D'Hondt method. (PR already had been used at city level.)

Ashworth and Ashworth PR Applied to party government (1900) stated:

"Belgium has also quite recently adopted a scheme of proportional representation. As in Switzerland, its advent was hastened by political disturbances. The Catholic party, not satisfied with exerting a preponderating influence in the country districts, wished to obtain also its proportionate share of representation 
in the cities and proposed a scheme of proportional represent-ation for them only. This caused such ill feeling that riots took place in the streets of Brussels. Finally, proportional representation was promised all round, and became law for both the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate at the latter end of 1899."

PR addressed Belgium's previous artificially-created regionalism - prior to PR no Catholic was elected in an industrial or French-speaking region; no Socialist or Liberal in a Flemish-speaking or farming region. Peace and unity were seriously menaced due to the artificially-disproportional regional rep. Thanks to PR each party became truly national, and soon knew how to harmonize, and began to seek to harmonize, the ideas and desires, the interests and the needs of all parts of the country. Under a non-PR system, a shift of a few votes changed the entire complexion of the election, while under PR a change could only come through a profound change in public opinion (according to Hoag and Hallet, P.R. (1926), p. 67).

Belgium had experienced Europe's first true general strike in 1893 after politicians blocked a widening of voting privileges. Perhaps 20 strikers killed in six-day strike, but government gave vote to all men over 25, increasing the voter list tenfold.

Labor uprisings and strikes threatened public order in Belgium in 1899, leading to adoption of PR.

General strikes in 1902 and 1913 led to promises of further reforms but WWI interceded. Plural voting dropped in 1919, women's suffrage achieved in 1948.

==


It seems the threat of rebellion drove the change to PR that was achieved in many European countries in the early 1900s. Labor uprisings and strikes "effectively threatened the entire nation" in Belgium (1899), Finland (1906), Sweden (1907), Switzerland (1917), and the Netherlands (1918). The strikers explicitly demanded PR, and electoral reform and the adoption of PR was a direct result of these threats. (Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems, p. 394)

Even with PR, unsettled political situation (general strike threatened) -- Belgium held 8 elections by 1915. But in part due to PR, serious violence was prevented.

(As well by that time Belgians had been successful in fighting against restricted franchise. Previous to 1893 only those of wealthy tax brackets and some other voters had had the vote. The restriction on voting was abolished in 1893 after the first general strike in Europe and replaced with plural voting for the better-off. Plural voting for some was used in elections from 1894 to 1919 as a way to limit the impact of universal suffrage. The system was unpopular, and two more general strikes were held, in 1902 and 1913, demanding it to be abolished, which was finally achieved in 1919.)

(FVC has country study on Belgium, showing the situation when it adopted PR in 1899. Humphreys PR 1911 discusses Belgium's PR (1911), pages 115-116.

Catherine Helen Spence Ever Yours, C.H. discusses Belgium's PR pg. 182-183

Electoral Reform Society -- Belgium's adoption of PR (1899):

(see 1919)

(use of list PR in Belgian national elections so successful that in 1911 discussion was afoot of extending PR to provincial councils. Belgium provincial councils elected through STV starting in 1921) [I don't know why system switched to STV at provincial level]  

(see footnote)

==============


For events after 1899, see

Part 2 1900-1919


Part 2 1920-1971


 Part 3 1972-

========


Footnotes:

see Jenifer Hart's book Proportional Representation for much info on the progress of electoral reform in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries


1897 Tasmania election - what transfer method was used to transfer surplus votes?

Newman Hare-Clark in Tasmania, p. 9 leads one to think that the 1897 Tasmania election used a form of Gregory

but Humphreys (p. 141-2) is quite clear it was the Exact Method.

Inclusive Gregory Method -- All of the candidate's votes were transferred as fractional votes, the transfer value to be derived by ratio of surplus votes to total votes held by the candidate. Such procedure guaranteed proportional transfer as to next usable preference and also as to all back-up preferences marked on the ballot.

Due to the technology available in 1897, It seems if any Gregory was used, that Hare-Clark used only the Gregory method (using just last parcel), and not the Inclusive Gregory method.

================================================


Further reading

Belgium's adoption of PR (1899):


Netherland's adoption of PR (1917):


Ireland's adoption of PR:

=================================

Recent Posts

See All
Timeline of Montopedia blogs on Electoral Reform

Montopedia blogs on Electoral Reform arranged in chronological order for general overview, see -Timeline of Electoral Reform (four parts) -Timeline of Canadian Electoral Reform (six parts) (note when

 
 
 

Comments

© 2019 by Tom Monto. Proudly created with Wix.com

History | Tom Monto Montopedia is a blog about the history, present, and future of Edmonton, Alberta. Run by Tom Monto, Edmonton historian. Fruits of my research, not complete enough to be included in a book, and other works.

bottom of page