What is "rotten borough"

Rotten \Rot"ten\, a. [Icel. rotinn; akin to Sw. rutten, Dan. radden. See Rot.] Having rotted; putrid; decayed; as, a rotten apple; rotten meat. Hence:

1. Offensive to the smell; fetid; disgusting.

   You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek of the rotten fens.
   --Shak.

2. Not firm or trusty; unsound; defective; treacherous; unsafe; as, a rotten plank, bone, stone. ``The deepness of the rotten way.''
   --Knolles.

   Rotten borough. See under Borough.

   Rotten stone (Min.), a soft stone, called also Tripoli (from the country from which it was formerly brought), used in all sorts of finer grinding and polishing in the arts, and for cleaning metallic substances. The name is also given to other friable siliceous stones applied to like uses.

   Syn: Putrefied; decayed; carious; defective; unsound; corrupt; deceitful; treacherous. [1913 Webster] -- Rot"ten*ly, adv. -- Rot"ten*ness, n.

Borough \Bor"ough\, n. [OE. burgh, burw, boru, port, town, burrow, AS. burh, burg; akin to Icel., Sw., & Dan. borg, OS. & D. burg, OHG. puruc, purc, MHG. burc, G. burg, Goth. ba['u]rgs; and from the root of AS. beorgan to hide, save, defend, G. bergen; or perh. from that of AS. beorg hill, mountain. [root]95. See Bury, v. t., and cf. Burrow, Burg, Bury, n., Burgess, Iceberg, Borrow, Harbor, Hauberk.]

1. In England, an incorporated town that is not a city; also, a town that sends members to parliament; in Scotland, a body corporate, consisting of the inhabitants of a certain district, erected by the sovereign, with a certain jurisdiction; in America, an incorporated town or village, as in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
   --Burrill. Erskine.

2. The collective body of citizens or inhabitants of a borough; as, the borough voted to lay a tax.

   Close borough, or Pocket borough, a borough having the right of sending a member to Parliament, whose nomination is in the hands of a single person.

   Rotten borough, a name given to any borough which, at the time of the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, contained but few voters, yet retained the privilege of sending a member to Parliament.

n. (context historical English) A borough that was represented in parliament although it had very few voters.

n. an English parliamentary constituency with few electors

Rotten Borough (ISBN 0947795839) was a book published in 1937 by the British writer Oliver Anderson, using the pseudonym Julian Pine. Withdrawn soon after release, it was republished in 1989.

The book, a satirical novel based on the author's observations of life in the town of Grantham, where he was educated. On release, it caused a national controversy and threats of libel actions in Britain because of the perception that its characters were based on real people, including Lord Brownlow, a friend of King Edward VIII who had also served as mayor of Grantham. The book was withdrawn after three weeks.

The book received renewed public attention in the 1980s, because another character in the book, Councillor Nurture, was thought to be based on Alfred Roberts, the father of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, although Anderson denied this. The book was republished in 1989.

John Campbell, in his biography of Margaret Thatcher, described the novel as a dated and juvenile lampoon of small-town life, and believed that Councillor Nurture was actually based on Councillor Foster, another prominent Grantham councillor at the time.