Compound Householder

Compound householder. The payment of rates was formerly one of the ingredients in the qualification for the parliamentary franchise; but modern statutes have enabled the owners of small houses to pay the rates for the occupiers and receive a composition for so doing. To prevent the occupiers being disfranchised by this process, it was enacted that they might claim to be rated themselves, and such householders so claiming became commonly known as 'compound householders,' as appears from the title to the Act, 14 & 15 Vict. c. 14, now repealed, see Representation of People Act, 1918, Schedule 8.