Blackballed?

No, not a painful disease of gentlemanly parts, but the result of an election, usually to a private club, when the candidate is rejected.

I was lucky enough to visit the Jockey Club’s Rooms in Newmarket the other day and not only do they have a very large collection of the boxes that secret voting on membership  requires, but also the book where successful elections by this method were recorded.

The members who are voting take a black or white ball, holding it concealed in their hand, and then drop it into a bag or box. Rather easier to manage, without the need to conceal the ball in your hand, is with a ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ box like this one from the Jockey Club.

You put your hand into the hole and then drop the ball to either left or right into the appropriate drawer – the ‘sleeve’ is long enough to conceal any movement of your arm which might give away which option you are taking. Once all the members have dropped in their ballots it was simply a case of pulling out the drawers and seeing the result.

In most clubs the presence of one ‘no’ ball or one black ball was enough to cause the candidate to be rejected – or blackballed. Here is the Jockey Club register of members ‘Elected by Ballot’ for the early years of the 19th century – May 1800 to April 1806. In some cases the date is accompanied by which race meeting the members were gathered for “First Spring Meeting 1806” and so forth. (Sorry about the reflections but the case was under powerful spotlights!)

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