Vickipedia

POT-WALLERS, or POT-WALLOPERS (from pot, and Old English wall, to boil or bubble), the popular designation of a class of electors forming the constituency of various English boroughs —as Ilchester, Honiton Tregoney, Old Sarum— before the Reform Act of 1832, whose qualification as housekeepers was considered to be established by their boiling a pot within the limits of the borough over a fireplace erected in the open air. The doing so was regarded as evidence that the elector was in circumstances to provide for his own subsistence, and not necessitated to apply for parochial relief.