Derbyshire South

Economic and social profile:

As well as agriculture, the economy of south Derbyshire included extractive industries and manufacturing, particularly that of textiles. The coal and iron deposits along the border with Nottinghamshire in the east continued to be exploited commercially in the nineteenth century, in many cases by landed families such as the Hurts of Alderwasley or the Miller Mundys of Shipley.1G. Turbutt, A history of Derbyshire (1999), iv. 1436-44, 1459-60 and Maps 16 & 17. The manufacture of silk, lace and ceramics was concentrated in the mid-eastern portion of the county, notably in Derby, Belper, Ilkeston and Long Eaton.2Ibid., Maps 18 & 24. The Strutt family’s three cotton mills, built between 1776 and 1796, dominated the town of Belper, which had a population of 10,082 by 1851.3Ibid., 1500; PP 1852-53 (962), lxxxiii. 423. Land was dispersed among many gentry and a few noble families. In addition to those mentioned already, the most important landowners included the Chandos-Poles of Radbourne, the Wilmots of Chaddesden, the Crewes of Calke, the Gresleys of Drakelow, the Mundys of Markeaton, the Scarsdales of Kedleston, the Cokes of Longford and the Vernons of Sudbury.4Turbutt, iv. 1661; HoP 1820-32. In 1843, one observer described the pattern of land tenure in the following terms: ‘The freeholders are more numerous than extensive, and the principal occupants of the soil are tenants at will’.5S. Bagshaw, History, gazetteer and directory of Derbyshire (1843), 14. The decline in grain prices in the first half of the century meant that Derbyshire farmers increasingly turned to livestock and dairy products, particularly cheese.6Turbutt, iv. 1524-25.

Electoral history:

The parliamentary representation of Derbyshire had for many years been divided between the Whig dukes of Devonshire, whose estates dominated the north of the county, and the southern-based Tory gentry. Consequently, apart from a frivolous challenge in 1820, the last genuine contest had occurred in 1768.7HP Commons 1715-1754, i. 223; ibid., 1754-1790, i. 248; ibid., 1790-1820, ii. 94-95; ibid., 1820-1832, ii. 232-6; C. Hogarth, ‘The Derbyshire parliamentary elections of 1832’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal (1969), lxxxix. 68-85 (at 68). The Reform Act of 1832 split the county into northern and southern divisions which, at times, seemed to merely formalise the old arrangement. The Liberals retained control of both North Derbyshire seats throughout the period, opposed on only three occasions, and one seat was always held by a Cavendish. The picture in the south was more complicated, if superficially similar to the pre-1832 situation. Although the Reformers took both seats in 1832, the Conservatives won both in 1835 and retained control unchallenged after 1841 until 1857, when a Liberal and Liberal-Conservative were returned. The Conservatives regained a seat in 1859, but the Liberals won both in 1865. The Conservatives’ dominance was hard-fought, owing much to the party’s incessant campaigning, efficient organisation, and attention to the registers in the 1830s and 1840s. Thereafter the political weather was made by the charismatic Charles Robert Colvile, who began his career as a staunch protectionist and, after a period as a Liberal-Conservative, ended it as a Liberal. Forty shilling freeholders dominated the new electorate, with 4,662 electors out of a total of 6,575 qualifying as such in 1837-38, and tenants-at-will forming the next largest group with 1,539, a structure that did not substantially change during the period.8PP 1837-38 (329), xliv. 557; 1840 (579), xxxix. 188; 1844 (11), xxxvii. 428; 1847 (751), xlvi. 337; 1852 (8), xlii. 310; 1860 (277), lv. 86.

The traditional compromise had ruptured at the 1831 general election when the unpopular Tory incumbent Francis Mundy was forced to retire, allowing the youthful Whig, George Vernon of Sudbury Hall, son of the 4th Baron Vernon, to join Lord George Augustus Henry Cavendish as member, with William, Lord Cavendish replacing his grandfather at a by-election, 22 Sept. 1831. Anxious to restore the political balance of the county, the 6th duke of Devonshire asked Lord Cavendish and Vernon to stand for the northern division in 1832 as his kinsman, Lord Waterpark, of Doveridge Hall, had already offered for the south and the duke considered it impolitic for the Reformers to have both southern seats.9Hogarth, ‘Derbyshire elections of 1832’, 72-75; HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 236. Vernon reluctantly acceded, but, conscious that his family’s lands were concentrated in the other half of the county and wary of appearing to be Devonshire’s nominee, his friends found it easy to persuade him that he should come forward as an independent in the south. The other candidate was the Tory Sir Roger Gresley, of Drakelow, who had briefly sat for Durham and New Romney in the unreformed parliament.10Hogarth, ‘Derbyshire elections of 1832’, 75-79. A proud defender of his votes against reform, Gresley was subjected to a ‘furious attack’ on entering Derby, 12 Nov. 1832, when his carriage was pelted with stones, brickbats and ‘great quantities of rubbish’, the last having been ‘previously gathered for the purpose’.11Derby Mercury, 21 Nov. 1832. At the nomination Waterpark rejected accusations that he had been spotted in a brothel and Vernon defended himself from claims that he was against the agricultural interest.12Ibid., 19 Dec. 1832. Despite running separate campaigns, the two Liberals were elected, sharing 2,699 votes, while Gresley relied heavily on plumpers, which accounted for 1,574 of his 1,957 votes.13A list of the electors for the southern division of the county of Derbyshire (1832), 4.

In 1835 the incumbents sought re-election, though Vernon, convalescing on the south coast, only stood reluctantly after much indecisiveness, and on the condition that he took no part in the campaign.14C. Hogarth, ‘The 1835 elections in Derbyshire’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal (1974), xciv. 45-59 (at 45-48); Derby Mercury, 10 Dec. 1834. The responsibility for the Liberal campaign therefore fell on Waterpark, whose parliamentary attendance was much criticised as it was widely reported that he had voted just twenty-two times out of nearly 230 divisions.15Derby Mercury, 10 Dec. 1834, 17 Dec. 1834, 31 Dec. 1834. He also held a public meeting to rebut allegations that he had been given two black eyes by one of Gresley’s tenants in fight at a local brothel.16Ibid., 17 Dec. 1834. The Conservative candidates were Gresley, who favoured currency reform and the abolition of the malt tax, and Sir George Crewe, of Calke Abbey, and they benefited from a thorough joint canvass.17Ibid., 24 Dec. 1834, 31 Dec. 1834. The Conservatives captured both seats, enjoying winning margins of over 500 votes. After their defeat, local Liberals sought to persuade Vernon to commit to standing again, as another election was considered imminent due to the minority status of Peel’s government. After more indecision, Vernon declined, and the prospect of any future candidature was ruled out by his succession as 5th Baron Vernon, 18 Nov. 1835.18Derby Mercury, 13 May 1835; Hogarth, ‘The 1835 elections in Derbyshire’, 51-57.

Ill-health forced Gresley to step down at the 1837 election, when rumours of a Whig challenge came to nothing, leaving Crewe and the Conservative Francis Hurt, lord of the manor of Alderswasley, to be returned unopposed, although they still took care to tour the constituency. (At Ashbourne, 22 July, Crewe faced the dissatisfaction of some electors who were unhappy with his abstention on the Irish corporation bill, thinking that such a measure would weaken the Irish Church.)19Derby Mercury, 5 July 1837, 12 July 1837, 26 July 1837. The nomination was notable for Crewe’s forthright attack on the new poor law, which he rejected on the grounds that ‘every industrious man had a clear and indefensible right to receive assistance when in distress and poverty’ without penalty.20Ibid., 2 Aug. 1837.

During the 1830s the Conservatives strengthened their grip through the registration courts, aided by the formation of the South Derbyshire Independent and Conservative Association (SDICA) in 1836, the Derby Operative Conservative Association (1838) and the Derby Protestant Association (1839).21Ibid., 9 Mar. 1836, 3 Oct. 1838, 5 June 1839. The party consistently made gains on the registers through objections, but it was the quantity of successful new claims which secured their overall dominance.22Ibid., 30 Sept. 1835, 9 Nov. 1836, 11 Oct. 1837, 10 Oct. 1838. Between 1834 and 1839 the Conservatives achieved a total net gain of 48 in objections, but of 219 in new claims.23Derby Mercury, 4 Dec. 1839. As a result, by 1838 South Derbyshire was considered by Fraser’s Magazine to be in the firm possession of the Conservatives, ‘the whole business of registration’ having ‘subsided into mere routine’.24Fraser’s Magazine (1838), xviii. 629-36 (at 630).

Liberals convinced themselves otherwise. In 1839, the Morning Chronicle, following a Whig gain of 86 in the local registration courts (but, crucially, not including new claims), predicted that the Conservatives would lose one of their South Derbyshire seats at the next election.25Morn. Chro., 21 Nov. 1839. At the 1841 contest, they felt confident enough of their chances to bring forward Waterpark and Matthew Gisborne of Malcalf, Chapel-en-le-Frith, who faced two new Conservatives, Charles Robert Colvile of Lullington Hall, and Edward Miller Mundy of Shipley Hall, the chairman of the SDICA from 1836 to 1841, whose grandfather and namesake had been a county member (1784-18 Oct. 1822). The Conservative transition was smoothly handled, with the retirement of Crewe and Hurt and the candidatures of Colvile and Mundy announced at a meeting, 24 Apr. 1840, after which the prospective candidates attended and spoke at the regular meetings and dinners of the Conservative, Operative and Protestant associations.26Derby Mercury, 29 Apr. 1840, 6 May 1840, 4 June 1840, 21 Oct. 1840, 30 June 1841. At the nomination, Colvile and Mundy were nominated by the outgoing members and offered firm support to the Church and agricultural protection, with the former also favouring major modifications to the poor law.27Ibid., 14 July 1841. Although Waterpark and Gisborne won the show of hands, the election saw Colvile and Mundy returned by a considerable margin, the Liberals trailing in every polling district apart from Belper, the home of the Strutts.28Ibid. A Times correspondent noted the ‘mortification’ of local Whigs and Radicals, who, expecting their opponents’ majorities to be halved, were stunned to see them ‘nearly doubled’.29The Times, 16 July 1841.

After the election it transpired that a number of framework knitters hired from Nottinghamshire had attempted to impersonate Conservative voters, although allegations of a wider Liberal conspiracy remained unproven.30Derby Mercury, 21 July 1841. At the Derbyshire assizes, 16-17 Mar. 1842, the judges concluded that the defendants were dupes, largely unaware of what they were doing and, in some cases, drunk - one man said ‘Lord Waterproof’ when he was asked for his vote at the polling station.31Ibid., 23 Mar. 1842. The conspirators, who pleaded guilty, received six months in prison, and the impersonators’ sentences varied from three months without labour to twelve months with hard labour.32Ibid. A petition by local Conservatives, presented by Mundy 22 Apr. 1842, outlined the details of the case and called for an amendment in the law to prevent further impersonation.33Derby Mercury, 27 Apr. 1842; CJ, xcvii (1841), 218. A short personation of voters bill, aiming to improve prevention at polling stations, was introduced in 1843, but its main provisions were enacted in the Registration of Voters Act passed in the same session, which also allowed for compensation to be paid to electors wrongly accused of impersonation, an attempt to prevent false claims being made by party agents at the poll.34PP 1843 (14), iii. 143-46; 1843 (138), iv. 88-90; 1843 (266), iv. 146-48; 6 & 7 Vict. c.18. Whether as a result of the new legislation or not, impersonation does not appear to have recurred in South Derbyshire.

Religious issues energised the Conservatives throughout the 1840s. Many, including Mundy and Colvile, were strongly opposed to the Maynooth grant and the ‘semi-popery’ of the Tractarians, and helped to lead the local campaign to finance and build new churches.35Derby Mercury, 8 Dec. 1841, 22 June 1842, 19 Mar. 1845, 21 May 1845. The local Protestant association had seven branches by 1842.36Ibid., 22 June 1842. The tenor of South Derbyshire Conservatism was aptly conveyed by a speech of the local party fixer John Ray of Heanor Hall, at the annual operative dinner, 11 Oct. 1842, saying that his party ‘were operating in defence of church and state – of moral order, without which there could be no prosperity’.37Ibid., 19 Oct. 1842. Local supporters were increasingly animated by the Corn Laws and the South Derbyshire Agricultural Protection Society, which was formed 26 Jan. 1844 and garnered 1,500 members, mostly tenant farmers, within its first month, played an important role over the next five years.38Ibid., 31 Jan. 1844, 28 Feb. 1844, 24 Jan. 1845, 14 Jan. 1846, 13 Jan. 1847, 6 June 1849. As country gentlemen, and assiduous attendees of local meetings and dinners, Colvile and Mundy were well-placed to understand and articulate farmers’ discontent, especially as the former was chairman of the local Royal Agricultural Society branch and president of Burton-on-Trent Farmers’ Club.39Ibid., 17 Feb. 1841, 31 Aug. 1842. On the other side, although Derby’s representatives were free traders and an effigy of Peel was burnt by a mob disappointed with his 1842 budget, the issue of the Corn Laws did little to enhance Liberal prospects in the county.40Ibid., 16 Feb. 1842. This was despite the efforts of Cobden, who, at a meeting in Derby, 9 Dec. 1845, attended by a mostly working class audience, launched a campaign to enfranchise new voters under the 40s. freehold franchise by the purchase and division of plots of land. This had proved to be a successful tactic for the League in many of the northern county seats and also in Middlesex, and Cobden saw no reason why it could not be repeated in South Derbyshire, especially if local Liberals worked with allies from North Nottinghamshire.41Morn. Chro. 11 Dec. 1845; The League, iii (1846), 229; J. Prest, Politics in the Age of Cobden (1976), 87.

Although the freehold strategy led to the enfranchisement of 68 voters in 1846, and a slight advantage was gleaned from objections, Liberal registration prospects were undermined by the continued efficiency of their opponents, who achieved gains in new claims of 95, 169 and 97 in 1843, 1844 and 1845 respectively.42Derby Mercury, 11 Oct. 1843, 23 Oct. 1844, 5 Nov. 1845, 7 Oct. 1846. It was no surprise, therefore, when Colvile and Mundy were returned without opposition at the 1847 election, with the Liberals shunning the nomination. Both candidates expressed hostility to the ‘growing demands of Popery’, but promised to give a ‘full and fair trial’ to free trade, with Colvile also hoping that Whig plans for improving education and the health of towns would be reintroduced.43Ibid., 21 July 1847, 11 Aug. 1847.

The death of Mundy, 29 Jan. 1849, created a vacancy that was filled by his kinsman, William Mundy, of Markeaton Hall (the son of Francis Mundy, county member 25 Nov. 1822-1831) who was selected at a Conservative meeting, 3 Mar. 1849.44Ibid., 7 Mar. 1849. Politically, Mundy was cut from the same cloth as his predecessor, expressing a ‘great distrust of modern theories of Free Trade’, which led him to oppose the repeal of the Navigation Laws.45Ibid., 7 Mar. 1849, 14 Mar. 1849. He was against further concessions to Catholics and the removal of Jewish disabilities, but was in favour of retrenchment, except in regard to naval and military spending, and supported a non-interventionist foreign policy.46 Ibid., 7 Mar. 1849, 14 Mar. 1849, 21 Mar. 1849, 28 Mar. 1849. Although Mundy was returned unopposed at the nomination, which lasted three-quarters of an hour, 23 Mar. 1849, his campaign did not run entirely smoothly. Embarking on a thorough tour of the constituency, Mundy was plagued by a report that he had prevented a Wesleyan tenant from using his house for religious services.47Ibid., 14 Mar. 1849, 21 Mar. 1849, 28 Mar. 1849. His explanation that his objection was solely to the use of a private building for a public practice failed to convince Wesleyans, who comprised a not inconsiderable component of local Conservative electoral support and the largest non-Anglican denomination in the county.48For Wesleyan support of Conservatism see the letters in the Derby Mercury, 7 Jan. 1835, 30 June 1841. According to the 1851 Religious Census, 49,065 attended Anglican services on the census days and 32,761 Wesleyan: Turbutt, iv. 1580. See also M. Tranter ‘Introduction’, in The Derbyshire Returns to the 1851 Religious Census, ed. Tranter, Derbyshire Record Society, xxiii. (1995), pp. vii-l (at xlv). For a while it seemed as though there might be a challenge as Liberals organised a requisition for Edward Strutt, the former MP for Derby, who had been unseated the previous year. But, after sounding out local allies about the Liberals electoral prospects, Strutt declined the invitation by letter, 20 Mar. 1849.49Ibid., 21 Mar. 1849, 28 Mar. 1849.

Mundy’s triumph crowned a decade and a half of Conservative dominance, built on their superiority in the registration courts and efficient organisation through the SDICA and overlapping bodies such as the Protestant and Operative associations and the Protection society. In the next decade, however, this formidable party machine began to crumble, and, combined with the increasing independence of Colvile and a modest revival of local Liberalism, the Conservatives lost their ascendancy over the constituency.

The 1852 election was notable for the estrangement of Colvile from the Conservatives. His unwillingness to countenance a reintroduction of agricultural protection and dismissiveness about malt tax repeal had annoyed many supporters, particularly farmers.50Ibid., 8 Jan. 1847, 6 June 1849. His absences - he recuperated from illness by cruising in his yacht around the Continent - and increasingly wayward voting record proved too much for the local party to stomach.51Ibid., 9 May 1849, 23 May 1849. Following a meeting of local Conservative leaders, John Balguy had written to Colvile, 6 Feb. 1852, to tell him ‘you have but little chance of … being again elected’. Although he did not seek to administer blame, Balguy observed that Colvile had ‘lost much of that favour amongst a certain class of your constituents, which you once possessed’. The letter concluded that, in the interests of the party, Colvile should stand aside. Balguy’s letter and the subsequent correspondence was published by Colvile, who sought to present the issue as a struggle between an independent representative and a secretive clique, who wanted ‘a more favourable party instrument’. Deciding not to resign unless he had done something to forfeit the confidence of the electors, he declared, ‘I am not a puppet to be raised up and pulled down at the caprice of a few gentlemen’.52Ibid., 25 Feb. 1852. The unopposed return of Mundy and Colvile disguised this rupture in the Conservative ranks. Mundy stood unambiguously as a supporter of Derby’s ministry, whereas Colvile described himself as a ‘progressive Conservative’ or a ‘Liberal-Conservative’.53Ibid., 30 June 1852, 14 July 1852. Both candidates canvassed separately and agreed that agricultural protection would not return, although Colvile’s stronger pledge that he would not vote for such a measure seems to have been popular.54Ibid., 30 June 1852.

In 1857 the Conservative fracture of 1852 was completed as Colvile came forward as a Liberal-Conservative, rejecting an offer from his erstwhile colleagues to stand alongside Samuel William Clowes of Broughton Hall, Lancashire, the son of Colonel Clowes (a prominent figure in Derbyshire Conservatism in the 1830s and 1840s), the replacement for Mundy, who had retired, stating that his declining health would not permit continuous attendance at Westminster.55Ibid., 11 Mar. 1852. Ostensibly, Colvile objected to the implied threat that if he did not coalesce the party machine would be turned against him, but the real reason was the change in his political opinions.56Ibid., 18 Mar. 1857. Offering a ringing endorsement of Palmerston, Colvile said that his opinions were ‘diametrically opposed’ to those of his former colleague Mundy.57Ibid., 18 Mar. 1857, 25 Mar. 1857, 1 Apr. 1857. He heaped scorn on the vague addresses of the official Conservative candidates, Clowes and Lord Stanhope, heir to the earldom of Chesterfield, saying at the nomination that ‘the more they explain their views the less do I understand them’.58Ibid., 1 Apr. 1857. A tacit alliance emerged between Colvile and the Liberal candidate, Thomas William Evans, of Allestree, whose father, William Evans, had represented North Derbyshire, 1835-53. Addressing voters at Melbourne, 17 Mar., Evans said that he ‘would do nothing to injure’ Colvile, which represented a shift in the Liberals’ original strategy to rely on plumpers.59Ibid., 25 Mar. 1857, 18 Mar. 1857. The result was described as a ‘disaster’ by one Conservative.60Ibid., 8 Apr. 1857. Evans topped the poll with nearly four thousand votes and Colvile was elected by a comfortable margin over Clowes and Stanhope, who finished with 2,105 and 1,972 votes respectively.61Ibid.

Although the Conservatives had lost both seats and the Liberals had acquired a foothold in the constituency for the first time since 1835, there had been few political differences between the four candidates, and the Derby Mercury considered the election as a personal contest.62C. Hogarth, ‘Derby and Derbyshire elections, 1852-1865’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal (1981), ci. 151-72 (at 164); Derby Mercury, 8 Apr. 1857. Palmerston’s popularity had aided Evans and Colvile, and the latter drew off ‘no inconsiderable part’ of local Conservative supporters and displayed ‘untiring activity’ in his canvass.63Derby Mercury, 8 Apr. 1857. Their opponents’ deficiencies, notably two young weak candidates, the atrophy of a once formidable party machine, and some complacency, perhaps, also contributed to the outcome.64Ibid. In addition, the local Freehold Land Society, founded 11 Apr. 1849, had helped achieve modest Liberal gains on the registers, enfranchising a ‘considerable number of Whigs’ in 1849, and posting successful new claims of 6, 19, 18 and 43 between 1851 and 1854.65Ibid., 18 Apr. 1849, 10 Oct. 1849, 8 Oct. 1851, 19 Sept. 1852, 5 Oct. 1853, 8 Nov. 1854.

At the 1859 general election Colvile abruptly retired, professing that he was not up to the exertions required during an election campaign or continued parliamentary duties, an excuse which masked disagreements with local Liberals.66Turbutt, iv. 1587. The former incumbent, William Mundy, was pressed forward as a candidate by local Conservatives, and for a while it appeared as though Evans and Mundy would be returned unopposed, a congenial compromise reminiscent of the pre-1832 era.67Derby Mercury, 13 Apr. 1859. Despite threats that such an act would provoke another Conservative candidate, however, the Liberals brought forward Augustus Henry Vernon, son and heir of 5th Baron Vernon, who had represented the constituency, 1832-35.68Ibid., 20 Apr. 1859. Displaying similar indifference as that of his father, Vernon was shepherded around the constituency by Lord Waterpark and Evans, and said at Ashbourne, 23 Apr. 1859, that he ‘came forward on the distinct understanding that he was pledged to nothing’.69Ibid., 27 Apr. 1859. This led one voter who attended the meeting to write to a local paper that ‘I defy anyone to gather from his [Vernon’s] speech what were his political opinions, or rather, that he had any political opinions at all, except that he generally concurred with Mr Evans’.70Ibid., 27 Apr. 1859. Mundy’s canvass saw the resurfacing of the complaint, first made at the 1849 by-election, that he had improperly interfered with a Wesleyan tenant’s freedom of religious expression.71Ibid., 4 May 1859. At the nomination Vernon was heckled for his youth and inexperience, ‘get him some baby linen’ being one cry, and much of his speech was drowned out by the crowd. Presenting himself as a moderate, Evans opposed the disenfranchisement of county electors with property in boroughs (a feature of the 1859 reform bill) and refused to pledge himself to the ballot, whilst Mundy said he would support a modest extension of the franchise.72Ibid., 4 May 1859, 2nd edn.; PP 1859 (49), ii. 650, 676. The show of hands being won by the Liberals, a poll was demanded by Mundy. The official declaration saw Evans topping the poll with 3,536, with Mundy, despite Vernon’s poor performance, scraping in on a single vote, securing a total of 3,185 to the second Liberal’s 3,184. Uproar followed the announcement of the result, the Liberal member for Derby, Bass saying to the sheriff’s face that the return ‘was not a good one’.73Derby Mercury, 11 May 1859. According to the returns of their respective committees, Vernon had won by 25 and Mundy by 9 votes.74Ibid., 11 May 1859. Six years later, Vernon wrote that Colvile’s sudden retirement ‘contributed, in some degree’ to the Liberals losing the second seat, but a more specific reason was that neither of the Liberal candidates voted, a mistake that Mundy did not make.75Ibid., 5 July 1865; Poll book for South Derbyshire (1859), 45, 145; Hogarth, ‘Derby and Derbyshire elections, 1852-1865’, 167. With the old association having long fallen into abeyance and blaming inferior organisation for their opponents’ resurgence, the Conservatives attempted to reconstitute a registration society after the election.76Derby Mercury, 11 May 1859, 18 May 1859, 25 May 1859.

In 1865 Evans and Mundy offered again and were rejoined in the field by Colvile, who, displaying uncharacteristic caution, had initially rejected a requisition from Melbourne electors, but kept his options open by adding that if electors desired an ‘independent candidate, … you shall not want a champion’.77Ibid., 14 June 1865. He soon abandoned his independent guise and stood as an unashamed Liberal in a united campaign with Evans, launching his candidature with a vituperative speech at the Market Hall, Derby, 30 June, in which he contended that the credit for removing grievances over the past thirty years belonged to the Liberals. Deriding his former colleague Mundy’s ‘ultra-foolish votes’ in Parliament, he added that ‘voting in a division don’t make you a legislator’.78Ibid., 5 July 1865. The dissatisfaction of some Liberals with Colvile, for amongst other things, his unwillingness to contribute towards the cost of the election or the registration society, was largely suppressed.79Ibid. At the nomination Evans based his appeal on his support for Palmerston and Gladstone’s financial policy, as well as his record since 1857. As with previous contests, Mundy spoke on foreign policy, expressing firm support for the naval and military establishments, but supporting retrenchment elsewhere. In his speech, Colvile slung mud at local Conservatives and their press, whilst presenting the election as a choice between forces of ‘progress or retrogression’.80Ibid., 19 July 1865. Evans topped the poll for a third time and, controversially, Colvile beat Mundy to the second seat by 31 votes, although the Conservative committee’s figures gave Colvile a majority of just 13.81Ibid., 26 July 1865.

Mundy received a ‘hurricane of abuse’ at the declaration, when he complained of the intimidation of voters at Swadlincote, but it became apparent that Liberal roughs had been in action both there and at Ashbourne, leading one correspondent to conclude that ‘the election of Mr. Colvile is only due to a series of most open intimidation, exercised over a portion of the electors by many of his friends’.82Ibid., 9 Aug. 1865. One elector claimed that 15 Conservative colliers, from Newhall in the Swadlincote polling district, whose carriages to the polling station had been damaged by Liberal supporters, ended up walking or being taken in Liberal cabs, six in the latter category changing their pledged votes from Mundy plumps to Mundy-Colvile splits.83Ibid., 16 Aug. 1865. This account was disputed by Colvile’s agent, who argued that the Conservatives were to blame for inciting Liberal supporters and that, on hearing rumours of voters left without means of conveyance, cabs were offered to, but declined by, Mundy’s committee, who explained that they had polled all but seven or eight of their voters, whom they were able to transport.84Ibid., 26 July 1865, 23 Aug. 1865.

In the first election after the Second Reform Act, in 1868, the Conservatives defeated Evans and Colvile to capture both seats. Returned in 1874, Evans shared the representation with a Conservative until 1885. The redistribution of 1885 carved the county up along an east-west axis, leaving a shrunken Southern constituency with much of its former territory absorbed into a Western division, which extended to Bakewell in the north. New constituencies of Ilkeston and Mid-Derbyshire, the latter consisting of Belper and Alfreton, were also formed.85PP 1884-85 (258), lxiii. 87-95; 48 & 49 Vict. c.23. The Conservatives’ record was poor in these successor seats, the Liberals controlling Ilkeston, 1885-1910, and Mid-Derbyshire until 1909, when Labour won the seat at a by-election. The Liberals met with more competition in the Southern division, which the Conservatives held between 1895 and 1906, and the Western division, which was Liberal Unionist after 1886.86McCalmont’s Parliamentary Poll Book, ed. J. Vincent & M. Stenton (8th edn., 1971), 56-58.