Birmingham

Economic and social profile:

Popularly known as the ‘toy shop of Europe’, it was said of Birmingham in 1849 that ‘there is no place equal to her in the multiplicity, diversity, and subdivision of manufactures in metal, or in the number of persons so employed’.6W. Bates, A pictorial guide to Birmingham: being a concise, historical, and descriptive account of the great midland metropolis (1849), 8, 10. The town produced ‘every metallic article’: keys and locks, pins, hinges and bolts, wire, chains, tubes, buckles, guns, steel pens, files, swords, tea trays, toys, screws, buttons, brassware, watches, cast iron, japanned and plated goods, and many others.7C. Pye, A stranger’s guide to modern Birmingham (1835), 49. Other important trades included glassware and jewellery, and Birmingham had also had its own silver and gold hallmarks and an assay office since 1773.8Bates, A pictorial guide, 14-16; Pye, A stranger’s guide, 45. Until the 1860s the town’s economic structure was largely characterised by small units and comparatively few trades had been affected by the type of labour-saving machinery that revolutionised the cotton industry (although working practices changed in many other respects).9C. Behagg, Politics and production in the early nineteenth century (1990), 21-70; C. Gill, History of Birmingham (1952), i. 99; D. Smith, Conflict and compromise: class formation in English society, 1830-1914: a comparative study of Birmingham and Sheffield (1982), 35-7, 50-1, 69-70, 74. The commercial advantages of the town lay elsewhere: the absence of a charter before 1838 meant that there were no restrictions on trade, the benefits of bulk purchase of raw materials, especially metals, were achieved through the creation of local companies to secure supplies, and a well-developed banking sector furnished credit.10E. Edwards, Personal recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham men (1877), 45-65; Gill, History of Birmingham, i. 90-1; Pye, A Stranger’s guide, 45-7, 78, 88. The town’s ingenuity allowed it to respond quickly to changing trends and was reflected in the high number of patents it produced.11Smith, Conflict and compromise, 40; Gill, History of Birmingham, i. 292; G. Yates, An historical and descriptive sketch of Birmingham (1830), 72-3. Applied knowledge, particularly of metallic properties, alloys, and gilding and plating techniques was also a key part of the local economy, and partly the legacy of eighteenth century figures such as Joseph Priestley and Matthew Boulton, pioneers of popular science and invention.12Gill, History of Birmingham, i. 35-6, 105-11; J. Uglow, The Lunar Men (2002). The Birmingham Canals (1767) connected the town to London, Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol, and the Warwick (1800) and Worcester Canals (1815) provided alternative routes to the metropolis.13Gill, History of Birmingham, i. 77-9; Pye, A Stranger’s guide, 50-1. The Great Junction Railway linked Birmingham to Liverpool in 1837, and London in 1838, and later connections were established to Gloucester (1840), Derby (1841) and Bristol (1842).14Edwards, Personal recollections, 18; Gill, History of Birmingham, i. 283-9; F. White, Birmingham: history and general directory (1849). 50-1. Although it had been the scene of the 1791 ‘Church and King’ riots, which had forced Priestley, a Unitarian, from the town, Birmingham had a reputation for religious tolerance, and organised Dissent played an increasingly prominent part in the town’s public life, with George Dawson (1821-76), nominally a Baptist minister, especially influential from the 1840s.15R. Rose, ‘The Priestley riots of 1791’, Past & Present, 18 (1960), 68-88; G. Ditchfield, ‘The Priestley riots in historical perspective’, Trans. Unitarian Historical Society, 19 (1991), 3-16; D. Wykes, ‘ “The spirit of persecutors exemplified”: the Priestley riots and the victims of the church and king mobs’, ibid., 20 (1991-2), 17-39; Bates, A pictorial guide, 38-83; E.P. Hennock, Fit and proper persons: ideal and reality in nineteenth-century urban government (1973), 61-79; Gill, History of Birmingham, i. 142-7, 374-82; Pye, A stranger’s guide, 78. The 1851 religious census indicated that of its worshippers, 47.9% were Anglican, 6.9% Catholic, 10.5% Wesleyan, with Baptists and Congregationalists accounting for just over 20%. Despite their small numerical size, Unitarians (3.7%) and Quakers (1.2%) accounted for a disproportionate number of the new civic elite which emerged in the 1860s.16Hennock, Fit and proper persons, 91-103, (figures at 357); Smith, Conflict and compromise, 96.

Electoral history:

By the early nineteenth century, the inhabitants of Birmingham had become increasingly dissatisfied at their lack of parliamentary representation.17A. Briggs, ‘Thomas Attwood and the economic background of the Birmingham Political Union’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 9 (1948), 190-216 (at 192-3). A mass meeting at Newhall Hill, 12 July 1819, elected Sir Charles Wolseley as the town’s ‘Legislatorial Attorney and Representative’, but the plan was suppressed by the government and its Radical progenitors prosecuted.18J.A. Langford, A century of Birmingham life, 1741-1841 (1870), ii. 414-39; T.M. Parssinen, ‘Association, convention and anti-Parliament in British radical politics, 1771-1848’, English Historical Review, 88 (1973), 504-33 (at 516-17). The local banker Richard Spooner unsuccessfully contested the county, 7 Nov. 1820, in Birmingham’s interest, and between 1827 and 1830, influential local figures, most notably the local attorney Joseph Parkes, lent behind the scenes support to the MP Charles Tennyson’s repeated, but unavailing, attempts to transfer the representation of the corrupt East Retford to Birmingham.19D. Cannadine, ‘The Calthorpe family and Birmingham, 1810-1910: a “Conservative interest” examined’, HJ, 18 (1975), 725-760 (at 733); ‘Warwickshire’, HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 121-3; ‘Spooner, Richard’, ibid., viii. 242-3; ‘East Retford’, ibid., ii. 804-6; ‘Tennyson, Charles’, ibid., vii. 409-18 (at 411-14); Hansard, 22 June 1827, vol. 17, cc. 1376-9. A similar attempt by Lord Chandos to disenfranchise Evesham in Birmingham’s favour, 18 Feb. 1831, was superseded by the ministerial reform plan.20Hansard, 18 Feb. 1831, vol. 2, cc. 665-74; ‘Evesham’, HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 230-3 (at 232).

Responding to distress, a motley group distinguished by their advocacy of a non-convertible paper currency, led by Spooner’s business partner Thomas Attwood, formed the Birmingham Political Union (BPU) at a public meeting, 25 Jan. 1830. Using peaceful means, including mass meetings, the BPU’s mobilisation of popular support for the Grey ministry’s reform bills has been viewed as an important factor in traditional accounts of the passing of the Reform Act.21M. Brock, The great Reform Act (1973), 247, 297-309; H. Ferguson, ‘The Birmingham Political Union and the government, 1831-2,’ Victorian Studies, 3 (1960), 261-76. Flick’s 1976 study, however, portrayed the Union as a deeply provincial and sporadically active body, whose reputation for national influence and leadership of the campaign was largely based on myth. More recent accounts of the reform crisis by LoPatin and Pearce have rehabilitated its role.22C. Flick, The Birmingham Political Union and the movements for reform in Britain, 1830-1839 (1976), 11-13, 31-2, 43-8, 51-3, 57-63, 79-94; N. LoPatin, Political unions, popular politics and the Great Reform Act of 1832 (1999), 9-11, 17-37, 137-8, 160; E. Pearce, Reform! The fight for the 1832 Reform Act (2003).

The wider historiography of nineteenth-century Birmingham has been dominated by Asa Briggs, who, in a seminal 1948 article, argued that the BPU was able to unite middle and working classes because of the town’s distinctive social and economic structure.23Briggs, ‘Thomas Attwood’, 190-216. The prevalence of small workshops and greater social mobility meant that the stark class polarisation of northern factory towns was absent; masters and men had shared interests, articulated in the currency theories of Attwood, and were equally affected by the regular fluctuations in trade.24A. Briggs, ‘The background of the parliamentary reform movement in three English cities (1830-2)’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 10 (1952), 293-317. In a similar vein, comparing the town with Manchester, Richard Cobden noted in 1857 that in Birmingham, ‘There is a freer intercourse between all classes than in the Lancashire town, where a great and impassable gulf separates the workman from his employer’.25Richard Cobden to Joseph Parkes, 9 Aug. 1857, qu. by Briggs, ‘Thomas Attwood’, 200. Briggs expanded his interpretation in Victorian cities (1963), which also influenced the official History of Birmingham (1952) and the relevant volume of Victoria County History of Warwickshire (1964), and such was the influence of Briggs’s account, one critic noted, that ‘Birmingham’ became used regularly by historians as shorthand for consensual class relations.26A. Briggs, Victorian cities (1963), ch. 5; VCH Warws. (1964), vii. 298-317; Gill, History of Birmingham, i, which covered the period to 1865, Briggs authored the second volume published in the same year. C. Behagg, ‘Myths of cohesion: capital and compromise in the historiography of nineteenth-century Birmingham’, Social History, 11 (1986), 375-84 (at 377).

The rival interpretation put forward by Behagg has argued that any ‘unity of the productive classes’ was largely a myth propagated by Attwood and his colleagues, with smaller masters being increasingly subordinate to large employers, whose dominance also eroded the autonomy of workers.27Behagg, Politics and production, 10-11, 37-73, 83, 85-6. These social divisions created two antagonistic strands of radicalism: workers and sympathetic small masters championed participatory democracy in the workplace and politics, whilst tradesmen, large employers, and their subordinates, preferred a representative system under middle-class control with a limited franchise.28Ibid., 1, 16-17, 71-3, 83-6, 96-99, 117-19. The much-vaunted cross-class appeal of the BPU was really a temporary, tactical alliance between Attwood, who needed mass support, and working-class radicals willing to endorse the reform bill as a first step towards further measures.29Ibid., 158-83; idem, ‘An alliance with the middle class: the Birmingham Political Union and early Chartism’, in J. Epstein and D. Thompson (ed.), The Chartist experience: studies in working-class radicalism and culture, 1830-60 (1982), 59-86. These social and political tensions were ultimately irreconcilable, and Birmingham workers’ support for Chartism in the late 1830s presaged the dissolution of the revived BPU.30Behagg, Politics and production, 184-219. Behagg’s account cautions against an overly consensual view of social and political relations between classes in Birmingham. However, in portraying Attwood and the BPU as just another middle-class elite hungry for local power, he understates the distinctiveness of their beliefs, and consequently, their popular appeal. Currency reform and the other tenets of Attwoodian radicalism, cast a long shadow in the constituency and the persistent influence of non-electors in parliamentary contests, of which Conservatives often complained, was usually deployed on the side of Reformers throughout the period, suggesting that they enjoyed at least a degree of popular grassroots support. After the fading of currency reform in the late 1850s, the newly elected John Bright, seeking to use the town as a base for his reform campaign, articulated a selective version of Birmingham’s radical history to claim the mantle of reform exclusively for the Liberals, as the party sought to differentiate themselves from their Liberal Conservative opponents, who also claimed to have progressive credentials.

Birmingham was included as one of the new double member boroughs in the first reform bill, 1 Mar. 1831, and had the largest population of the provincial towns included in Schedule C.31P. Salmon, ‘The English reform legislation, 1831-1832’, in D.R. Fisher (ed.), HP Commons, 1820-32, i. 374-412 (at 383, n.23). Although the activities of the Union aroused anxiety at Westminster, Birmingham’s enfranchisement was relatively uncontroversial.32Ibid. For example, Sir Robert Peel, who opposed the bill, said that ‘he would not waste the time of the House by discussing or opposing the enfranchisement of Manchester, Birmingham, or Leeds, and no man more sincerely hoped that this change would turn out for their good’: Hansard, 2 Aug. 1831, vol. 5, cc. 634-5. For anxieties see Hansard, 4, 5 Oct. 1831, vol. 7, cc. 1153, 1311-15. Initially, the constituency was to consist of the parishes of St. Philip and St. Mary in Birmingham and the parish of Aston, but the amended first bill redefined it as comprising the parishes of Birmingham and Edgbaston, and the townships of Duddeston and Nechells, and Deritend. The final Act also included the township of Bordesley, creating a parliamentary borough with an area of 13.1 square miles.33PP 1830-1 (247), ii. 212; PP 1830-1 (0.37), ii. 246; 1831-32 (174), iii. 243; 1831-32 (488), iii. 331; 1831-32 (521), iii. 419; 1859 session 1 (166), xxiii. 123; 2 & 3 Will. IV, c.45; 2 & 3 Will. IV, c. 65. Although Parkes had objected to the ratepaying clauses of the reform bill, he had nevertheless told Lord Althorp, 13 Nov. 1831, that they would have ‘little practical effect against the numbers entitled to vote’ in Birmingham, but this was before a judicial ruling added significant obstacles to the already difficult process by which compounders could claim a vote under the Reform Act.34Joseph Parkes to Lord Althorp, 13 Nov. 1831, Althorp MS, 3rd earl Spencer box 6. Paying rates was essential to claim the franchise under the 1832 Reform Act, but in many places local Acts gave parish officers the power to compound rates, allowing landlords to pay on their tenants’ behalf, for which they usually received a discount. In such cases, the landlord’s name, not the tenant’s, would appear in the rate book and electoral register. However, the Reform Act allowed for ‘the householder … [to make] a special claim for insertion, on tendering payment of the rate himself’. If the overseer failed to do so, the claimant might insist on being placed on the register, but the clause was nullified by the Court of Common Pleas’ ruling that compounders had to make a fresh claim after each new rate (of which there could be four to six each year). C. Seymour, Electoral reform in England and Wales (1915; repr. 1970), 149-55 (qu. at 150); P. Salmon, Electoral reform at work: local politics and national parties, 1832-1841 (2002), 187-8; 2 & 3 Will. IV, c. 45, cl. 30. As a result Attwood complained in debate, 19 June 1834, that the electorate of 4,000 poorly represented the 18,000 £10 households in the constituency.35Hansard, 19 June 1834, vol. 24, c. 568; PP 1833 (189), xxvii. 119. In comparison with Manchester or metropolitan boroughs such as Finsbury or Marylebone which were also enfranchised by the Reform Act, Birmingham’s electorate remained relatively small and grew slowly, rising to 7,535 by 1847 and reaching almost 10,000 by 1860.36C. Dod, Electoral facts from 1832 to 1853, impartially stated (1853), 26-7, 118-19, 170, 206-7, 209; PP 1849 (16), xlv. 186; 1860 (129), lv. 57.

Attwood’s popularity made his return at the town’s first parliamentary elections inevitable, and after some dispute within the BPU’s political council it was decided that Joshua Scholefield, a banker, merchant and ironmaster, should partner ‘King Tom’, much to the chagrin of the local Radical George Edmonds. A challenge to the Union’s political authority came from a public meeting, 29 Oct. 1832, which expressed support for universal suffrage and established the Midland Union of the Working Classes, with Henry Hunt calling for the new body to go beyond the BPU if necessary. Attwood took a dim view of these proceedings and his deflating epistle to the meeting asserted that ‘to divide is to destroy’.37Poor Man’s Guardian, 3 Nov. 1832; Behagg, Politics and production, 82-3, 179-81; VCH Warws., vii. 298. He was equally forthright at the next meeting of the political council, expressing disbelief that London Radicals had the nerve to form a union in Birmingham given their feeble role in the Reform agitation.38The Examiner, 11 Nov. 1832.

Attwood and Scholefield faced no opposition after Tory attempts to rouse support for Horsley Palmer, governor of the Bank of England, foundered.39Morning Post, 29 Nov. 1832, 12 Dec. 1832; Birmingham Gazette, qu. in The Times, 21 Nov. 1832; The Times, 14 Dec. 1832. At the nomination both men pledged to resign if there was dissatisfaction with their parliamentary conduct, with Attwood emphasising a patriotic foreign policy which promoted liberty and did not truckle to continental despots.40The Times, 15 Dec. 1832. Five days later the new members were chaired after a colourful procession.41The Times, 19 Dec. 1832; Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 622-3.

With Attwood absent at Westminster, leadership of the Union passed to the metal manufacturer and merchant George Frederick Muntz, who was disinclined to give the reformed Parliament a lengthy trial.42Flick, Birmingham Political Union, 103. At a huge meeting held on Newhall Hill, 20 May 1833, Attwood announced that he had been ‘grievously deceived’ by the Whigs, and joined other speakers, including the Irish demagogue Daniel O’Connell, in condemning Irish coercion.43Report of the proceedings of the great public meeting of the inhabitants of Birmingham and its neighbourhood held... on... May 20, 1833, convened by the Council of the Political Union for the purpose of petitioning His Majesty to dismiss his ministers (1833), 4-8 (qu. at 4). The upshot was a petition to the king, calling for the dismissal of the government.44Ibid., 3, 10. A similar note was struck at the Union’s annual general meeting that September, when Muntz complained that ‘a more subservient Parliament had scarce existed’, whilst Attwood protested that the wealth of many MPs inured them to distress.45Report of the proceedings of the fourth annual meeting of the Birmingham Political Union held... on... September 16, 1833 (1833), 3. Although the Union fell into abeyance thereafter, its former chiefs continued to make the political weather.46Flick, Birmingham Political Union, 108-9. At a grand dinner to the members, 15 Sept. 1834, Scholefield expressed his ‘abhorrence’ of the new poor law, whilst Attwood’s critique of the Commons concluded that ‘we must have further reform’, including payment of MPs to end the monopoly of the rich.47A Full and accurate report of the proceedings at the grand public dinner given to Thomas Attwood, Esq. and Joshua Scholefield, Esq.,.. .Sept. 15, 1834 (1834), 4-5.

The unchallenged ascendancy of Attwood’s party, however, was drawing to a close. Although the levy of a church rate in the parish of Birmingham had been suspended after an acrimonious vestry meeting in 1832, local Conservatives, led by Spooner, attempted to reintroduce one in December 1834, but the resolution was rejected by a crushing majority, which effectively settled the issue.48Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 565-6; The Standard, 8, 18 Dec. 1834; The Times, 9 Dec. 1834; Morn. Chro., 8 Dec. 1832, 13, 16 Dec. 1834; J.P. Ellens, Religious routes to Gladstonian liberalism: the church rates conflict in England and Wales, 1832-1868 (1994), 25-6, 30-2. The tactic provided a foretaste of the Conservative challenge at the forthcoming general election, which necessitated a begrudging local alliance between former Political Unionists, Whigs and Dissenters.49Flick, Birmingham Political Union, 111-12. Attwood disapproved of giving his support to the late Whig ministers who had given ‘slavery to Ireland and poverty to England’, but his natural pragmatism won out in the face of the threat from the Conservatives, who adopted Spooner as a candidate, and established the Birmingham Loyal and Constitutional Association, with the support of local nobles such as the earl of Dartmouth and Lord Calthorpe.50Full report of the proceedings of the meeting of the electors of Birmingham held... on... the 28th of November, 1834: with introductory remarks by the editor of the Birmingham Journal (1834), 6; Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 624-5; Morn. Post, 19 Dec. 1834; Cannadine, ‘Calthorpe family’, 736-8.

At the nomination, Attwood was unsparing in his criticism of the late government, but spoke in favour of church reform, a point of agreement with his new allies, whilst Scholefield launched a strong attack on Peel and Wellington.51Triumph of reform!: great and overwhelming majority in favour of Attwood and Scholefield (1835), 2-6; for other reports of the nomination see The Times, 9 Jan. 1835; Morn. Chro., 9 Jan. 1835. Spooner, who was also a currency reformer, promised staunch support for the established churches of England and Ireland, but his speech was abruptly terminated following the collapse of the overcrowded upper gallery in the town hall.52Triumph of reform!, 10-12; Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 625-6. Attwood topped the subsequent poll, slightly ahead of Scholefield, who beat Spooner by over 650 votes, although the Conservatives’ total of 917 suggested that they represented a significant minority of local opinion.53Triumph of reform!, 12. Local partisans alleged that Spooner’s challenge had been hampered by the intimidation of tradesmen, particularly licensed victuallers, by non-electors acting under the auspices of the former Political Union leaders.54See the evidence of John Gilbert, a Conservative licensed victualler and wine merchant, to the 1835 select committee on bribery: PP 1835 (547), viii. 245-54.

Undeterred, the Conservatives redoubled their efforts, and when the Lords’ treatment of the Irish church and municipal reform bills led to calls for the reconstitution of the BPU in September 1835, the party promptly got up an address, signed by 2,000 inhabitants, denying that the revived body (which did not in the end materialise) would represent ‘either the property, the respectability, or the opinions of this town’.55Re-establishment of the Political Union: a report of the proceedings at the great town’s meeting held... in Birmingham on... the 4th of September, 1835 (1835), 8; Langford, Birmingham life, 629-30 (at 629). This combativeness reflected the Conservatives’ desire to contest their opponents’ claims to represent Birmingham at every juncture, a strategy which was played out in poor law and vestry elections, their opposition to the town’s incorporation, and the countering of any Radical meetings with their own.56For accounts of public meetings between 1835 and 1837 see Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 626-31; Proceedings of the important town’s meeting convened by the Political Union and held in the Birmingham Town Hall on... Jan. 18, 1836 (1836); Report of the proceedings at the grand dinner of the non-electors to the borough members T. Attwood... and J. Scholefield... on... February 1, 1836 (1836). For their part, Reformers sought to channel the radical instincts of the town’s inhabitants through public meetings and petitioning.57Hansard, 16 Feb. 1836, vol. 31, cc. 439-45; Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 631.

On the formation of a new Reform Society, soon renamed the BPU, local Conservatives complained in May 1837 that such action would be ‘highly prejudicial to the manufacturing and mercantile interests of the town’.58Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 632; Protest against the Political Union (1837), 2. Widespread local distress led to a meeting at Newhall Hill the following month, which expressed support for household suffrage, the ballot, payment of members, the abolition of property qualification, and triennial parliaments.59Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 632; Behagg, Politics and production, 191. Having generally contained his loathing for the Whigs since 1835, Attwood told the crowd that the Union had been reluctantly revived to reform a political system which had ‘given the people serpents when they asked for bread’.60Morn. Chro., 21 June 1837. The economic situation had not improved by the time of the 1837 general election, when the incumbents stood their ground and were challenged by Augustus Granville Stapleton, a former private secretary to George Canning, brought forward by the Constitutional Society.61The Times, 10 June 1837; Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 632; Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, 13 July 1837. The Reformers were again returned by a two to one majority, but the election was marred by disturbances, including the destruction of the Conservative party’s headquarters, which prompted them to again complain of intimidation by non-electors, fuelled by Attwood’s ‘violent and inflammatory’ language.62‘Liberalis’ letter, The Times, 28 July 1837; Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 632-3; Edwards, Personal recollections, 10. Order was eventually restored, but the military sent away the Worcestershire yeomanry, fearing that their presence would exacerbate the situation.63Langford, Birmingham life, ii. 633; Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, qu. in The Times, 2 Aug. 1837. Twenty rioters were later indicted at Warwick assizes, 7 Aug. 1837, and were discharged after pleading guilty.64The Times, 9 Aug. 1837; Morning Post, 9 Aug. 1837.

In autumn 1837, the BPU organised a campaign to petition for incorporation, and after rejecting a counter-petition, the privy council granted the town a charter in October 1838. At the ensuing elections that December the Reformers routed the Conservatives, who failed to win a single seat.65Behagg, Politics and production, 190, 198-9; Fraser, Urban politics, 124; N. Edsall, ‘Varieties of Radicalism: Attwood, Cobden and the local politics of municipal incorporation’, HJ, 16 (1973), 93-107 (at 95-7). Alarmed by Attwood’s conception of municipal government as ‘real and legal Political Unions’, that party thereafter resorted to challenging the legitimacy of the charter and its creation of a body which, given its personnel, was essentially the BPU’s political council ‘in permanent session’.66D. Fraser, Urban politics in Victorian Britain (1976), 142-4; idem, Power and authority in the Victorian city (1979), 79; Attwood quote from Birmingham Journal, 4 Nov. 1837, cited by Edsall, ‘Varieties of Radicalism’, 97. Conservative anxieties were further aroused by the Union’s declaration of support for universal suffrage in late 1837. This move had been made reluctantly and Attwood was frank about the reasons for the change in policy: ‘the masses of the people constituted the only engine through which it was possible to obtain reform, and that mighty engine could not be roused into efficient action without the agency of Universal Suffrage’.67Birmingham Journal, 23 Dec. 1837, qu. by Behagg, Politics and production, 193. Although he was chairman, Attwood remained detached from the revived Union and as Muntz moved to South Wales in November 1837 for business reasons, its active leaders were his brother Philip Henry Muntz, Edmonds, Thomas Clutton Salt, and R.K. Douglas.68D.J. Moss, Thomas Attwood: the biography of a radical (1990), 281; Flick, Birmingham Political Union, 117-18, 163-4. Although a common programme and strategy (a mass petition in favour of the People’s Charter) was agreed with northern radicals, led by Feargus O’Connor, the Union were increasingly uncomfortable with the alliance, and in March 1839 its delegates to the Chartist Convention resigned, citing the violent rhetoric of their ostensible colleagues, but really because of their dwindling authority and influence in the developing Chartist movement.69Behagg, Politics and production, 188-200; M. Chase, Chartism: a new history (2007), 1-7, 35, 48, 58, 66, 68; Flick, Birmingham Political Union, 125-74.

The Union collapsed soon after, mainly because the political council’s claims to leadership were no longer accepted by its erstwhile working-class supporters.70Behagg, Politics and production, 200. As Behagg has suggested, when the Chartist Convention arrived in the town, July 1839, the Union’s ex-leaders, who were now magistrates and town councillors, took the opportunity to impose their authority and demonstrate to the local middle classes their break with the radical masses, with disastrous consequences. The mayor, William Scholefield, son of Joshua, called in metropolitan policemen to maintain order, but this precipitated the Bull Ring riots, 4 July 1839, during which their actions not only provoked much acrimony in the town, but led to the government suspending the town’s commission of the peace.71Behagg, Politics and production, 201-18; Gill, History of Birmingham, i. 257-9.

Attwood’s surprise resignation as an MP, 18 Dec. 1839, triggered much manoeuvring.72The Standard, 11, 21 Dec. 1839. The Liberal agent Joseph Parkes attempted to secure the vacancy for Joseph Hume, late Member for Middlesex, but he had little local support and withdrew in favour of the Quaker corn factor Joseph Sturge, whose committee included two former members of the BPU political council, Edmonds and Boultbee.73The Times, 14 Dec. 1839. A staunch opponent of slavery and the corn laws, Sturge’s Radicalism was of a different stripe to that of Attwood.74Morn. Chro., 11 Dec. 1839; Leeds Mercury, 14 Dec. 1839. He was endorsed by local Dissenters and Chartists but faced opposition from the ‘old Whig party and even a large portion of the Radical party’.75Morn. Chro., 11 Dec. 1839; The Charter, 15 Dec. 1839; The Times, 17 Dec. 1839; Morning Post, 16 Dec. 1839. Despite their opponents’ divisions, the annual meeting of the Loyal and Constitutional Association, 17 Dec. 1839, displayed remarkably little concern with the impending by-election, and with Spooner unwilling to stand, the Conservatives struggled to find a credible candidate.76The Times, 14, 17, 20 Dec. 1839; Examiner, 15 Dec. 1839.

Sturge was eventually joined in the field by Attwood’s protégé Muntz, who had returned from South Wales to stand, and Robert Allen, a barrister who described himself as a ‘Conservative Whig’.77The Times, 20 Jan. 1840. A suggestion by Sturge’s committee that a public meeting should decide who would stand in the Radical interest was treated ‘very coolly’ by Muntz’s supporters.78Birmingham Advertiser, qu. in The Times, 11 Jan. 1840. Muntz’s address was described by a local newspaper as ‘unusually moderate’, but it advocated disestablishment, the abolition of tithes, household suffrage, shorter parliaments, abolition of the property qualification for MPs, the ballot, a national system of undenominational education, and the return of Birmingham’s police to local control.79Ibid. For his part, Sturge advocated the abolition of the corn laws and the death penalty, a ‘great’ extension of the franchise and other political reforms, and religious voluntaryism.80The Charter, 29 Dec. 1839. At the nomination in January 1840, Muntz, Allen and the absent Sturge were proposed, whilst the Conservatives put forward the name of the absent Sir Charles Wetherell, Spooner’s brother-in-law, who was notorious for his opposition to the reform bills.81The Times, 24 Jan. 1840; Morn. Chro., 24 Jan. 1840. On a low turnout, Muntz defeated Wetherell after the other candidates withdrew.82The Times, 27 Jan. 1840.

The Conservatives’ late and disorganised campaign had provided a token opposition, but the by-election was a missed opportunity.83The Times, 25 Jan. 1840. However, later that same year the party won control of the board of guardians and the St. Martin’s churchwarden election, which was still an important test of party strength.84Fraser, Urban politics, 46, 73. Another boost was derived from their challenge to the legal validity of the charter of incorporation, which effectively prevented the levying of any rates. Combined with the fall-out from the Bull Ring riots, this reduced the Radical town council to impotence.85Gill, History of Birmingham, i. 240-71.

Suitably emboldened, at the 1841 general election, the Conservatives were able to mount a formidable challenge, mobilising their organisation with speed and efficiency.86The Times, 16 June 1841. A second Conservative, W.C. Alston, was soon withdrawn and efforts focused on returning Spooner, who promised ‘unvaried, unchanging, and unchangeable opposition’ to the Whig government, although his earlier reformism was reflected in his support for a low fixed duty on corn.87The Times, 16 June 1841, 21 June 1841; Staffordshire Gazette, qu. in The Times, 25 July 1841. The Radicals were sufficiently worried to recall Attwood from Jersey to act as their campaign chief and speak for Scholefield at the nomination, where the incumbents were also opposed by the Chartist George White.88The Times, 16 June 1841; Examiner, 20 June 1841; Leicester Chronicle, 3 July 1841; Northern Star, 3 July 1841. T. Attwood, Borough election, June 30th, 1841: Mr. Thomas Attwood’s speech on the nomination of Joshua Scholefield, Esq. as candidate for Birmingham (1841), 1. The show of hands was deemed to favour the incumbents after the mayor ignored the large majority for White, who then withdrew.89Northern Star, 3 July 1841. Spooner led the resultant poll, but was eventually overtaken by Muntz, and then Scholefield.90Morning Post, 2 July 1841. Even so, Spooner had won almost twice as many votes as in 1835, and the Reformers derived little satisfaction from the election, with Scholefield apparently considering resignation on account of the desertion of former supporters.91The Times, 2, 5 July 1841. It was later alleged that Scholefield had been returned with the aid of 300 bad votes, but no petition against his return was forthcoming.92The Times, 14, 17 July 1841; Morning Post, 3 July 1841.

Continued distress led to renewed calls for currency reform in the early 1840s, including a petition from the chamber of commerce in 1843, whilst Attwood pursued the campaign through letters to the premier Peel and, after the collapse of his short-lived and deliberately vague ‘National Union’ that year, to the Times.93Select Committee on Public Petitions 1843, appendix 855, at 493-4; Thomas Attwood to Sir Robert Peel, 3, 10 Dec. 1841, Add. 40496, ff. 193-7, 40497, ff. 75-8; Moss, Thomas Attwood, 297-9; Behagg, Politics and production, 221; The Times, 7, 13, 27 Nov. 1843. Muntz, meanwhile, argued that silver should be made the standard of value.94G.F. Muntz, Letters upon corn and currency written during the recess of 1840 (1841); George Frederick Muntz to Sir Robert Peel, 20, 24 Jan. 1843, Add. 40523, ff. 247b-48, 250-1; Hansard, 16 Feb. 1843, vol. 66, cc. 732-5. An alternative remedy was repeal of the corn laws, but Birmingham played only a small role in the ensuing national campaign.95D. Fraser, ‘Birmingham and the corn laws’, Transactions of the Birmingham Archaeological Society (1967), lxxxii. 1-20. In part, this was due to the pervasiveness of Attwoodian economics, but also because when Sturge formed the abortive Complete Suffrage Union in 1842, against the wishes of the Anti-Corn Law League leaders, to unite Chartists and middle-class radicals behind a programme of political reform and free trade, he took most of the local corn law repealers with him.96R.K. Dent, Old and new Birmingham (1880), 530-2; Fraser, Urban politics, 245-6; A. Wilson, ‘The suffrage movement’, in P. Hollis (ed.), Pressure from without (1974), 80-104; Tholfsen, ‘Origins of the Birmingham caucus’, 161-70; A. Tyrrell, Joseph Sturge and the moral radical party in early Victorian England (1987), 95, 119-33.

Scholefield’s death in July 1844 sparked a fierce contest.97The Times, 6 July 1844. As a supporter of factory regulation and an opponent of the new Poor Law, Spooner could appeal to Chartists and Radicals alike, whilst his long advocacy of currency reform was a ‘tower of strength’ in a constituency where, as one observer noted, ‘not a word of the League or the League’s doctrines is heard’.98Morn. Post, 11 July 1844; Morn. Chro., 11 July 1844. Insisting that he was ‘no Peelite’, Spooner again benefited from his party’s impressive organisation.99The Times, 6, 9 July 1844. William Scholefield, former mayor and son of the late member, also offered, but his bereavement prevented him from playing an active part in the campaign.100Morn. Chro., 8 July 1844. Sturge’s supporters again suggested that a public assembly decide between the two Radicals, but the overture was rejected by Scholefield’s party.101The Times, 9 July 1844; Morn. Chro., 9 July 1844. As a result the split between Reformers was ‘complete’, and attempts at rapprochement were unavailing, even when the canvass returns indicated a majority for Spooner.102The Times, 9, 11 July 1844; Morn. Chro., 11 July 1844. At the nomination Spooner was amusingly billed as a ‘glutton for punishment’ in view of his innumerable election defeats, whilst the absent Scholefield was attacked as a ‘nominee of the Reform Club’. In a lengthy oration, Sturge, who stood on the six points of the People’s Charter, advocated a ‘full and fair representation’ to end ‘class legislation’ such as the corn laws.103Examiner, 13 July 1844. The show of hands favoured Sturge, but Spooner’s insistence that a poll would favour him was borne out by events.104The Times, 13 July 1844.

Spooner led throughout the contest although his margin was reduced as pragmatic Sturge supporters gave their votes to Scholefield.105Morning Post, 16 July 1844. Sturge, who finished a distant third, attributed his small total to broken promises from electors and abstentions.106The Times, 16 July 1844; Bradford Observer, 25 July 1844. At the declaration Spooner crowed that the era of ‘Radical Birmingham’ was at an end.107The Times, 15 July 1844.

The 1847 general election was notable for Muntz’s theatrical display of independence at the meeting of Liberal non-electors. After hearing complaints about his conduct, Muntz, who had been thought to be absent, rose ‘like an apparition’, to general astonishment. He told the crowd what he had told Parkes, that ‘it is no part of my duty to dictate to my constituents who shall be my colleague, and I shan’t do it’.108Edwards, Personal recollections, 80. As the Liberal wirepuller had responded by threatening to advise electors to plump for Scholefield, Muntz said that ‘they might plump and be damned!’, provoking uproar and laughter, whilst he coolly sucked on an orange.109Ibid. For a contemporary account of Muntz’s display, see Morn. Chro., 27 July 1847. Muntz remained impressively inactive in the cause of independence, refusing to canvass or appoint a committee, and republishing his 1840 address, though he was perhaps encouraged by his endorsement, with Spooner, at a Conservative meeting that June.110Edwards, Personal recollections, 79; The Times, 16 June 1847, 1 July 1847; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 8 July 1847; Daily News, 16 June 1847; Birmingham Gazette, qu. in Morn. Chro., 8 July 1847. Enraged by his behaviour, the local Whig-Radical party mooted an opposition, which only drew forth more belligerence from Muntz at a meeting attended by all candidates, including Allen who had again offered:111Examiner, 19 June 1847; Daily News, 16 June 1847; Morn. Chro., 27 July 1847; The Times, 3, 7 July 1847.

What have been my votes and speeches for eight sessions that I’m sneaked at and treated as the scum of the earth? Come and fight it out now. I am here … Where now are the vile miscreants who have traduced me? You poor vile, pusillanimous wretches, come out.112Daily News, 14 July 1847.

In the event, however, Muntz and Scholefield subsequently convened a joint meeting, following which they were returned within 80 votes of each other, suggesting that shared votes helped them see off Spooner who finished 500 votes behind, with Allen trailing on 89.113D. Fraser, ‘The urban history masquerade’, HJ, 27 (1984), 253-64 (at 260); idem, Urban politics, 199; Daily News, 31 July 1847; Liverpool Mercury, 3 Aug. 1847; Morn. Chro., 28 July 1847.

Spooner was compensated for his defeat by his return for North Warwickshire shortly after, where he sat until his death in 1864. His removal deprived Birmingham Conservatism of its linchpin, but he nevertheless participated in the meeting of October 1847 which sent a memorial and deputation to Russell, lobbying for currency reform, because as Muntz put it, repealing the corn laws but not the ‘money laws’ was to ‘put the cart before the horse’.114The Times, 25 Oct. 1847, see also ibid., 21 Oct. 1847, 6 Nov. 1847. The following year, Muntz became president of the newly-founded Reform League, whose other figures included Edmonds and Sturge, which had been established to organise local support for Joseph Hume’s parliamentary campaign for further political reform.115VCH Warws., vii. 305.

The incumbents were returned unopposed at the 1852 general election.116J.A. Langford, Modern Birmingham and its institutions (1873), ii. 4-5. Trade in the town was sluggish, but unemployment was low and the numbers claiming poor relief continued to fall.117Morn. Chro., 21 June 1852. Muntz refused to attribute this economic improvement to repeal of the corn laws. He argued instead that the ‘unexpected and marvellous increase in the production of gold’, principally through discoveries in America and Australia, had provided the measure of currency reform which should have accompanied free trade.118Daily News, 26 July 1852. Scholefield defended his votes against Russell’s Ecclesiastical Titles Act and endorsed the Catholic seminary at Maynooth.119The Times, 25 June 1852, 8 July 1852; Morn. Chro., 25 June 1852.

The town was ‘exceptionally quiet on all political questions’ in 1856, and the following year Muntz and Scholefield were again returned without opposition at the general election, when a public meeting criticised Palmerston, but offered support for the incumbents whilst noting that ‘a more frequent attendance in Parliament’ was desirable from both of them.120Langford, Modern Birmingham, ii. 8; Morning Post, 23 Mar. 1857; Morn. Chro., 27 Mar. 1857. Muntz offered a characteristically combative defence of his vote against Cobden’s Canton motion and the ‘peace-at-any-price foolery’ of the Manchester school.121The Times, 23 Mar. 1857; The Standard, 27 Mar. 1857.

Muntz’s death that July occasioned a by-election for which rumoured Conservative or ‘Liberal Conservative’ candidates included Ratcliff, the mayor, and George Whateley, Q.C., the veteran party organiser. Forster Alleyne McGeachy, of Shenley Hill, former MP for Honiton and brother-in-law of Charles Adderley, MP for South Staffordshire, eventually offered, but withdrew before the nomination.122The Times, 4 Aug. 1857; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 8 Aug. 1857; Leicester Chronicle, 8 Aug. 1857. A public meeting indicated an overwhelming preference for John Bright, defeated at Manchester at the general election, ahead of Baron Dickenson Webster, of Penns Mills, a local Reformer.123Langford, Modern Birmingham, ii. 9-11. Although Bright did not publish his address until two days before the nomination in August, from which he was absent, by then his return was a formality as Webster had withdrawn, honouring an agreement that the candidate with the fewest promised votes would retire.124Ibid.

This by-election marked the end of the influence of Attwood and the currency school, but the tradition of support for parliamentary reform remained important.125Fraser, Urban politics, 199. Although Bright ‘always remained a stranger’ in the town, and only addressed his new constituents for the first time in October 1858, his campaign for franchise reform helped to cohere local activity, and he was aided by the formation of numerous, although mostly short-lived, bodies, like the Reform Union and the Birmingham Reform Association, both established in 1858.126Vincent, British Liberal party, 233; Langford, Modern Birmingham, 15-31; Tholfsen, ‘Origins of the Birmingham caucus’, 180-2; VCH Warws. vii. 306-7. Bright’s appropriation of Birmingham’s radical tradition also had a significant electoral dimension. In the last decade of the period, Birmingham’s Liberals faced stiff competition from Liberal Conservatives, who, whilst supporting church and constitution, also claimed to have reforming and progressive credentials, and sought to blur party distinctions. In response, Liberals, above all, Bright, appealed to history and civic pride, calling on electors and non-electors to be true to their town’s radical past.

At the 1859 general election, Bright’s address and speeches concentrated almost exclusively on reform, and, like many of his orations, were directed as much at a national newspaper readership as a local audience. He faced an unexpected opposition from a Conservative, Dr. George Bodington, of Sutton Coldfield, who published an address advocating a restoration of the Navigation Laws and the repeal of the Union with Ireland, but then withdrew.127Langford, Modern Birmingham, ii. 32-3; Birmingham Daily Post, 19 Apr. 1859. The real challenge to Bright came from the ‘Liberal Conservatives’, comprising Conservatives, Whigs and moderate Liberals, who, despite their protestations, were really united by a dislike of his strident rhetoric.128The Times, 29 Apr. 1859; T. Acland, Speech of Thomas Dyke Acland, Esq., at the nomination of candidates for the representation of the borough of Birmingham, on Thursday the 28th of April (1859), 12. For the use of the Liberal Conservative label at the 1857 by-election see Liverpool Mercury, 12 Aug. 1857; The Times, 4 Aug. 1857. After a struggle to find a candidate, Thomas Dyke Acland, of Killerton, Devon, who had been a Conservative then Peelite MP for West Somerset, 1837-47, was brought forward.129Birmingham Daily Post, 12 Apr. 1859; Morning Post, 14 Apr. 1859; M. Stenton, Who’s who of British MPs, i. 2. Backed by a ‘very large number of respectable gentlemen’, including the sons and namesakes of Attwood and Muntz, he offered support for a ‘government of moderate men’, the established church and parliamentary reform.130Acland, Speech, 3; The Times, 21, 27 Apr. 1859; Birmingham Daily Post, 20, 22 Apr. 1859. Although he was endorsed by the Conservatives, some members of that party did not rate the chances of a man with ‘no ability, nor local standing’.131The Times, 21 Apr. 1859; ‘A Staunch Conservative’, Birmingham Daily Post, 26 Apr. 1859. Acland shunned the customary town meeting, attended by 7,000 to 8,000 electors and non-electors, preferring to address small groups of supporters. However, he was regularly interrupted and heckled by radicals, who also usurped their opponents’ meetings to pass resolutions in favour of the incumbents.132The Times, 25 Apr. 1859; Birmingham Daily Post, 21, 22, 25, 26 Apr. 1859. The challenger attempted to appeal to workers in general and gunmakers in particular by targeting Bright’s long-standing opposition to factory regulation and his advocacy of a ‘peace-at-any-price’ policy, whilst also offering support for reform.133The Times, 27, 28 Apr. 1859. However, his party’s canvassing methods sparked controversy as they apparently involved asking workmen for their votes in the presence of their employers, which led to complaints of undue influence.134The Times, 27 Apr. 1859.

Bright’s claims to continue Birmingham’s radical tradition benefited from the whole-hearted endorsement of his colleague Scholefield and Philip Henry Muntz, brother of the late member and a former political councillor.135Birmingham Daily Post, 26 Apr. 1859; The Times, 26 Apr. 1859. Another theme of Bright’s campaign was criticism of British foreign policy, especially secret diplomacy and meddling in continental affairs.136The Times, 25, 26 Apr. 1859. At the nomination, Scholefield drew a contrast between the ‘slow and reluctant change’ advocated by Disraeli’s party and ‘spontaneous and steady progress’, whilst Bright encapsulated his long oration in the slogan of ‘Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform’.137The Times, 29 Apr. 1859. Acland spoke for an hour, but owing to heckling, his speech was largely inaudible.138The Times, 29 Apr. 1859; Daily News, 29 Apr. 1859. However, it was reported that he agreed with Bright over many aspects of reform, the points of departure being his support for the educational and savings bank qualifications derided by Bright as ‘fancy franchises’, and his opposition to the ballot and extensive redistribution from counties to large boroughs.139The Times, 29 Apr. 1859; Acland, Speech, 8-12. The show of hands overwhelmingly favoured Bright and Scholefield, and their victory was equally comprehensive. The defeated Acland later complained of the ‘influence of non-electors’, but there was no petition.140The Times, 2 May 1859; Acland, Speech, 4.

After the election, local political activity continued to revolve around Bright’s reform campaign, but reformers also sought to expand the electorate through practical means.141Langford, Modern Birmingham, ii. 39, 43-4; VCH Warws. vii. 306-7. The large number of compound householders in the town meant that although over 18,500 householders were rated at £10 per annum in 1859, there were only 5,905 electors qualifying in respect of property within Birmingham parish.142PP 1860 (455), xii. 297. However, a combination of proactive officials and a radical committee exploited a little-used 1851 Act to enfranchise 1,700 compounders in 1860.143H. Cox, A history of the reform bills of 1866 and 1867 (1868), 114; Langford, Modern Birmingham, 38, 40; Seymour, Electoral, 149-55; 14 & 15 Vict., c. 14 (Compound Householders Act 1851); PP 1860 (455), xii. 297-8. This collusion merely confirmed Conservative suspicions that electoral revision was a ‘one-sided affair, and it is not worth the while of the Conservative party to interfere in the registration’.144From the evidence of George Whateley, Conservative solicitor and party organiser, to the House of Lords select committee on the elective franchise in counties and boroughs: PP 1860 (455), xii. 304. The steady increase in the electorate thereafter, peaking at 15,497 in 1865-66, was generally to the Conservatives’ disadvantage, and as a consequence Scholefield and Bright were unchallenged at the 1865 general election, when the former’s support for the Confederacy in the American Civil War, which aroused some complaint, proved no obstacle to his return.145PP 1866 (81), lvii. 556; Langford, Modern Birmingham, ii. 343-4; Birmingham Daily Post, 13 July 1865. Towards the end of Bright’s nomination speech he was challenged by Sebastian Evans, editor of the Liberal Conservative Birmingham Daily Gazette, who suggested that Bright’s tribalism was outdated since the old Toryism was as dead as a ‘dodo’, and that the old Whigs, especially Palmerston, were the real roadblock to parliamentary reform.146Birmingham Daily Post, 13 July 1865.

Another significant factor in the election, although its chief impact lay beyond this period, was the formation of the Birmingham Liberal Association (BLA), 17 Feb. 1865.147Briggs, Victorian cities, 189-90. This evolved into the ruthless party machine of the ‘new and more aggressive Liberalism’, which as Briggs and Hennock have shown, was heavily influenced by the ‘civic gospel’ being articulated by the local Dissenting minister George Dawson.148Briggs, Victorian cities, 195-203, 209; Hennock, Fit and proper persons, 61-79; R. Ward, City-state and nation: Birmingham’s political history, 1830-1940 (2005), 62-3. Dawson bemoaned the municipal preoccupation with economy, arguing that it had retarded the town’s progress and that a more ambitious and positive conception of local government was needed, advocating a programme of civic renewal led by the town council to provide social and cultural amenities.149Briggs, Victorian cities, ch. 5; Hennock, Fit and proper persons, 62-3, 72-9; Gill, History of Birmingham, i. 377-82. Dawson’s followers, who were particularly concerned with education, included prominent businessmen such as George Dixon, Joseph Chamberlain and Richard Tangye, as well as journalists such as John Jaffray and John Thackray Bunce. Like Bright, they laid claim to the town’s Radical heritage, although as Leighton has pointed out, this was contested by ‘old Radicals’, who were not simply penny-pinching ‘Economists’, but had principled objections to the concentration of power within the town council and the emergence of a party ‘caucus’.150Hennock, Fit and proper persons, 61-2, 81-91, 93-7; D. Leighton, ‘Municipal progress, democracy and Radical identity in Birmingham, 1838-1886’, Midland History, 25 (2000), 115-42. The wider significance of the Birmingham caucus for contemporary commentators was that it was perceived to be the model for the National Liberal Federation established in 1877.151For later comments, including by BLA figures see e.g. H.W. Crosskey, ‘The Birmingham Liberal Association – the “600” of Birmingham’, Macmillan’s Magazine, 35 (1877), 299-308; idem, ‘The Birmingham Liberal Association and its assailants’, ibid., 39 (1878), 151-7; J. Chamberlain, ‘The caucus’, Fortnightly Review, 24 (1878), 721-44; E. Wilson, ‘The caucus and its consequences’, Nineteenth Century, 4 (1878), 695-712; F. Schnadhorst, ‘The caucus and its critics’, ibid., 12 (1882), 8-28; W.T. Marriott, ‘The Birmingham caucus’, ibid., 11 (1882), 949-65. Twenty-five years later the political scientist M.I. Ostrogorski argued that the caucus had a vital role in developing modern party machinery in a mass democracy. However, he was scathing about the consequences of the caucus’s influence, including the sacrifice of independence of thought, particularly amongst MPs, to a ruthless party machine, the intolerance of dissent, illiberalism, and its general incompatibility with parliamentary government and the British constitutional tradition.152M.I. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the organisation of political parties (1902), i. 161-249, 287-381. The subject has been regularly revisited by historians of Birmingham and modern British politics generally.153Briggs, History of Birmingham, ii. 165-74; T.R. Tholfsen, ‘The origins of the Birmingham caucus’, HJ, 2 (1959), 161-84; M.C. Hurst, ‘Joseph Chamberlain and west Midland politics, 1886-95’, Dugdale Society Occasional Papers, no. 15 (1962); C. Green, ‘Birmingham’s politics, 1873-91: the local basis of change’, Midland History, 2 (1973), 84-98; P.C. Griffiths, ‘The caucus and the Liberal party in 1886’, History, 61 (1976), 183-97; P. Auspos, ‘Radicalism, pressure groups and party politics: from the National Education League to the National Liberal Federation’, Journal of British Studies, 20 (1980), 184-204; E. Biagini, Liberty, retrenchment and reform: popular liberalism in the age of Gladstone, 1860-1880 (1992), 328-35; J. Lawrence, Speaking for the people: party, language and popular politics in England, 1867-1914 (1998), 163-93; Leighton, ‘Municipal progress’; Ward, City-state and nation, 65-80; J. Owen, ‘Triangular contests and caucus rhetoric at the 1885 general election’, Parliamentary History, 27 (2008), 215-35.

The by-election occasioned by Scholefield’s death in July 1867 provided an early test for the BLA, who hastily put up their president, George Dixon, an Anglican merchant, who resigned as mayor in order to stand.154Hennock, Fit and proper persons, 132; Langford, Modern Birmingham, i. 302. Although he had been mayor, Dixon could not boast the commercial pedigree or local renown of his formidable Liberal Conservative opponent, Sampson Lloyd, an Anglican who hailed from a Quaker banking family.155S. Lloyd, The Lloyds of Birmingham (1907), 88; Birmingham Daily Post, 11, 13 July 1867. Endorsing Dixon at a public meeting, Bright reiterated his argument that Birmingham was a Liberal town and that the Liberal party had either passed or forced the Conservatives to concede virtually all the beneficial measures passed since 1832.156The Times, 19 July 1867; Birmingham Daily Post, 19 July 1867. Dixon took a similar line in his address, attributing the best elements of the representation of the people bill to the pressure of Bright and Gladstone, whilst opposing the personal ratepaying clauses, and calling for the ballot and much greater redistribution, as well as advocating a national system of education.157Birmingham Daily Post, 13 July 1867. Lloyd, meanwhile, paid tribute to the Conservative government as the initiator of the reform bill, supported compulsory education, the exemption of Dissenters from church rates (but not their abolition), reform of bankruptcy and partnership law, and made clear that he was a firm supporter of the established churches.158Birmingham Daily Post, 15 July 1867. As was probably intended, Lloyd’s political label created confusion. Some Liberal electors signed his requisition, whilst others complained that no one knew what ‘Liberal Conservative’ or ‘Conservative Liberal’ meant, and whether it was ‘converted Tories, perverted Whigs, or Liberals in a dilemma’.159Letters from ‘J.C.’, ‘A duped requisitionist’, and Thomas Britton, Birmingham Daily Post, 15 July 1867. Dixon’s campaign, uncertain how to respond, damned Lloyd alternatively as an insincere reformer, ‘sailing under false colours’, or a ‘rank Tory’.160Lloyd’s own words to a meeting in Deritend and Bordesley ward: Birmingham Daily Post, 17 July 1867. The role of non-electors was again evident through the endorsement of Dixon by the working-class Reform League, whilst Lloyd was officially brought forward during his absence abroad.161Birmingham Daily Post, 11 July 1867.

A series of well-attended ward meetings preceded the nomination, at which Dixon declared himself an ‘advanced Liberal’, whilst Lloyd restated his support for reform and the established Church, and called for the extension of the Factory Acts to Birmingham.162Birmingham Daily Post, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23 July 1867; Langford, Modern Birmingham, ii. 360-1. Mindful of Acland’s ordeal, Lloyd was accompanied by a bodyguard of ‘thick-lipped, broken-nosed, bull-necked fellows’, who offered noisy support for their man, and jeers, hisses, and heckles for Dixon and his sponsors.163Birmingham Daily Post, 23 July 1867. Dixon was victorious, although Lloyd performed significantly better than Acland had in 1859.164The Times, 24 July 1867.

The by-election was a rehearsal for the following year’s general election, the first under the 1867 Representation of the People Act. Although the electorate tripled in consequence and the constituency gained an additional member, the minority clause meant that electors continued to have two votes. In October 1867, a reorganisation of the BLA created a structure which later became known as the ‘caucus’: a system of permanent ward committees, whose representatives sat on a general committee, from which an executive committee was drawn. The BLA organised Liberal electors by ward so that their two votes were deployed to return the three Liberal candidates, Bright, Dixon, and Philip Henry Muntz, who were separated by less than 500 votes, comfortably ahead of their opponents, Lloyd and Evans.165A. Briggs, History of Birmingham (1952), ii. 165-9; Hennock, Fit and proper persons, 133-4; Langford, Modern Birmingham, ii. 362-80; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, (7th edn., 1910), 24. During the campaign, Bright, quoting a local man, famously said that ‘if you go to the sea nearly anywhere you like, and take up a spoonful of water it will be salt; if you return a Member for any district of Birmingham, he will be a Liberal’.166Birmingham Daily Post, 31 Oct. 1868. Despite the complaints of Conservatives and many independent Liberals, the new Liberalism of the BLA, increasingly dominated by Joseph Chamberlain, mayor from 1873-6 and MP from 1876, held sway over the parliamentary representation, town council and, from 1870, the school board.167Hennock, Fit and proper persons, 133-8; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 24; Ward, City-state and nation, 65-80. Birmingham Liberalism split over Home Rule in 1886, with Chamberlain and most of his supporters breaking with the premier Gladstone, and thereafter Birmingham’s seven single-member seats, created in 1885, were dominated by the forces of Unionism.168McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, pt. II, 17-18.