Kincardineshire

Economic and social profile:

Also known as The Mearns, Kincardineshire was a maritime county containing the eastern extreme of the Grampians, ‘forming the end of the great valley of Strathmore’. Comprising almost a quarter of a million acres, half of which were uncultivated, the county was mostly agricultural, but fishing was important for its coastal communities.1Dod’s electoral facts, 1832-53, impartially stated, ed. H.J. Hanham (1978), 164. Salmon, cod and haddock were the staples of local fisheries and were cured, smoked or salted and sent to major urban markets, including London and Glasgow.2New statistical account of Scotland (1845), xi., pt. II, pp. 13-14. The main towns were Stonehaven, which had a population of 3,012 in 1845, and Inverbervie, the only royal burgh, which had a population of under 1,000 by mid-century.3Elgin Courier, 25 Apr. 1845. Kincardineshire’s proximity to Aberdeen meant that the county had better railway links than other parts of north-eastern Scotland such as Banffshire and Elginshire.4Elgin Courier, 25 Apr. 1845, 30 Aug. 1850. For example, in the 1840s Stonehaven, the county town, was connected to Aberdeen. The economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, in particular sheep, Aberdeen Angus cattle and oats, barley, turnips and potatoes.5New statistical account of Scotland, xi., pt. II, pp. 12, 43-4, 95-7, 121, 140. The county benefited from agricultural improvements in the first half of the nineteenth century, including the reclamation of land through drainage.6Ibid., 12, 44-5, 50-1, 63-4. Most tenants held land on nineteen year leases.7Ibid., 12, 44, 59, 98, 121. Major landowners included the Arbuthnotts, of Arbuthnott House, Viscounts Arbuthnott; the Keith-Falconers, of Keith Hall, Aberdeenshire, earls of Kintore; and the Allardices of Ury and Allardice.8Ibid., 7, 33, 83, 114, 159.

Electoral history:

After a decisive victory at the 1832 general election, the Conservatives held Kincardineshire unchallenged for over thirty years. Given their slim prospects, local Liberals kept their powder dry until the long-serving MP Hugh Arbuthnott finally retired at the 1865 general election. In only the second contest of the period, the Liberals defeated the greatest landowner in the county by an unexpectedly large margin after exploiting the dissatisfaction of local farmers with the game laws and the law of hypothec. The result was part of a trend towards Liberalism in many Scottish counties that had hitherto been controlled by the Conservatives. The Liberal triumph in 1865 presaged their domination of the constituency in the later Victorian and Edwardian period.

In the decade before the 1832 Scottish Reform Act, Kincardineshire had had a tiny electorate of between 70 and 80. In 1820 a dispute between John Arbuthnott, 8th Viscount Arbuthnott, of Arbuthnott House, and the Tory ministry’s candidate, allowed the Whig Sir Alexander Ramsay, 2nd baronet, of Balmain, to be returned. In 1826 a rapprochement between Lord Arbuthnott and James Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, the Tory ministry’s Scottish manager, secured the unopposed return of the peer’s brother Hugh Arbuthnott. He was re-elected without opposition at the 1830 and 1831 general elections.9HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 508-11.

If Kincardineshire had generally been a safe Tory seat in the unreformed period, the Scottish Reform Act’s expansion of the electorate to 800 voters seemed to offer encouragement to local Reformers. Offering for the county at the 1832 general election, Thomas Burnett, of Leys, declared that he would end the reign of ‘Toryism in the county’. For good measure, he alleged that many voters suffered ‘under the influence of terror’.10Aberdeen Journal, 3 Oct. 1832. Burnett was endorsed by a meeting of non-electors in Stonehaven, prompting the Caledonian Mercury to remark that ‘in as far as there is a free opinion in Kincardineshire, it is now wholly and undeniably on the side of Mr Burnett’.11Caledonian Mercury, 26 Nov. 1832. However, Hugh Arbuthnott could count on the influential support of local landowners, including his brother; Robert Barclay Allardice, of Ury; Sir John Stuart Forbes, 8th baronet, of Pitsligo; Sir James Carnegie, 5th baronet, of Southesk; and the former MP Ramsay.12Aberdeen Journal, 3 Oct. 1832.

Burnett was accompanied to the nomination by ‘various flags and music, attended by countless bands of non-electors’. His supporters monopolised the space within hearing distance of the hustings, much to the annoyance of Conservative electors. None of the special constables who had been sworn in to deal with potential disturbances ‘were to be seen or heard’. Arbuthnott promised to support the agricultural interest and ‘the old institutions of the county’. Burnett professed reform principles and pointed to the endorsement of Mr. Anderson, of Pitcarrie, a farmer, as proof that he was not hostile to the agricultural interest. He admitted that the landed interest was against him, ‘but the new constituency were nine times as numerous’ as before 1832.13Aberdeen Journal, 26 Dec. 1832. Although Burnett won the show of hands, Arbuthnott secured a decisive majority of 119 in the polling. The Conservative won four of the six polling districts by healthy margins, with Burnett faring better in Stonehaven and Upper Banchory.14Ibid. The Liberal Aberdeen Herald attributed the defeat to undue influence and the ‘disgraceful system of intimidation’.15Aberdeen Herald, qu. in Morning Chronicle, 27 Dec. 1832.

In November 1834 the Conservative agent Donald Horne wrote to inform the duke of Buccleuch that Kincardineshire was one of the counties that was ‘secure’ for the party.16‘Donald Horne’s election surveys, 1834-40’, in Papers on Scottish electoral politics, 1832-54, ed. J.I. Brash (1974), 220. Burnett offered again at the 1835 general election even though he had experienced ‘total defeat’ in the previous election.17Aberdeen Observer, qu. in Morning Post, 10 Dec. 1834. He later withdrew, although he claimed that he had received enough pledges of support to cut Arbuthnott’s majority significantly. Although Liberal strength on the register had apparently increased, Burnett said that many ‘find themselves exposed to undue influence, which, as yet, they are altogether unable to resist’. Although Arbuthnott was returned unopposed, Liberals consoled themselves with Burnett’s prediction that they would soon be strong enough to stand and win.18Caledonian Mercury, 8 Jan. 1835. This proved to be an empty boast as it was not until thirty years later that they finally fielded a victorious candidate.

Burnett opted to contest Aberdeenshire at the 1837 general election, leaving Arbuthnott to be re-elected without opposition.19The Examiner, 13 Aug. 1837. By the late 1830s Horne was able to write that Kincardineshire was ‘quite secure I understand and no opposition spoken of’.20‘Donald Horne’s election surveys’, 253. Arbuthnott’s hold on the constituency was further strengthened by support for protectionism in the constituency. At the 1841 general election, when he was again unchallenged, he reiterated his commitment to the agricultural interest.21Aberdeen Journal, 23, 30 June 1841. In 1844 his brother Lord Arbuthnott chaired a protectionist meeting that condemned free trade as ‘visionary and impracticable’. The meeting reprobated any further diminution of agricultural protection, and the resolutions stated that the present corn laws ‘do not, in the opinion of this meeting, afford adequate protection to the home grower’. Lord Arbuthnott dismissed the idea of a fixed duty on corn as an ‘absurdity’ and his brother was a reliable opponent of free trade at Westminster.22Aberdeen Journal, 28 Feb. 1844, qu. in Morning Post, 2 Mar. 1844.

After becoming ‘insolvent for a considerable amount’, Lord Arbuthnott was forced to resign the lord lieutenancy in April 1847 and live abroad.23Dundee Advertiser, 16 Apr. 1847. His successor as lord lieutenant was the Liberal Burnett, who had since succeeded to his family’s baronetcy. These events threatened to weaken Hugh Arbuthnott’s position and the Liberals briefly mooted an opposition at the general election that July before deciding against it. They thereafter determined that they would wait for the General (as Hugh Arbuthnott was generally known) to retire before contesting the seat.24Belfast News-Letter, 21 May 1847; Aberdeen Herald, qu. in Elgin Courier, 28 May 1847; Aberdeen Herald, qu. in Elgin Courier, 18 June 1847.

Accordingly, Arbuthnott was unchallenged at the 1852, 1857 and 1859 general elections. In 1854 the Caledonian Mercury wrote that both Arbuthnott and William Gordon, MP for Aberdeenshire, the neighbouring county, were ‘the last of the old school of county Tory members who steadily adhered to the government of the day, so long as their party was in power’.25Caledonian Mercury, 24 Aug. 1854. Given that the majority of the Scottish seats were held by the Liberals after 1832, the ability of Arbuthnott and Gordon to retain their seats for so long without any challenge seemed a throwback to the preceding period. A terse orator, Arbuthnott’s speeches were generally vague and perfunctory. He rarely elaborated as his political views were well known. He did offer slightly more detail on the hustings in the 1850s; for example, he repeatedly emphasised his votes against the grant to the Catholic seminary at Maynooth and his hostility to Papal aggression generally.26Aberdeen Journal, 21 July 1852, 8 Apr. 1857. In a typically vague declaration of 1852, he promised to support measures to ‘relieve agriculture, establish the Protestant institutions of the country, and promote the public good’.27The Times, 19 July 1852. In 1859 there were rumours that Arbuthnott would retire in favour of Sir Alexander Ramsay, 3rd baronet, of Balmain, son of the former MP and himself Conservative MP for Rochdale, 1857-9, but these proved to be groundless.28Caledonian Mercury, 9 Apr. 1859. At the nomination Arbuthnott called for British neutrality in European affairs and said that he would be willing to consider electoral reform proposals, although he would not commit himself.29Aberdeen Journal, qu. in Elgin Courier, 7 Jan. 1859; Aberdeen Journal, 11 May 1859.

In July 1864 rumours that the octogenarian Arbuthnott was intending to retire at the next general election sparked political activity. Ramsay declined to offer.30Dundee Advertiser, 15 July 1864. Other rumoured Conservative successors included Mr. Innes of Cowie, and Sir Thomas Gladstone, 2nd baronet, of Fasque.31Banffshire Journal, qu. in Fife Herald, 21 July 1864. The prospective Liberal candidate was James Dyce Nicol, of Ballogie, ‘a native of Kincardineshire’ and former merchant ‘connected with some of the wealthiest London banking firms’.32Dundee Advertiser, 19 July 1864. When Arbuthnott confirmed in March 1865 that he would be retiring at the next dissolution, Gladstone immediately offered on the Conservative interest.33Aberdeen Journal, 15 Mar. 1865. From March until the general election in July, the county experienced the novelty of a protracted election campaign. As Nicol himself noted, ‘a large majority of the constituency of this county are now called upon for the first time to exercise their right of the franchise; and from that circumstance the contest is exciting a most unusual interest’.34Dundee Courier, 15 July 1865.

Although he was the Liberal candidate, Nicol had been a member of the Conservative Club in London and was accused of being ‘all things to all men’, a ‘turncoat’ and a ‘trimmer’ by his opponents.35Aberdeen Journal, 28 June 1865; ‘An elector’, letter to Montrose Standard, qu. in Aberdeen Journal, 19 Apr. 1865. At one meeting, Nicol even quoted a letter from John Arbuthnott, 9th Viscount Arbuthnott, that ‘I would suitably represent this county in Parliament’.36Dundee Advertiser, 17 Mar. 1865. The Conservatives later claimed that this was misleading, as the letter was written when Nicol was the only candidate and had been used to imply that he had the support of the Arbuthnott family.37‘An elector’, letter to Montrose Standard, qu. in Aberdeen Journal, 19 Apr. 1865. Gladstone declared his opposition to everything which had ‘a tendency to promote Romanism’. Since succeeding to Fasque in 1851, Gladstone had acquired further estates which made him the largest landowner in the county by the time of the election.38A.C. Cameron, The history of Fettercairn: A parish in the county of Kincardine (1899), 116. In addition, he claimed the support of other major proprietors such as Viscount Arbuthnott, Sir Alexander Ramsay, and Sir John Stuart Forbes.39Aberdeen Journal, 15 Mar. 1865; Dundee Courier, 31 Mar. 1865.

The key issues at the election were the game laws and the law of hypothec. Farmers complained that the excessive preservation of game by landowners came at their expense, due to the damage caused by rabbits and hares. Hypothec, which was peculiar to Scotland, gave landowners a preferential right in their tenants’ property, including livestock. In the event of non-payment of rent or debts, landlords could exercise their rights by selling the property and using the proceeds. Nicol emphasised his opposition to hypothec, which he believed had ‘a tendency to unduly raise the rent of farms’.40Dundee Advertiser, 17 Mar. 1865. Gladstone, meanwhile, supported the abolition of malt duty, and admitted that he was a ‘game preserver’. But he denied that he was a ‘hopeless bigoted old Tory’, noting that he had voted for the reform bill, the abolition of slavery and municipal reform when he had briefly sat in Parliament in the 1830s.41Dundee Courier, 31 Mar. 1865.

The nomination was a lively affair, attended by 1,500 people, including ‘a large number of ladies’.42Aberdeen Journal, 19 July 1865; Dundee Courier, 15 July 1865. Nicol was proposed by Sir John Horn Burnett, 10th baronet, of Leys, and Mr. Anderson, of Pitcarrie, a farmer, who demanded that the law of hypothec be ‘swept from the statute book’. Gladstone was not helped by the speech of his proposer, Colonel McInroy, of The Burn. After accusing Nicol of having ‘crude and ill-digested opinions’ on hypothec and the game laws, McInroy admitted that on the latter question, Gladstone was ‘most unpopular’, sparking uproar. He added that it was a pity that Gladstone was ‘not a practical farmer’, for then he would ‘never have run into the mistake of game preserving’. Nicol capitalised on these gaffes by declaring for the total abolition of hypothec and the modification of the game laws. Alluding to his opponent, he noted that farmers objected to ‘the game being reared at the cost of the tenant and sold by the landlord’. He also praised Palmerston’s government and supported a reduction in the burgh and county franchises.

Gladstone’s speech was notable for describing Palmerston’s government, which included his brother William, as ‘a sham from the beginning … It came into power by a false pretence, it has been maintained in power by a breach of its promises, and it continues in power only by a dread of letting in the Conservatives’. He complained that Nicol did not have ‘a residence of any description’ in the county and rebuked McInroy for saying that he was ‘an excessive preserver of game’. He warned of the unintended consequences of abolishing the game laws and approved of the recommendations of the commission on hypothec to modify, rather than abolish, the law.43Dundee Courier, 15 July 1865.

Aside from twenty to thirty hands, the ‘great majority’ of the crowd supported Nicol, and unlike in 1832, the show of hands proved to be an accurate barometer of the poll.44Ibid. The polling was carried on with ‘much energy … as was evinced by the enormous number of vehicles driving about to convey the electors to their respective polling places’. To general astonishment, Nicol secured an early lead of 150 and eventually finished 200 votes ahead of Gladstone. Nicol won all six polling districts, including Fettercairn, the ‘worthy baronet’s stronghold’.45Dundee Advertiser, 18 July 1865. Nicol later revealed that the polling had accurately borne out his canvass, which had suggested that he could count on 491 to 494 votes: his actual total was 490. The canvass had also accurately predicted that Gladstone would get between 276 and 295 votes. As 200 were considered likely to abstain, were neutral or disqualified, the Liberals had been confident of victory before the poll.46Aberdeen Journal, 19 July 1865.

After their drubbing, the Conservatives shunned the declaration at Stonehaven.47Elgin Courier, 21 July 1865 With pardonable hyperbole, the Dundee Advertiser hailed the result as ‘one of the greatest triumphs which the Liberal party has gained in the course of the present election’.48Dundee Advertiser, 18 July 1865. Nicol’s victory was part of a ‘Liberal reaction’, the Elgin Courier observed, in counties such as Kincardineshire, Buteshire and Renfrewshire that had long been controlled by the Conservatives.49Elgin Courier, 28 July 1865.

The 1868 Representation of the People (Scotland) Act expanded Kincardineshire’s electorate to 1,731. Nicol was re-elected without opposition at the 1868 general election and sat until his death in 1872. The Liberals retained control of the constituency until 1918, when it was amalgamated with Aberdeenshire West.