Leicestershire North

Economic and social profile:

Like the southern division of the county, North Leicestershire contained a mixture of manufacturing and agriculture. Loughborough, the ‘second town in the county’, was an important centre of the hosiery industry, but the trade was also carried on in the market towns of Melton Mowbray, which was situated on the river Wreke, and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, which also produced felt hats.1F. Martin & J.R. McCullogh, A dictionary, geographical, statistical and historical (1866), iii. 142; Parliamentary gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i. 61; ibid., iii. 78, 305-6, 395-6. The county was increasingly renowned for the breeding of sheep and cattle, and also the production of Stilton cheese in the area around Melton.2Parliamentary gazetteer (1844), iii. 77-8; W. White, History, gazetteer and directory of Leicestershire and Rutland (1863 edn.), 58-60. In 1866, it was noted that ‘barley is the principal corn crop, but wheat and oats are extensively cultivated’.3Martin and McCullough, A dictionary (1866), iii. 142. With its mild climate and flat terrain, Leicestershire was well-suited for fox hunting, and it was said that ‘the immense sums expended on this recreation in the county would almost stagger belief’.4Parliamentary gazetteer (1844), iii. 74, 78; White, History, 51, 61-2 (at 61). In 1835, one nobleman was reported to have imported a large quantity of foxes from France after local supplies ran low.5Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, 22 Jan. 1835. The hunt season, which lasted from November to March, was particularly important to the economy of Melton, which in 1844 could accommodate 700 horses in its stables.6Parliamentary gazetteer (1844), iii. 395. Canals connected Ashby to the south of the county and Coventry, Melton to Leicester and Lincolnshire, and Loughborough to the Union and Grand Union canals and the route to London.7White, History, 54-55. The Midland Railway branch line to Nottingham, completed in 1840, passed through the constituency, the Syston and Peterborough Railway (1849) connected Melton to the eastern counties and in the same year a line linking Leicester, Ashby and Burton-upon-Trent was opened.8Ibid., 56; F. Whishaw, The railways of Great Britain and Ireland, practically described and illustrated (1840), 325. In contrast to the southern division, the pattern of land ownership was much more concentrated. The Manners family of Belvoir Castle, dukes of Rutland, were the major territorial interest, but other important noble families included the Rawdon Hastings of Castle Donington, marquesses of Hastings, and the Danvers Butlers, of Swithland Hall, earls of Lanesborough.9C. Dod, Electoral facts, 1832-1853, impartially stated, ed. H.J. Hanham (1972 edn.; first published 1852), 178.

Electoral history:

The representation of Leicestershire had traditionally been shared between the Rutland interest and the Tory gentry, with the brief exception of 1818-20, but this arrangement was challenged in 1830 and disintegrated the following year, when two reformers were returned unopposed.10‘Leicestershire’, HP Commons, 1820-32, ii. 610-14. The 1832 Reform Act divided the county into northern and southern divisions as it was thought that a vertical partition would be unbalanced, separating the industrial west from the agricultural east.11PP 1831-32 (357), xli. 361. The authority of the house of Belvoir remained strong in the new constituency, which was always represented by one of its nominees, and it was said of John Henry Manners (1778-1857), 5th duke of Rutland, that he ‘possessed … extensive political influence which was inseparable from his large landed property’.12The Times, 21 Jan. 1857. Although the Whigs held one seat through a compromise with their opponents, 1832-37, thereafter the Conservatives dominated the constituency, with Liberals limiting their opposition to nomination speeches. The Conservatives’ strong position was aided by the efforts of families such as the Herricks of Beaumanor, the Wilsons of Allaston Hall, barons Berners, the Beaumonts, baronets of Cole Orton Hall, the Fowkes, baronets of Lowesby Hall, and the Palmers, baronets of Wanlip Hall.13Burke’s landed gentry (1847), i. 563-4; Burke’s peerage and baronetage (1949), 160-1, 182-3, 789-90, 1551-52; White, History, 11-12. After 1857, an increasing level of rancour and unrest was injected by the repeated, although unsuccessful, attempts of the independent Conservative Charles Hay Frewen to challenge the Rutland interest.

At the 1832 general election, the first under the Reform Act, the electorate stood at 3,658, of whom 3,063 polled.14PP 1833 (189), xxvii. 73. By November 1836 the electorate had risen to 4,144, of whom 3,047 were 40s. freeholders and 984 were £50 occupying tenants, with electors qualifying under other franchises negligible.15PP 1836 (190), xliii. 367; 1840 (579), xxxix. 189. The size and structure of the electorate changed little until increasing in the late 1850s and rising to 4,767 in 1864-5, although this figure remained significantly lower than the southern division.16PP 1847 (751), xlvi. 337; 1850 (345), xlvi. 199; 1852 (4), xlii. 305; 1857 session 2 (4), xxxiv. 90; 1860 (277), lv. 89; 1865 (448), xliv. 550.

The 1832 general election was notable for a partial Tory recovery in Leicestershire after the collapse of the previous year. In the southern division a Whig and a Tory were returned in a compromise, but the situation in North Leicestershire was more complicated. In early December there were reports that Rutland’s brother, Lord Robert Manners, who had represented the county before 1831, had withdrawn.17The Times, 5 Dec. 1832. The other candidates were Charles March Phillipps, a Whig country gentleman and MP for the county, 1818-20, 1831-2, and the radical army officer William Augustus Johnson, whose campaign was endorsed by the Unitarian banker and landowner Thomas Paget, who had also been returned for the county in 1831.18‘March Phillipps, Charles’, HP 1790-1820, iv. 544-5; ibid., 1820-32, vi. 344-5. A firm supporter of the ballot and shorter parliaments, and opponent of all monopolies, Johnson’s campaign, directed against the Rutland interest, was met with hostility from Phillipps and local Whigs.19Leicester Chronicle, 22, 29 Nov. 1832, 25 Dec. 1832. At the nomination, 21 Dec. 1832, Phillipps made an ‘unprovoked personal attack’ on Paget, his former colleague, and by the end of the first day, 23 Dec. 1832, Manners was comfortably ahead with 1,994 votes, followed by Phillipps on 1,507, and the radical Johnson trailing with 679.20Morn. Chro., 24 Dec. 1832. After his defeat the following day, Johnson’s supporters, who included many ‘independent freeholders’, protested that they had been met with hostility rather than co-operation from the Whigs, and that Phillipps, instead of reprising the alliance of 1831, had ‘delivered the Division for the present, bound hand and foot, to the house of Rutland’.21Morn. Chro., 25 Dec. 1832.

At the 1835 general election, a tacit agreement between Rutland and local Whigs ensured that the incumbents were returned without a contest. By now, the ‘very moderate liberalism’ which Phillipps professed was indistinguishable from Conservatism.22Morn. Chro., 30 Dec. 1834. Promising to judge Peel’s government on its measures, and defending the king’s use of the royal prerogative to dismiss the Whigs, he argued that ‘between public opinion and popular clamour I see a wide difference’.23Standard, 19 Jan. 1835, qu. in The Parliamentary test-book for 1835 (1835), 128. It was ‘one of the first principles and duty of government to protect and support the Established Church’ and the Constitution.24North Wales Chronicle, 27 Jan. 1835. For his part, Manners reassured electors that ‘length of attendance in parliament has not diminished my attachment to church and state’.25Leicester Journal, 2 Jan. 1835, qu. in Parliamentary test-book, 104.

The Conservatives celebrated their success in the county and South Derbyshire at a festival held at Ashby, 17 Feb. 1835, which was attended by Manners as well as other local MPs. After toasts to the Church and King, army, navy, royal family, and Peel and his ministers, the chairman noted the absence of Phillipps but concluded that ‘he is a Conservative at heart’.26Report from Nottingham Journal, qu. in Derby Mercury, 25 Feb. 1835. Manners told supporters that he would be ‘encouraged in his attention to his Parliamentary duties by the unshaken energy which they had displayed’, and would support Peel’s administration, the monarchy and all their cherished institutions.27Derby Mercury, 25 Feb. 1835.

The sudden death of Manners at Belvoir Castle, 15 Nov. 1835, created a vacancy which was filled by his brother Lord Charles Manners, who had represented Cambridgeshire in the unreformed Parliament.28Derby Mercury, 2 Dec. 1835. He was returned unopposed at the nomination, 29 Dec. 1835, informing electors that he had ‘similar habits and opinions’ to his brother and expressing ‘fear and apprehension’ at the Whigs’ Irish policy and the influence of Daniel O’Connell.29The Times, 31 Dec. 1835. Antipathy to O’Connell was given frequent ventilation at a regular series of public dinners and meetings, often attended by MPs from the county and Derbyshire, and at the annual dinner of the Ashby Conservative Association, 20 Dec. 1836, attended by 300 of the ‘most wealthy, influential, and respectable gentlemen’ from the town and its vicinity, Lord Charles criticised the government’s plans for Irish tithes and municipal reform, demanding of the latter that ‘Could it be justice to Ireland to abolish Protestant corporations?’30The Times, 22 Dec. 1836; Derby Mercury, 28 Dec. 1836.

At the 1837 election, Phillipps, who had reverted to his earlier Whiggery after a brief period supporting Peel, retired after it was announced that he would be challenged by the Conservative Edward Basil Farnham, of Quorndon Hall.31Derby Mercury, 15 Feb. 1837; The Times, 27 June 1837, 19 July 1837. Since 1832 Phillipps had been dependent upon Conservative goodwill for his seat, but that party were now strong enough to repel any Radical challenge on their own and were, in any case, unwilling to extend a compromise with a supporter of a government they increasingly feared and detested. Before retiring Phillipps published a defiant defence of the Whigs’ record, in which he complained that the redress of Irish grievances had been frustrated by ‘the exercise of a hereditary, irresponsible, patrician veto’.32Morn. Chro., 7 July 1837. Farnham, who was returned unopposed alongside Lord Charles, stressed his local credentials and promised ‘to do everything in my power to preserve inviolate the UNION of CHURCH and STATE’.33Derby Mercury, 19 July 1837.

Although the constituency was now firmly under their control, the Conservatives continued to campaign against the Whigs, not least because they were under the influence of the Irish party, whom Farnham described as ‘men who have gained their elections by intimidation and violence, and by the grossest and most shameful interference of the Priests’.34Derby Mercury, 15 Nov. 1837. The Ashby and Loughborough Conservative Societies, which also attended to the registration, remained the focal points of local Conservatism in the late 1830s.35Derby Mercury, 2 May 1838; The Times, 28 Jan. 1839. Their meetings were attended by Farnham, Lord Charles, the members for the southern division, Henry Halford and Charles William Packe, and Rutland’s son and heir, Charles Cecil John Manners, Lord Granby, who represented Stamford.36The Times, 28 Jan. 1839. As lord lieutenant of the county, Rutland avoided partisan meetings, but Lord Charles assured Ashby Conservatives, 6 Jan. 1840, that ‘the noble duke’s political principles were perfectly in accordance with those held by members of the present assembly’.37Derby Mercury, 15 Jan. 1840.

At the 1841 general election Manners and Farnham were accompanied to the nomination, 6 July 1841, by ‘about 600 of the yeomanry on horseback, among whom Sir G. Beaumont and his tenantry were foremost’, two musical bands, ‘and a variety of elegant blue flags, bearing inscriptions of a loyal and constitutional character’.38The Times, 7 July 1841. No Liberal opposition was forthcoming, but the strength of Loughborough Chartism was reflected in the nomination of two candidates, J. Skevington, a local lace maker, and W. Dean Taylor, of Birmingham.39On Loughborough Chartism, see J.F.C. Harrison, ‘Chartism in Leicester’, in A. Briggs (ed.), Chartist studies (1959), 99-146 (at 99-100, 101, 111, 117, 130-32); M. Chase, Chartism: a new history (2007), 179, 221. Manners, who was convinced that the ‘interests of the farmer, the manufacturer, and the labourer, were identical’, defended the sliding scale of duties as the ‘fairest and most impartial arrangement’ for producer and consumer. Farnham vilified the Whigs’ election cry of ‘Cheap Bread’ as ‘contemptible clap-trap’.40The Times, 7 July 1841. Although the Chartists censured the Conservatives, they noted that they were ‘far more benevolent and honest’ than the ‘Whig manufacturers who treated the stockingmakers as slaves’.41Ibid. The incumbents won the show of hands by a margin of two to one, and were returned unopposed after the Chartists withdrew, although they went on to address a large meeting in Loughborough’s marketplace.42Northern Star, 10 July 1841.

The proposed repeal of the corn laws was met with an outpouring of protectionism in the constituency, but free trade sentiment was not entirely absent. At a meeting of the Waltham Agricultural Protection Society, 7 Jan. 1846, attended by Manners and Farnham, resolutions in favour of the corn laws, drawn up by Rutland, were passed, but opposed by one Mr. Healey, a tenant farmer from Ashwell, and a ‘free trader in principle’. He favoured a ‘total repeal; he wanted the whole hog; he wanted neck, griskins, and the whole pig’, but he was nonetheless complimentary about Rutland.43The Times, 9 Jan. 1846. Three days later, Farnham and Manners addressed protectionist meetings at Ashby and Leicester, the latter of which received encouragement from a letter from Rutland.44The Times, 13 Jan. 1846. Although most agreed with Henry William Wilson, of Allaston Hall, later 11th baron Berners, that Peel’s policy was a ‘cowardly measure’, at least one significant Conservative landowner, the 1st earl Howe, supported repeal.45Ibid.

The importance of the Manners family to local Conservatism was not simply due to their rank or acreage, but also derived from their active political leadership, as was well-demonstrated at a public dinner held at Waltham on the Wolds, 7 Aug. 1846. Although a ‘heavy storm of thunder, lightning and rain’ had deterred some and others grumbled that they had paid half a guinea only to receive ‘very meagre and insufficient entertainment’, it was an undeniably impressive occasion. The attendees included the dukes of Rutland and Richmond, all four Leicestershire county members, Lord George Bentinck, Benjamin Disraeli, and Granby, in whose honour the meeting was held. Rutland, who had initially been reluctant to choose between the government he had long supported and his tenants, argued that ‘a fair and reasonable protection to agriculture is mixed up with the interests of all classes of the community’, a theme developed by his heir, who spoke next. Farmers complained of the ruinous consequences that would result from free trade, whilst Richmond damned the ‘cajolery of an unprincipled minister’. Disraeli stressed the constitutional implications of repeal, that ‘as the rights of Englishmen had sprung from the land, so the liberties of Englishmen … were in peril when the land lost its predominance’.46The Times, 7 Aug. 1846.

No opposition was forthcoming against Manners and Farnham at the 1847 general election, although the former was forced to defend his vote for the 1845 Maynooth College bill which had greatly irked some of his supporters.47The Times, 4 Aug. 1846; F. Merewether, A respectful letter to Lord Charles S. Manners, MP, on the impending dissolution of Parliament (1846), 20-22, 27, 30, 33-34. He did, however, declare his ‘firm adhesion to the principles of protection’. After Peel’s betrayal, Farnham appreciated that Conservatives found it ‘difficult to trust’ any leaders, but expressed his support for Stanley and Bentinck.48The Times, 4 Aug. 1847. Thereafter local protectionism was given added intellectual weight by the presence of Lord John Manners, a younger son of Rutland. At a meeting held at Loughborough, 10 Jan. 1850, he attacked free trade for depressing home consumption as well as agriculture, and criticised the radical argument that retrenchment in expenditure, especially on the army and navy, would relieve agriculturalists and allow them to compete with foreign producers. At a time when a Bonaparte had just come to power in France, this was hardly prudent argued Manners.49Morn. Chro., 12 Jan. 1850.

In May 1852 it was announced that Lord Charles would retire at the next general election, in favour of his nephew Granby, who would relinquish his seat at Stamford.50The Times, 14 May 1852; Examiner, 8 May 1852; Morn. Chro., 8 May 1852; Derby Mercury, 12 May 1852. Farnham and Granby were accompanied to the nomination by a ‘procession of gentlemen on foot and farmers on horseback, a band of music leading the way.’ On the hustings, they were opposed by a quick-witted Loughborough draper, Thomas Pickworth, who spoke as ‘an advocate of free trade’, and took issue with a recent parliamentary speech by Granby. Nevertheless, he personally respected that nobleman, unlike Farnham, who had sat in Parliament for 15 years ‘without even once making a speech, or without having gained one particle of influence’. To laughter from the crowd, Pickworth argued that ‘A better representative than Mr. Farnham would be one made out of a log of wood, clothed entirely in local manufacture, and invoiced to Lord Derby, “To be used as occasion may require”.’ He finished by proposing the absent Richard Harris, hosier and former MP for Leicester. Farnham’s response was delayed by interruptions from the crowd, but he expressed support for the repeal of malt duty as ‘he should like to see the poor man’s beer as free from taxation as the bread he ate’. Granby mounted a critique of free trade before concluding that he ‘would ride the horse Protection so long as he was fit to go out with’. Very few hands were raised for Farnham, ‘rather more’ for Granby and the ‘bulk’ for Harris, but the free trader’s name was then withdrawn leaving the two protectionists to be returned unopposed.51The Times, 15 July 1852.

On Rutland’s death, 20 Jan. 1857, Granby succeeded as 6th duke, causing a by-election. His brother Lord John resigned as MP for Colchester, 16 Feb. 1857, in order to stand, but the latest scion of Belvoir met with opposition from an unexpected quarter. The following day Charles Hay Frewen, of Cold Overton Hall, whose elder brother, Thomas Frewen Turner had briefly represented the southern division in the 1830s, resigned as Conservative MP for East Sussex, saying he was ‘anxious to do all in my power to prevent, if possible, this division of Leicestershire from being represented by a noble lord who has, on all occasions, given his support to Popery’.52Hampshire Telegraph, 7 Feb. 1857. A supporter of ‘ultra-Protestant principles’, Frewen’s campaign centred on Manners’ past support for the Maynooth seminary, his High Churchmanship, and his allegedly tepid opposition to the malt and income taxes.53The Times, 7, 11 Feb. 1857; Derby Mercury, 4, 11 Feb. 1857. Despite circulating over 20,000 handbills, and addressing electors at Leicester, Loughborough, Ashby and Castle Donington, Frewen withdrew after a canvass indicated a 10 to 1 margin in favour of his opponent.54The Times, 13 Feb. 1857; see also Daily News, 12 Feb. 1857. On his tour of the constituency see Derby Mercury, 11 Feb. 1857. However, he dismissed a requisition presented to Manners signed by 1,766 of the 3,600 electors, as the product of country gentlemen ‘putting on the screw’ on their tenants.55Derby Mercury, 11 Feb. 1857. Manners also sought to reassure a delegation of influential electors that he was opposed to any endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy.56Ibid. At the nomination, Frewen offered his opposition as ‘a matter of principle’, and proposed the hon. Major Henry Powys (who was astonished when he learned of his candidature in the Times).57The Times, 3, 4 Mar. 1857. Pickworth proposed Richard Cobden, but although the show of hands revealed a majority for Powys, no contest ensued and Manners was returned.58The Times, 3 Mar. 1857; Morn. Chro., 4 Mar. 1857.

Just over a month later as a result of the government’s defeat on Cobden’s Canton motion, a general election followed. Frewen again took the field and was not dissuaded by the efforts of leading Conservatives to avert a contest.59The Times, 21 Mar. 1857; Examiner, 21 Mar. 1857; Derby Mercury, 25 Mar. 1857; Leicester Journal, qu. in Derby Mercury, 1 Apr. 1857. Farnham thought it politic to stress his consistent opposition to the Maynooth grant in his address, whilst Lord John gave especial prominence to attacking Palmerston’s ‘meddlesome, aggressive and unjust Foreign policy’.60Derby Mercury, 25 Mar. 1857. When Farnham went to speak at the nomination ‘a number of sticks were thrust forward, having on them the ends of herrings, potatoes, bits of broken bread, and in one case, an old waistcoat’.61Derby Mercury, 8 Apr. 1857. He could barely be heard above the jeers, but expressed support for the abolition of income tax.62The Times, 1 Apr. 1857. Manners’ speech was also interrupted by the crowd. After attacking Palmerston’s domestic and foreign policy, he accused Frewen of ‘paltry, inconsistent and unhandsome conduct’, for campaigning against Farnham, even though the political principles of the two men were indistinguishable.63The Times, 1 Apr. 1857; qu. in Derby Mercury, 8 Apr. 1857. Frewen, who was proposed by a clergyman, claimed that ‘coercion had been used’ by his opponents, before reiterating his hostility to Maynooth. A ‘perfect forest of hands’ was raised for Frewen, whilst his opponents received ‘very few’, whereupon Farnham demanded a poll.64Derby Mercury, 8 Apr. 1857. Manners was elected in first place with 1,787 votes, slightly ahead of Farnham, whilst Frewen finished third with 1,250.

A year later, Manners’ appointment as First Commissioner of Works in Derby’s second ministry, Feb. 1858, occasioned a by-election, prompting Frewen to issue an address, but after consulting with friends, he did not offer, as he explained at the nomination.65Nottinghamshire Guardian, 4, 11 Mar. 1858. Manners, who described his principles as those of ‘rational Toryism’, spoke in favour of a reform which would enhance the representation of counties and condemned the campaign to abolish church rates as ‘monstrously absurd and ridiculously unjust’.66Nottinghamshire Guardian, 11 Mar. 1858; Leeds Mercury, 9 Mar. 1857. A postscript to the election was provided by Frewen’s letter to the Times, 12 Mar. 1858, which alleged intimidation by local landowners. Whilst he did not quibble with legitimate influence, he believed it was ‘quite another thing to send an agent to coerce a whole village’, adding, for good measure, that Manners would be defeated in every other constituency except North Leicestershire, where ‘great territorial influence’ prevailed.67The Times, 12 Mar. 1858.

Given his increasingly strident criticism of the Manners family it was no surprise that Frewen offered at the 1859 general election, the constituency’s fourth election in little over two years.68Derby Mercury, 20 Apr. 1859. Farnham, who retired citing ill-health, was replaced as the second official Conservative candidate by Edward Bouchier Hartopp, of Little Dalby Hall.69Morn. Chro., 5, 11 Apr. 1859; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 10 Apr. 1859. Manners defended the record of Derby’s government, particularly its reform bill, and criticised Palmerston’s ‘impotent meddling’ in the affairs of other countries, whilst Hartopp’s vague address promised to support ‘Protestant institutions’.70Derby Mercury, 4 May 1859; Daily News, 10 May 1859. For another report of Manners’ nomination speech, see Morn. Chro., 4 May 1859. The show of hands favoured Frewen and Manners, whereupon a poll was demanded by Hartopp.71Daily News, 4 May 1859. Manners topped the poll with 2,220 votes, whilst Hartopp secured second place with 1,954 and Frewen again finished bottom with 1,433.72North Leicestershire poll book (1859), i. The official Conservatives accumulated big leads in Ashby, Melton and Waltham, and Bottesford, but Frewen had the advantage in Syston and Loughborough.73Derby Mercury, 11 May 1859. Although there was little difference in the three candidates’ political opinions, Frewen was supported as an independent against the house of Belvoir, especially in Loughborough. On 6 May 1859, after polling had commenced in the town, a disturbance flared up after police attempted to confiscate a large wooden screw and an effigy, upon which the word ‘up’ was inscribed and which had a ‘raw sheep’s heart’ suspended in front it (a grisly rebus or visual pun of Hartopp).74Derby Mercury, 21 July 1859. Frewen’s Liberal supporters complained that the police had waded in ‘hitting men, women and children with all their might’, and at a public meeting Pickworth moved a motion of censure on their conduct.75Loughborough Monitor, qu. in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 29 May 1859. Six men were subsequently charged with disturbing the peace and riot but were discharged after pleading guilty.76Derby Mercury, 21 July 1859. A petition against Manners and Hartopp’s return from a local clergyman, alleging bribery, treating and undue influence, was presented, 17 June 1859.77CJ, cxiv. 219. The charge was that twenty or thirty Syston electors who could not afford to take the day off to vote, or who were inclined towards Frewen, were bribed with 4s. by the candidates’ agents, ostensibly as a payment for their employment as runners. In addition, the men were kept well-fed and refreshed at a number of public houses. However, the committee, appointed 27 July 1859, rejected the petition and declared the sitting members duly elected, 4 Aug. 1859.78F. Wolferstan and S. Bristowe, Reports of the decisions of election committees during the eighteenth Parliament of the United Kingdom (1865), 48-54; CJ, cxiv. 306, 337; Morn. Chro., 29, 30 July 1859, 2 Aug. 1859.

Increasingly the members’ public speeches were addressed to farmers’ clubs or agricultural associations, at which they emphasised their attentiveness to rural interests at Parliament.79Daily News, 24 Sept. 1859; Leicester Chronicle, 10 Sept. 1864. However, despite the gathering momentum of local opposition to the malt tax in the mid-1860s, Manners and Hartopp refused to give any commitments on the issue.80Leicester Chronicle, 30 Jan. 1864, 6 Aug. 1864, 21 Jan. 1865. Hartopp felt free to criticise the government’s lack of preparedness against a possible French invasion, and later their unwillingness to prevent Denmark being ‘dismembered’ by Prussia, but any blatantly partisan points were greeted with shouts of ‘No politics!’ from the farmers.81Derby Mercury, 28 Sept. 1859; Morn. Chro., 19 Oct. 1861. Local Conservatism was not in abeyance, however, particularly given the party’s resurgence in the borough, but it lacked the intensity of the earlier period, partly because, as Manners said in 1861, parliamentary politics was at a ‘decided lull’.82Derby Mercury, 26 Oct. 1859; Morn. Chro., 19, 24 Oct. 1861.

However, local politics remained embittered by the legacy of previous contests. At the 1865 general election, Manners and Hartopp were again challenged by Frewen, who now styled himself a ‘Liberal Conservative’, to the exasperation of many Conservatives, such as Sir George Palmer, 3rd baronet, of Wanlip Hall, who asked, ‘Why was the peace of the county to be again disturbed when no political principle was at stake?’83Birmingham Daily Post, 17 July 1865; Leicester Chronicle, 22 July 1865. Palmer seconded Manners at the nomination. Although Liberals had few illusions about Frewen’s political opinions, some were prepared to support him to break the ‘Ducal thraldom’. As they were too weak to mount their own challenge one Liberal wrote, they were indebted to Frewen ‘for giving us an opportunity of voting at all’. Having seen Liberal factionalism gift the Conservatives one of the borough seats a few years previously, it was also hoped that their opponents’ divisions could be exploited in the same way.84All from a letter by E.A. Paget, 19 July 1865 to Leicester Chronicle, 22 July 1865. The Liberal Leicester Chronicle, however, thought that supporting Frewen was pointless and distasteful, and urged the party to put up their own candidate.85Pointless because it would mean replacing one Conservative with another; distasteful because Frewen’s opinions, were for many Liberals, probably even less agreeable than those of the incumbents: Leicester Chronicle, 29 July 1865; see also ibid., 14 July 1866. Although Frewen did not moderate his criticism of the Rutland interest, in practice he targeted Hartopp, singling out the member’s vote for the prison ministers bill as a concession to Catholicism, which the member defended as ‘for the good of the dissenting community’.86Birmingham Daily Post, 17 July 1865.

At the nomination, 20 July 1865, which was distinguished by bad-feeling and ‘placards of a large screw, of rabbits, and other emblems significant of opposition to the landed aristocracy’, Pickworth complained of ‘a Manners being forced on them generation after generation’, although he acknowledged the family’s ‘private worth’.87Daily News, 21 July 1865; Leicester Chronicle, 22 July 1865. He then commended Frewen as the only candidate who mentioned reform.88Ibid. Manners made a typically cutting attack on Palmerston’s ‘vacillating’ foreign policy, which bullied weak states but dared not intervene against powerful nations.89Daily News, 21 July 1865. Condemning the campaign against Hartopp, Manners rejected the ‘odious and ridiculous charge’ of Frewen that the 1859 election had been won through ‘wholesale bribery and corruption’.90Leicester Chronicle, 22 July 1865. Hartopp complained bitterly of having been ‘represented as a Papist’, while Frewen proclaimed himself as ‘a thoroughly independent candidate’ who would ‘oppose Roman Catholicism to the day of his death’.91Leicester Chronicle, 22 July 1865; Daily News, 21 July 1865. After he was beaten in the show of hands Hartopp, whose speech had been much interrupted, demanded a poll.92Daily News, 21 July 1865.

The election was marked by widespread violence, some of which was later blamed on a shortage of polling booths.93Hansard, 20 July 1868, vol. 193, cc. 1505-06. Voting was suspended at Ashby for a time after the glass roof of the market, which covered the booths, was smashed, 24 July 1865.94Pall Mall Gazette, 26 July 1865. A carriage containing Manners and Hartopp supporters was also destroyed, a reverend sporting their blue colours was attacked, and the large number of police who were brought in to the town were pelted with stones, glass bottles and other missiles.95Glasgow Herald, 27 July 1865; Leicester Chronicle, 29 July 1865. At Syston, an affray took place between the ‘Lambs’ led by ‘Dick Cain’, a former pugilist of Leicester, and some ‘rough-and-ready’ locals.96Pall Mall Gazette, 26 July 1865. At Loughborough, the windows of the Bull’s Head, the official Conservative headquarters, were broken.97Glasgow Herald, 27 July 1865. Melton was not undisturbed either as Frewen’s supporters, who had had their rabbit skins on poles confiscated by the police, then tried to grab their opponents’ banners. Hartopp and Manners, who arrived in the duke’s carriage, attempted to address their supporters from the windows of two different public houses, but were drowned out by the crowd.98Leicester Chronicle, 29 July 1865. Only Frewen attended the declaration, 27 July 1865, where it was announced that he had finished almost 300 votes behind Hartopp, and over 700 behind Manners, who topped the poll. The losing candidate complained that the election ‘had been carried by the absolute power of one family’, and, for good measure, accused Hartopp of allowing his tenants’ crops to be eaten by rabbits, preventing another tenant from holding a religious meeting in his house, and being reluctant to present petitions against the malt tax.99Leicester Chronicle, 29 July 1865. Six of the Ashby rioters were committed to trial and several others were fined £20, with two months imprisonment in the event of non-payment.100Birmingham Daily Post, 31 July 1865. The six men were Alexander Parker, tailor; Matthew Spencer, butcher; Henry Thornewall, carpenter; John Roby, stonemason; John Baxter, coachbuilder; and James Harper, labourer: Derby Mercury, 2 Aug. 1865.

The formation of Derby’s third ministry after the defeat of the Liberal government’s reform bill, led to Manners’ re-appointment as First Commissioner of Works, and another by-election, 14 July 1866, but as Frewen was serving as high sheriff (and therefore the returning officer), no opposition was forthcoming.101Birmingham Daily Post, 10 July 1866. The nomination was held at eight o’clock to reduce the risk of disturbance, but the 150 who did attend were deprived of the spectacle of Manners being declared returned by his former opponent by the nobleman’s ill-health.102Pall Mall Gazette, 11, 14 July 1866. Later in the same year, Pickworth played a prominent part in Loughborough’s demonstration for reform.103Leicester Chronicle, 1 Dec. 1866.

By the terms of the 1867 Representation of the People Act the constituency’s electorate increased to 6,348.104PP 1868-69 (418), l. 114. At the 1868 general election, which was preceded by a testy exchange of letters between Frewen and Rutland, the former was easily defeated by Manners and another official Conservative, and thereafter abandoned his ten year campaign for ‘independence’.105The Times, 14 Nov. 1868; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 167. The Conservatives retained both seats, despite Liberal challenges in 1874 and 1880, until 1885, when the county was re-divided into four single member seats (excluding the borough), of roughly equal population.106Ibid.; PP 1884-85 (258), lxiii. 246-50; 48 & 49 Vict. c.23. The Eastern (or Melton) division was represented by Lord John Manners until he succeeded his brother as 7th duke of Rutland in 1888, and was then held by three of his sons until the Liberals won the seat in 1906. The Western (or Bosworth) division, and Mid Leicestershire, which included Loughborough, were secured by the Liberals after 1885 and 1892 respectively.107PP 1884-85 (258), lxiii. 246, 250; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, pt. II, 147-48.