Northumberland North

Social and economic profile

The maritime county of Northumberland, bounded on the east by the North sea, and lying between the rivers Tyne and Tweed, was noted for its extensive coal resources, although these were mainly in the southern part of the region. The northern division was largely agricultural, with its predominantly arable land producing wheat, oats, barley, beans and turnips.1N. Ridley, Portrait of Northumberland (1965), 17-18; Dod’s electoral facts, impartially stated, ed. H.J. Hanham (1972), 232-3. The region’s agriculture continued to flourish throughout this period, with some of its most prominent landowners spearheading technical improvement, notably Matthew Culley of Coupland Castle, and the 4^th duke of Northumberland of Alnwick Castle.2N. McCord, North-east England: an economic and social history (1979), 112. The borough of Morpeth was home to a small number of woollen factories and corn mills, while the population of Berwick-upon-Tweed was chiefly engaged in the shipping trade and various fisheries.3Dod’s electoral facts, 23, 220-1. The northern division was traversed by the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, which opened in 1847.

Electoral history

The 1832 Reform Act divided the county of Northumberland into two divisions, separating the mixed economy of the south from the largely agricultural north. The county, represented by two members since 1298, had remained unpolled from 1774 to 1826, with changes in its representation determined by compromises between the dominant landowners: the Percys, dukes of Northumberland; the earls of Carlisle and dukes of Portland; the earls of Tankerville; and the Greys of Howick. Keen to avoid unnecessary and expensive contests, they favoured bipartisan representation, with one member at least from among their ranks.4HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 765. This arrangement was shattered at the 1826 general election, which witnessed a vitriolic contest between four candidates, two of whom fought each other in a bloodless duel. Their combined election expenses were estimated at £250,000.5P. Burroughs, ‘The Northumberland county elections of 1826’, Parliamentary History, 10 (1991), 78-104; HP Commons, 1820-32, ii. 765-85. This memorable event became ingrained in the local political memory and coloured the subsequent electoral history of the county, for the major magnates appeared initially reluctant to sanction any further contests.

The electorate of the newly created northern division polled at Berwick, Elsdon, Morpeth, Wooler, and the election town of Alnwick. The freeholders comprised the largest portion of the registered voters. In 1837 they accounted for 55 per cent of the electorate, a figure that remained steady throughout this period. The next largest body were the £50 occupying tenants, who made up approximately 36 per cent of voters between the first and second Reform Acts.6PP 1837-38 (329), xliv. 567; PP 1860 (277), lv. 91. The dominant influence was the Tory duke of Northumberland (180,000 acres), who resided at Alnwick Castle, and, to a lesser extent, the earl of Tankerville, also a Tory, who resided at Chillingham Castle. Further important Conservative gentry were Hodgson Hinde of Elswick, Liddell of Eslington, and Orde of Nunnykirk. The leading Whigs were undoubtedly the Greys of Howick, led by the prime minister Earl Grey, while Charles Bigge of Linden also possessed some influence. With the calamitous and expensive events of 1826 freshly in their minds, the Grey interest supported the maintenance of shared representation in the post-Reform era, and deliberately repelled any prospective second Whig candidate from joining Viscount Howick, the eldest son of the prime minister, who had sat for the county since 1831. Tankerville, who had made a great display of his only son Lord Ossulston coming of age in 1831, and subsequently brought him forward for the northern division in 1832, was equally keen to avoid unnecessary expense.7HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 773. The first three general elections of the post-Reform era were thus uncontested, although partisan rivalries continued to be fostered by the Whig-supporting Newcastle Courant, and the Tory-supporting Newcastle Journal.

The emergence of the Ridleys, however, as a political force in the 1840s subtly changed the political landscape. Significantly, the assimilation of new families into the old landed aristocracy of Northumberland was continuous, and this process was best personified by the Ridley family.8N. McCord, ‘Some aspects of north-east England in the nineteenth century’, Northern History, 7 (1972), 79. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth century the family had built up a strong interest in the banking and mercantile activities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but following the death of Sir Matthew White Ridley, MP for the borough, in 1836, his son, also Matthew, severed the family’s social and financial connections with the town and devoted his attention to developing his rural estate at Blagdon. Thereafter, Ridley became the principal manager for the Conservatives in the northern division, and beginning in 1841, he led the campaign to secure the return of two Conservative candidates to Parliament. Ridley’s efforts to overturn the division’s mixed representation led to three successive contested general elections between 1841 and 1852. The eventual achievement of Conservative hegemony, however, was far from straightforward. Although the historiography has described Northumberland North as ‘that most feudal of county constituencies’,9T.J. Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms in reformed England: case studies from the North-east, 1832-74 (1975), 109. the division was home to a significant independent ‘squirearchy’ who wished to maintain shared representation. Moreover, the assertion of two historians that in the northern division it was a ‘positive liability’ to support free trade, overlooks the convincing victory of a Liberal candidate at the crucial 1847 general election.10N. McCord and A.E. Carrick, ‘Northumberland in the general election of 1852’, Northern History, 1 (1966), 97.

The 1832 general election highlighted the desire of the Grey interest to maintain shared representation. The decision of the prominent local radical Matthew Culley, of Coupland Castle, to come forward as a Reformer alarmed Howick, who was already in the field and anxious to avoid an expensive contest. With Tankerville’s son, Lord Ossulston, standing as a Conservative, Howick informed Culley that although he had his support, he was ‘not willing to spend money’ and thus ‘could not join him in any arrangements for entering into a coalition, or other measures that might be necessary to secure a joint return’.11Newcastle Journal, cited in Morning Chronicle, 3 Oct. 1832. Howick was also concerned that a second Reform candidate would prompt Henry Thomas Liddell, a leading local Conservative whose victory at the 1826 general election was part of Northumbrian political folklore, to enter the field, and jeopardise his own return.12Newcastle Journal, 22 Dec. 1832. Culley eventually acquiesced and retired from the contest, but the nomination which preceded Howick and Ossulston’s unopposed return was a rancorous affair. Liddell, who proposed Ossulston, gave a lengthy speech in which he castigated the Whig ministry for its failing foreign policy and relentlessly pressed Howick on the question of church appropriation. In response, Howick launched an extensive defence of his father’s government, and insisted that, although he favoured a more equal distribution of church wealth, he opposed appropriation of church revenues to non-ecclesiastical purposes.13Morning Chronicle, 19 Dec. 1832; Newcastle Journal, 22 Dec. 1832. Following these fiery exchanges, Ossulston’s short speech, in which he stated that he would ‘amend and adapt’ the country’s institutions rather than destroy them, was something of a sideshow, while a leading article in the Newcastle Journal lamented the fact that Liddell had not been a candidate.14Ibid.

Liddell did, however, canvass the division at the 1835 general election, and his candidacy was welcomed by the county’s most influential Conservatives.15Newcastle Courant, 20 Dec. 1834. Responding to a private inquiry from a local elector, Sir Charles Monck, known for his ‘idiosyncratic, independent Toryism’ wrote that he had ‘no hesitation in declaring’ his ‘wish that Lord Ossulston and Mr Liddell may be chosen’.16HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 610-2; Monck to Creighton, 11 Dec. 1834, quoted in P. Salmon, Electoral reform at work: local politics and national parties, 1832-1841 (2002), 125-6. Despite such expressions of support, Liddell, after an initial canvass, was uncertain that two Conservatives could be returned, and he withdrew.17W.W. Bean, The parliamentary representation of the six northern counties of England (1890), 480. At the nomination Ossulston declared himself an opponent of ‘that spirit of innovation which will do everything at once’ and attacked ‘that morbid desire for change’.18Parliamentary test book (1835), 118. Howick also stated that he was not prepared to support any further alterations in the constitution, and rejected the ballot and shorter parliaments. He devoted the majority of his speech to an impassioned defence of the late Whig ministry, whose controversial replacement by the king with a Conservative administration had been ‘impossible to justify’. He attacked Peel’s Tamworth manifesto for its ‘vague and specious generalities’, and referring to Liddell’s earlier statement that he (Liddell) was coming forward out of ‘duty to King and country’, quipped that his own actions must be ‘nearly traitorous’.19Newcastle Courant, 17 Jan. 1835. Howick and Ossulston were returned unopposed. Following the fall of Peel’s short-lived ministry in April 1835, Howick was appointed secretary of state at war, and at the subsequent by-election he was again re-elected without opposition.20Ibid., 2 May 1835.

Compared to the fraught campaigns of 1832 and 1835, the 1837 general election was a quieter affair that passed without any great incident. At the nomination, the conciliatory tone of the campaign was echoed by the Conservative William Orde of Nunnykirk who, after seconding Ossulston, praised Howick for the ‘greatness of his talents, and his attention to public business’, though he reserved some criticism for the Whig government, declaring it to be in a state of ‘suspended animation’ and too dependent on the Irish party in the Commons.21Ibid., 4 Aug. 1837. Howick refuted these charges and defended his support for the new poor law, for which he had been criticised during the campaign. Ossulston condemned Irish church appropriation and the government’s church rate bill, though the force of his arguments was weakened by a lengthy pause in his speech, which was met with a cry of ‘you’re in a state of suspended animation’ from a member of the assembled crowd. For the third consecutive time, both men were returned unopposed.22Ibid.

The 1841 general election witnessed the division’s first contest as three candidates went to the poll. With Ossulston and Howick already in the field, Addison Baker Cresswell, of Cresswell Hall, accepted a requisition from 38 electors, including John Hodgson Hinde, MP for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to stand in the Conservative interest.23The poll book of the contested election for the north division of the county of Northumberland (1841), 6-7. In his address, Cresswell pledged to defend the agricultural interest against ‘the delusive schemes of the free trader’.24Ibid., 7. Howick, though, was unrepentant about his support for free trade, and in an outspoken address, accused Cresswell’s supporters of ‘appealing to selfish and sordid feelings’.25Ibid., 8. At the nomination, Howick proceeded to zealously attack agricultural protection, arguing that it was failing the landed interest. In a lengthy, heated speech, he also defended his support for the new poor law and asserted that Cresswell knew nothing of its true operation, and his opposition to it was based on ‘ignorance and indiscretion’. He then implored his supporters to plump for him, declaring that ‘a vote for me divided with either of [my opponents] is in fact thrown away’. In response Cresswell declared that free trade would send the farmer to the workhouse, while the more temperate Ossulston insisted that the corn laws alone were not responsible for the current economic difficulties.26Ibid., 10-39.

Following an extremely fierce contest, Ossulston was re-elected at the head of the poll, with Cresswell returned in second, 62 votes ahead of Howick. Although Howick lost his seat, the result did not reflect an overwhelming triumph for the policy of agricultural protection: 27 per cent of Howick’s total votes were split with the Conservative candidates, suggesting that his free trade principles did not completely lose him the support of the independent squirearchy who traditionally preferred shared representation. Moreover, although Ossulston and Cresswell shared 993 votes, this was only 82 per cent of the former’s total, reflecting the fact that Conservative voters were far from completely united. Howick also outpolled Cresswell in the Wooler district, home to the earl of Tankerville’s estates. Howick therefore lost the election in Alnwick, the division’s most populous district which was dominated by the Percy interest, where he received only a 40 per cent share of the vote.27Bean, Parliamentary representation, 482. Following the declaration of the poll, Howick, who described himself as ‘mortified and disappointed in a very high degree’, blamed his defeat on Ossulston, whom he accused of using ‘coercive language’ in order to get Tankerville’s tenants to withdraw votes that had been promised to him. Ossulston dismissed the assertion as ‘a tissue of misrepresentation from beginning to end’.28Ibid.

The issue of agricultural protection also dominated the 1847 general election. With Howick having succeeded his father in the earldom, the family interest brought forward Sir George Grey, a nephew of the former prime minister and Howick’s cousin, who in 1846 had been appointed home secretary in Russell’s ministry. Grey framed himself as a distinctly populist candidate, appealing to ‘mixed, agricultural, trading, commercial, rich and poor’ interests. Echoing the earlier views of Howick, he argued that the only true protection to agriculture was the self-reliance of the British farmer and any other sort of protection was ‘absurd’.29Daily News, 9 Aug. 1847. Following the retirement of Cresswell on the grounds of poor health, the case against free trade was made most vociferously by his Protectionist replacement, Algernon Percy, styled Lord Lovaine, the eldest son of the 2^nd earl of Beverley, the heir to the dukedom of Northumberland.30Morning Chronicle, 3 May 1857. With no political experience to draw upon, Lovaine took great care to associate himself with ‘the good deeds of the house of Percy’, and in addition to casting doubt on the ‘alleged benefits’ of free trade, he spoke out against the Maynooth grant and the admission of Jews into Parliament.31Daily News, 9 Aug. 1847. Although Lovaine’s personal connection to the Percy interest made him a strong candidate, his relatively late entry into the field in May, when Grey and Ossulston’s supporters had been canvassing for some time, put him at a distinct disadvantage.32McCord and Carrick, ‘Northumberland election of 1852’, 95. Ossulston, standing again as a Protectionist, argued that his votes in the Commons proved his commitment to the landed interest, and proudly declared that he had ‘avoided contagion from the bad example of Sir Robert Peel’.33Daily News, 9 Aug. 1857.

Although the contest was a severe one, the nomination was given an air of levity by a placard, raised directly in front of the stage, which stated in legible characters that Ossulston had attended only 47 out of 610 divisions since the last election. Ossulston denied that he had neglected the interests of his constituents, but Grey was quick to capitalise on his opponent’s discomfort and quipped that:

There is one way of resisting contagion, and that is keeping at a very long distance from it – and if that placard which we have seen here to-day contains any approximation to an accurate estimate of the votes given by the noble lord, he had taken a most effectual means of avoiding any contagion which might be caught within the walls of the House of Commons (loud laughter).34Ibid.

Despite such mockery, Ossulston narrowly secured his re-election, coming in second, ten votes ahead of Lovaine. Grey comfortably topped the poll by over 100 votes, and thus restored shared representation to the division.

The result of the election highlighted the continuing unevenness of support for agricultural protection among the independent landowners of Northumberland North. 21 per cent of Grey’s total votes were shared with the Protectionist candidates and he received a respectable 47 per cent share in Ossulston’s home district of Wooler. Unsurprisingly Lovaine performed strongly in the Alnwick district, gaining 61 per cent of the total votes, but he fared poorly in Berwick, gaining a share of only 35 per cent. He also polled unspectacularly in Morpeth and Wooler, a likely reflection of his late entry into the campaign.35Bean, Parliamentary representation, 482.

At the 1852 general election local Conservatives, under Ridley’s management, were determined to oust Grey and restore Conservative hegemony to the division. Following a requisition from 23 tenant farmers paying in total more than £32,000 in annual rental, Lovaine offered again,36The poll book of the contested election for the north division of the county of Northumberland (1852), 2. but Ossulston, whose family’s Chillingham estate was failing, could not afford a contest and threatened to retire.37McCord and Carrick, ‘Northumberland election of 1852’, 96. After much prevarication, it was confirmed in May that Ossulston and Lovaine would stand in coalition, with the former’s expenses being met by a subscription raised by his supporters. Ossulston could only put up £500, a figure that was matched by Ridley.38Ibid. Significantly, neither Lovaine nor Ossulston called for the reintroduction of the corn laws, prompting Grey to quip that ‘I did not know whether I was to meet my noble opponents as protectionists or free traders’. Rather, the Conservative candidates advocated a readjustment of taxation to favour farmers, though this was dismissed by Grey, who argued that ‘a true friend of the farmer is one who dares to tell him the truth’, as opposed to Disraeli, who ‘panders to delusion or endeavours to induce you to follow and expect what is now admitted to be a phantom’.39Morning Chronicle, 28 July 1852. The question of franchise extension also loomed large in the nomination speeches, with Ossulston contending that any reform should be based on property and intelligence rather than numbers, and Lovaine admonishing Lord John Russell for proposing to give the vote to the ‘beggars on the streets of London’.40Ibid. Such comments were part of the wider strategy of the local Conservatives, who sought to paint Grey as the friend of extremists, and he was repeatedly attacked for being under the influence of the Anti-Corn Law League.41Poll book (1852), 9.

Following a fierce two days polling, Lovaine was elected at the top of the poll, with Ossulston coming in second, 35 votes ahead of Grey. Lovaine again dominated the poll in Alnwick, gaining an impressive 66 per cent share of the total votes, but more significantly, he performed strongly in the district of Morpeth, second only to Alnwick in terms of the numbers of registered electors, where he secured a 53 per cent share, up from 46 per cent in 1847.42Bean, Parliamentary representation, 482. With the issue of free trade settled, it appeared that the independent squirearchy were more willing to back two Conservative candidates.

The 1857 general election, which witnessed the unopposed return of Lovaine and Ossulston, heralded the beginning of uncontested Conservative hegemony in the northern division. The subject of the British bombardment of Canton dominated the nomination in 1857. Both candidates had voted for Richard Cobden’s censure of the government on the issue, 3 Mar. 1857, and while Lovaine, who had served in the army, was more guarded in his criticism, Ossulston condemned Palmerston for indulging ‘in the pleasures of quarrelling’ while ignoring ‘the bill of damages to pay’.43Newcastle Courant, 3 Apr. 1857. Following the fall of Palmerston’s ministry in February 1858, Lovaine was appointed a lord of the admiralty by the new premier Derby. At the subsequent by-election, Lovaine criticised Palmerston’s conspiracy to murder bill, framed in response to the Orsini bomb plot to assassinate the emperor Napoleon, and argued that it was ‘the first duty of England to preserve the right of asylum’.44Ibid., 12 Mar. 1858. He was returned unopposed. Following his promotion to vice-president of the board of trade in February 1859, Lovaine again offered for re-election. At the nomination he was opposed by Washington Wilks, a member of the Northern Reform Union, who called the Derby government’s reform bill an ‘insult to the country’ and declared Lovaine unfit to hold the office of vice-president of the board of trade, as he had no business experience. However, following a show of hands, which the high sheriff declared in favour of Lovaine, Wilks declined to go to the poll, leaving Lovaine, who unsurprisingly offered a staunch defence of the Derby ministry, to be returned unopposed.45The Times, 11 Mar. 1859.

At the 1859 general election Sir Matthew White Ridley came forward in place of Ossulston, who had been summoned to the House of Lords through a writ of acceleration in his father’s barony, 6 May 1859. Although Ridley, through his management of the local party, had been assiduous in furthering the Conservative cause, at the nomination he insisted that in Parliament he ‘should not find himself imbued with party spirit’. Parliamentary reform was the most prominent issue, though with Ridley and Lovaine both cautious in endorsing any extension of the franchise, there was no controversy. Ridley and Lovaine also agreed on the necessity of maintaining the strength and efficiency of the army and navy, and both men were returned without a contest.46Morning Chronicle, 6 May 1859.

Following his father’s succession as fifth duke of Northumberland in February 1865, Lovaine, now styled Earl Percy, resigned his seat at the dissolution later that year, citing ‘the pressure of new duties’.47Newcastle Courant, 7 July 1865. At the 1865 general election he was replaced by his younger brother, Lord Henry Percy, a Crimean War hero, who had recently returned from active service in New Brunswick. At the nomination he drew on his experiences of visiting America to argue that the introduction of universal suffrage and the ballot to England would be disastrous, and launched a scathing attack on Palmerston, whom he blamed for the ‘mortification’ of British foreign policy.48Newcastle Journal, 20 July 1865. His views were echoed by Ridley, who called for a more dignified and conciliatory administration of foreign affairs, though in contrast to the more belligerent Percy, he continued to present himself as an independent, stating that although he differed from the Liberal government on many issues, he would continue to support them when he ‘conscientiously’ approved of their measures.49Newcastle Courant, 7 July 1865. Both men were elected without opposition.

After the Second Reform Act, which marginally increased the division’s electorate, the Percy and Ridley families continued to dominate the representation of Northumberland North. At the 1868 general election Percy, who retired in order to rejoin the army, was replaced by his nephew, Henry George Percy, eldest son of Lovaine, who had recently succeeded as sixth duke of Northumberland.50Ibid., 7 Aug. 1868. Ridley, who retired in order to devote his energies to the management of his estates at Blagdon, was replaced by his eldest son, also called Matthew. As the sixth duke had been opposed to the late Derby ministry’s reform bill, believing that it would ‘let the mob in upon us’, he refused to actively support the Conservatives at the 1868 election, but it mattered little.51Northumberland to Lord Hylton, 4 Nov. 1868, cited in H.J. Hanham, Elections and party management: politics in the time of Disraeli and Gladstone (1978), 26-7. Percy and Ridley were returned unopposed and sat until the constituency’s abolition in 1885, whereupon the county was divided into the single-member divisions of Wansbeck, Tyneside, Hexham, and Berwick-upon-Tweed, which had previously been a double-member borough. The four divisions were always contested up to 1910, with the Liberals dominant.