Suffolk East

Economic and social profile

The maritime county of Suffolk, comprising 471,312 acres and situated between the rivers Stour and Waveney, was overwhelmingly agricultural, with seven-eighths of its land devoted to arable farming.1White’s Suffolk Directory (1844), 15. In the eastern part of the county, the maltings at Ipswich, Lowestoft, Woodbridge and Beccles were major suppliers to London breweries.2VCH Suff. ii. 250-97; Dod’s electoral facts, impartially stated, ed. H.J. Hanham (1972), 299. The manufacture of agricultural machinery was also an important part of the economy; the major employers were Ransome of Ipswich, Garrett of Leiston and Smyth of Peasenhall.3H. Fearn, ‘Chartism in Suffolk’, in A. Briggs (ed.), Chartist Studies (1959), 151. The coastal town of Lowestoft was known for its china factory and herring fishery. The eastern division was traversed by the Eastern Union railway line from Ipswich to Colchester, which opened in 1846, and a line between Ipswich and Bury St. Edmunds, on which a passenger service began the same year.

Electoral history

Described as ‘one of the most extensive agricultural districts in the empire’, Suffolk East was created by the 1832 Reform Act, which split the county into two divisions.4Morning Herald, reprinted in Essex Standard, 14 Apr. 1843. From 1790 until 1830, Suffolk had remained unpolled, with a compact between the aristocracy ensuring the return of one pro-Catholic emancipation Whig and one anti-Catholic Tory. The eastern part of the county was traditionally where the Conservative strength lay and the Tory Member usually chaired the Ipswich quarter sessions.5HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 28-36. This arrangement was interrupted by the 1830 general election, which witnessed the return of two Whigs, a result that was repeated in 1831, prompting the Conservatives to assiduously ‘work’ the newly-created Suffolk East division in 1832 by bringing forward two candidates, one of whom was deliberately presented as a ‘moderate’, in a concerted effort to divide the Whig vote. Although one Reformer was returned in 1832, this strategy, along with diligent attendance to the register, secured the election of two Conservatives in 1835 and thereafter complete hegemony was maintained, despite the repeated interventions of the indefatigable Liberal Robert Alexander Shafto Adair.6Ipswich Journal, 23 Apr. 1859.

The electorate of the eastern division polled at Beccles, Framlingham, Halesworth, Needham, Saxmundham and the election town of Ipswich. The freeholders comprised the largest portion of the registered voters. In 1837-38 they accounted for 60 per cent of the electorate, a proportion that had risen to 75 per cent by 1852. The next largest body were the £50 occupying tenants, who made up approximately 26 per cent of voters in 1837-38, a figure that had declined to 17 per cent 15 years later.7PP 1837-38 (329), xliv.370; PP 1852 (8), xlii. 312. In 1852 nine per cent of the electors were also registered for property in the borough of Ipswich, a relatively low proportion for borough freeholders in a county.8PP 1852 (4), xlii. 307. The dominant influence was the Conservative John Rous, 2^nd earl of Stradbroke, who was a prominent member of the local party hierarchy, alongside a group of smaller but even more politically active landowners, including Sir Thomas Sherlock Gooch, of Benacre Hall, who had sat for the county 1806-30, Sir William Middleton, of Shrubland Park, and Sir Charles Blois, of Cockfield. With the estates of the major Whig landowners situated in the west of the county, the most important Whig proprietor in the eastern division was Sir Robert Harland, of Sproughton, who also led the local party. Another significant presence in county life was the East Suffolk Agricultural Society, established in 1832, whose most prominent committee positions were largely held by the leaders of the local Conservative party, including Stradbroke as president.9Bury and Norwich Post, 26 Sept. 1832. Its influence ensured that agricultural issues, particularly the future of the much detested malt tax, assumed centre stage at election time. The Conservative Ipswich Journal also acted as a mouthpiece for members of the Society, frequently publishing correspondence from local farmers irate at the perceived intransigence of the Whig government to agricultural relief. Partisan rivalry was further fostered by the Liberal-supporting Bury and Norwich Post.

The 1832 general election underlined the efforts of the local Conservatives to divide the Whig vote. The two Conservative candidates, who in November 1832 formally accepted a joint requisition signed by over 1,300 electors, were John Henniker-Major, known by his Irish title of Baron Henniker, of Thornham Hall, and the Waterloo veteran Sir Charles Broke Vere, of Henley Hall.10 Essex Standard, 17 Nov. 1832. Significantly, Henniker, who had first intimated his wish to stand in June that year, had nominated the Reformer Charles Tyrell for Suffolk at the 1831 general election and was known to support ‘liberal principles’.11 HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 34-5; The Times, 15 June 1832. In his address he called for a reform of tithe system and the repeal of assessed taxes and gave cautious support to the abolition of slavery. As the Bury and Norwich Post lamented, Henniker’s campaign ‘language’ was ‘hardly Conservative’.12 Bury and Norwich Post, 5 Dec. 1832. Vere also took care to present himself as progressive, and following a rather anodyne first address, he issued a second to clarify that he supported the abolition of slavery.13Ibid., 12 Dec. 1832. Unsurprisingly, both men zealously defended the agricultural interest, with Henniker insisting that he ‘would listen to no proposal by which the protection given to the British farmer should be withdrawn’.14Ibid., 5 Dec. 1832.

The Conservative cause was also inadvertently aided by the ineptitude of the first Reformer in the field. In June 1832 John Fitzgerald, of Wherstead Lodge, near Ipswich, who had represented the borough of Seaford since 1826, announced his candidature for the eastern division, describing his politics as ‘those of an independent Whig’ who wished to ‘remove civil and religious disabilities’ and uphold ‘the agricultural interest’.15Ibid., 13, 27 June 1832. His failure to have voted for the reform bill, however, made him an object of ridicule in the press, as did his foolhardy assumption that he would not face a contest.16Ibid., 26 Dec. 1832. The subsequent coalition between Henniker and Vere made his position untenable, and he withdrew from the contest four days before the poll.17Ibid., 12 Dec. 1832. The sole Reform candidate was Robert Newton Shawe, of Kesgrave Hall, a small-scale Suffolk farmer who had played a prominent role in the county’s reform movement.18 HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 33-5; Bury and Norwich Post, 16 Nov. 1831. Brought forward by Sir Robert Harland, Shawe took great pains to present himself as a champion of the agricultural interest, fervently opposing the abolition of the corn laws and calling for a reform of tithes. Although a committed churchman, he wanted Dissenters to be relieved of paying church rates, though he was careful to insist that he was ‘a Reformer, not a Revolutionist’.19Ibid., 19 Dec. 1832.

Following a rancorous nomination, Henniker, who had been introduced as a ‘moderate’, was elected at the top of the poll by a comfortable majority, but Vere was defeated into third place, 116 votes behind Shawe. A breakdown of the poll revealed that Shawe had received over 1,400 single votes, with the vast majority of the remainder being split with Henniker, suggesting that the latter’s strategy of presenting his opinions as ‘quite as near to the Whigs as to the Conservatives’ had been, in large part, successful.20Ibid., 26 Dec. 1832; Poll book for the eastern division of the county of Suffolk, 1832 (1832). Vere, meanwhile, had been outpolled in every district, save for Needham and the Conservative stronghold of Ipswich.21Ibid. In response to this disappointing result, a resolution was passed at the Conservative election dinner to establish a ‘Conservative Club’ for the division, with Sir William Middleton and Sir Thomas Gooch pledging to take a leading role.22Ibid.

This concerted effort by the local Conservative hierarchy to not only improve party organisation but also focus more closely on registration paid dividends at the 1835 general election. Between 1832 and 1834 the registered electorate had increased from 4,265 to 5,034, and at a boisterous Conservative dinner at Saxmundham in December 1834, the party hierarchy were confident that the new register had swung decisively in their favour.23 Bury and Norwich Post, 24 Dec. 1834; P. Salmon, Electoral reform at work: local politics and national parties, 1832-1841 (2002), 263. In private correspondence, meanwhile, Vere assured the duke of Wellington, with whom he had fought at Waterloo, that his family were giving ‘all the exertion in our power’ to support the new Tory ministry, ‘from which alone we can now hope for any safety from total anarchy’.24Vere to Wellington, 7 Dec. 1834, Wellington: political correspondence, ed. J. Brooke and J. Gandy (1975), ii. 170. The Ipswich Journal also played a prominent role in the contest, publishing correspondence from its readers that directly attacked Shawe’s integrity. These ranged from highlighting his inconsistency in the division lobby on the malt duty to the more sinister claim that he had abused his position as a magistrate by preventing a proposed county meeting at Framlingham to demonstrate against the malt tax, an accusation which he dismissed as ‘a false and calumnious libel’.25 Ipswich Journal, 13, 27 Dec. 1834, 3 Jan. 1835. Henniker and Vere capitalised on their opponent’s discomfort by taking every opportunity to call unequivocally for a repeal of the malt tax.26Ibid., 10 Jan. 1835.

At the nomination Henniker once again presented himself as a moderate, stating that he was ‘not opposed to safe reforms’, even though he had voted almost uniformly with the Conservative opposition since entering the Commons.27 Bury and Norwich Post, 14 Jan. 1835; Parliamentary test book (1835), 80. The irony was not lost on Shawe, who quipped that the Whig ministry ‘had worked a miracle – they had made every Tory in Suffolk a Reformer!’28 Bury and Norwich Post, 14 Jan. 1835. Acutely aware that he was on the verge of losing his seat, Shawe called upon his supporters to plump for him, or, if they wished to divide their votes, back Henniker rather than Vere, as ‘they must keep the weakest down’.29Ibid. However, in contrast to 1832, the Conservative vote was united, and following a notably bitter and personal campaign, Henniker was re-elected in first place with Vere coming in second, nearly 300 votes ahead of Shawe, who had finished last in all the polling districts save for Framlingham and Beccles.30 Poll book for the eastern division of the county of Suffolk, 1835 (1835). Following the declaration of the poll, Shawe conceded that the local Reformers had been not only divided but also ‘inattentive to the register’.31 Ipswich Journal, 17 Jan. 1835.

Despite Shawe’s subsequent plea for the Reformers to pay ‘great attention’ to registration, Henniker and Vere were returned without opposition at the 1837 general election, when the Liberal opposition collapsed before polling day. As was now standard practice, Henniker’s address gave vague and rhetorical support for reform, although he had voted consistently against Melbourne’s ministry on all the major issues of the day, while Vere’s was more unequivocal, calling for a ‘Christian legislature’ and opposing any further constitutional reform.32Ibid., 29 July 1837. They were opposed by John Garden and Robert Alexander Shafto Adair, who, after accepting a requisition from local electors, issued a joint statement declaring their support for ‘wholesome Reform’ and Melbourne’s ministry.33Ibid., 22 July 1837. Adair, of Flixton Hall, whose father, Sir Robert Adair, owned extensive estates in the region, was the more prominent and vocal Liberal candidate, and through a series of public meetings, insisted that, while backing the government, he also supported ‘all measures tending to secure a just remuneration to the agriculturalist, whether in the position of landholder, of tenant, or of labourer’.34Ibid., 29 July 1837. However, after a short canvass, it was clear that there was little hope of success, a situation neatly captured by the last verse of a Conservative election squib:

Adair may come an’ if a dare

With any chum to make a pair;

They’ll find a warm reception there

From Henniker and Vere.35Ibid., 15 July 1837.

Garden and Adair subsequently withdrew before the nomination, leaving a bullish and unusually partisan Henniker to declare that the Liberals ‘need not contest the representation on any future occasion’.36Ibid., 5 Aug. 1837.

With the malt tax and agricultural protection continuing to dominate the local political agenda, the Chartist movement made no real, concerted effort to spread agitation to the Suffolk countryside between 1838 and 1841. Most of the activity in the region focused on Ipswich, where the local association, which comprised around 150 members, held weekly meetings.37Fearn, ‘Chartism in Suffolk’, 156. In August 1838 copies of the Chartist petition were sent to Woodbridge and Framlingham, and in November that year a meeting of agricultural labourers in Sternsfield, near Saxmundham, passed a resolution in support of the Charter.38 Essex and Suffolk Times, 17 Nov. 1838. An East Suffolk Workingmen’s Association was also formed in December 1838, under the leadership of John Goodwyn Barmby, but all these initiatives were precarious at best, and following the 1839 petition, which received 7,100 signatures in Suffolk, there was little further evidence of sustained Chartist activity, apart from the establishment of an embryonic Complete Suffrage Union in Woodbridge in October 1842.39Fearn, ‘Chartism in Suffolk’, 164-72; M. Chase, Chartism: a new history (2007), 315.

The demands of the Chartists also failed to register at the 1841 general election, which witnessed Adair proceed to the poll for the first time. Backed by Harland and Shawe, he had ‘industriously cultivated his acquaintance with the county’ prior to the contest, and at the nomination he insisted that although his principles were ‘Whiggish’, he was in favour of a sliding scale on corn duties.40 Standard, 10 July 1841. His attempt to reach out to the rural interest, however, was a ‘hopeless’ one, especially given the deep resentment that was evidently felt towards Melbourne’s administration throughout the division.41 Ipswich Journal, 17 Aug. 1841. Henniker, who had now given up any pretence of supporting ‘liberal principles’, attacked the Whig ministry for being ‘vacillating, inconsistent, weak and unworthy’, a position echoed by Vere, who described them as ‘a disgrace to England’.42 Bury and Norwich Post, 14 July 1841. Both men also pledged to uphold the existing corn laws. Following a largely uneventful two days of polling, Henniker and Vere were returned by a commanding majority over Adair, who finished bottom of the poll in every district.43 Ipswich Journal, 17 Aug. 1841; Poll book for the eastern division of the county of Suffolk, 1841 (1841).

Undeterred, Adair offered for the vacancy created by the death of Vere in April 1843. In his address, which set the tone for the by-election, he launched a withering attack on Peel’s commercial policy, arguing that the introduction of a bill to allow the importation of American corn into Canada, where it would be ground into flour and sent to England, had ‘violated’ the principle of the sliding scale on corn duties. Adair called instead for a fixed duty on corn.44 Bury and Norwich Post, 12 Apr. 1843. He was opposed by Frederick Thellusson, 4^th Baron Rendlesham in the Irish peerage, owner of extensive estates in the division, who came forward following a requisition from a ‘very numerous and influential portion of Conservative electors’.45 Ipswich Journal, 8 Apr. 1843. After issuing a rather prosaic address that merely stated his opposition to any measure that would ‘impair the protection to which agriculture is justly entitled’, Rendlesham, under pressure from the agricultural interest, released a second address, stating that he would oppose any bill to introduce American flour into Britain through Canada.46 Bury and Norwich Post, 12 Apr. 1843; Morning Chronicle, 18 Apr. 1843. Additionally, he insisted that he would not ‘support every measure brought forward by Robert Peel’, a statement that was reportedly included to echo the sentiments of those farmers who lacked confidence in the premier.47 Morning Chronicle, 18 Apr. 1843. Peel was certainly the object of much derision at the nomination. Shawe, who seconded Adair, attacked Peel for purportedly threatening his party with the prospect of Lord John Russell gaining power if they did not support him, ‘just exactly as little children run away from an old nurse when she threatens them with the old man in the cupboard’.48 Ipswich Journal, 22 Apr. 1843. Adair’s proposal for a fixed duty on corn, however, was roundly criticised by not only his Conservative opponents, but also sections of the rural interest through the correspondence pages of the Ipswich Journal.49Ibid., 15 Apr. 1843. Rendlesham, who at the nomination gave a lengthy and impassioned defence of the existing corn laws, proved a formidable candidate, and was elected by a majority of over 1,100 votes.50Ibid., 22 Apr. 1843.

Thereafter the issue of the corn laws dominated local politics. In January 1844 the East Suffolk Agricultural Protection Society held its first mass meeting, at Framlingham. Presided over by John Moseley, chairman of the Woodbridge quarter sessions, the meeting included speeches by Henniker and Rendlesham, both of whom condemned the ‘reckless’ behaviour of the Anti-Corn Law League. Henniker was particularly forthright and declared that Peel’s ministry had no intention of lowering protection.51Ibid., 20 Jan. 1844. At the Society’s third annual meeting at Framlingham in January 1846, however, Henniker was notable by his absence. He sent a letter of apology, but unlike others unable to attend, did not give his support to the meeting, an omission that was not lost on one attender, who declared that if Henniker offered again, ‘he would not get his vote’.52Ibid., 17 Jan. 1846. The following month Henniker issued an address stating that having heard Peel’s arguments, he was now ‘doubtful in regard to my previous convictions’, and having earlier pledged himself to maintain the corn laws, he could no longer ‘conscientiously perform my duty’ and had ‘no alternative but to resign’.53Ibid., 7 Feb. 1846. He duly took the Chiltern Hundreds, 5 Feb. 1846.

Henniker was seamlessly replaced by Edward Sherlock Gooch, the eldest son of Sir Thomas Gooch, who had represented Suffolk from 1806 to 1830.54 HP Commons, 1820-1832, v. 296-301. Given his father’s reputation as a zealous protectionist, the Ipswich Journal confidently declared that Gooch’s name would have ‘a talismanic influence upon our agricultural friends’.55 Ipswich Journal, 27 Dec. 1845. He certainly did not disappoint his supporters. At the nomination he dramatically announced that he would ‘advocate protection – the whole protection – and nothing but protection’, adding that he wished Peel ‘had left well alone’.56 Morning Post, 20 Feb. 1846. Following the declaration confirming Gooch’s unopposed return, Rendlesham attacked Peel for ‘yielding to pressure without taking the sense of the country’, prompting an elector to intervene and argue that Peel had not dissolved Parliament because ‘he knew that since the introduction of the £50 tenant-at-will clause, the counties were completely in the hands of the landed aristocracy’.57Ibid. The intervention was a rare voice of dissent in an otherwise uneventful by-election.

The 1847 general election also passed largely without incident, marking the start of a decade of uncontested Conservative hegemony, aided, in part, by Adair’s successful return for Cambridge that year, which removed the only constant thorn in the East Suffolk Conservatives’ side. At the nomination in 1847, Rendlesham struck a conciliatory tone, explaining that he was prepared to support Russell as premier, ‘while he continued to carry on the government with moderation’. He went on to insist that his opinions on free trade were unchanged, but would be gratified if ‘the result of the late measures be less disastrous than he anticipated’. Gooch was more belligerent, describing the repeal of the corn laws as ‘a dangerous and foolhardy experiment’. Both men called for the abolition of the malt tax and the Maynooth grant, and were returned unopposed.58 Ipswich Journal, 7 Aug. 1847.

Rendlesham’s death in April 1852 heralded the entrance into the division’s political life of Sir Fitzroy Kelly, one of the county’s most colourful and controversial parliamentary figures. During a turbulent tenure as Member of Ipswich, Kelly’s name had been ‘the signal for letting loose the dogs of war’ in the borough, while his reputation as a ‘successful and brilliant lawyer’ had secured him the position of solicitor-general under Peel in 1845.59 Public men of Ipswich and East Suffolk (1875), 71. Re-appointed by Derby in 1852, Kelly resigned his seat at Harwich so he could offer for the vacancy at East Suffok, home to his considerable Sproughton estates. Even though he had voted for the repeal of the corn laws, 27 Mar. 1846, he informed the electors of Woodbridge that repeal had been ‘completely destructive to the best interests of the country’. He also gave his qualified opposition to the Maynooth grant.60 The Times, 16 Apr. 1852. Significantly, despite being persistently pressed on the issue, he refused to unequivocally back the abolition of the malt tax, explaining that it was necessary to first see what Derby’s new administration proposed.61Ibid., 22 Apr. 1852. At the nomination John Houghton, of Brome Hall, Suffolk, who held property in the division, was put up as a free trade candidate by two local tenant farmers, but after attacking his opponent for being inconsistent on the corn law question, he withdrew before the poll, leaving Kelly, who insisted that he now regretted his vote for repeal, to be returned unopposed.62Ibid., 3 May 1852. At the general election two months later, Kelly left the electorate in doubt as to where he stood on commercial policy, describing free trade measures as ‘this fatal march of unholy legislation’ and calling on his supporters to ‘stand forward to defend the agricultural interests of this country against their reckless and remorseless enemies’. His histrionics at the nomination rather put Gooch’s modest contribution, in which he admitted there would be no re-imposition of duty on foreign corn, in the shade.63 Daily News, 15 July 1857. Both men were re-elected without a contest.

After the 1852 general election, free trade ceased to be a central political issue in Suffolk, as was evident in December 1856 when, following Gooch’s death, Henniker was welcomed back into the Conservative fold and put up for the vacancy. His address echoed his earlier professions of being a committed defender of ‘our valued institutions’ whilst being ‘in favour of progress’, and at the nomination he described himself as a ‘Liberal Conservative’, who would go ‘perfectly free and independent to the House of Commons’.64 Bury and Norwich Post, 31 Dec. 1856. He was returned unopposed.

The bombardment of Canton dominated the 1857 general election. Both Henniker and Kelly had voted for Cobden’s censure motion on the issue, 3 Mar. 1857, though they adopted strikingly different tones when addressing the matter at the nomination. While Henniker insisted that he had no intention of casting censure upon a ministry that had successfully brought to an end the Crimean war and supported ‘conservative principles’, Kelly appeared indignant with rage towards a ‘disgraceful’ government that had waged ‘a war against a race of feeble unresisting men’. Kelly also took the opportunity to set out his views on franchise reform, a measure which he was to help the Conservatives frame over the next decade, arguing for a franchise based not on householders, but on ‘property, intellect and education’.65 Daily News, 2 Apr. 1857. Both men were re-elected without a contest, with Kelly returned unopposed again in March the next year following his appointment as attorney-general.

The 1859 general election witnessed the first contest in Suffolk East for sixteen years, with Adair, who had lost his seat at Cambridge in 1857, appearing ‘like a clap of thunder’ to once again challenge the Conservative hegemony.66 Ipswich Journal, 23 Apr. 1859. His motivation was the Derby ministry’s reform bill, which, ‘framed in a spirit of rash innovation’, was ‘wide in restriction and narrow in enfranchisement’.67 Bury and Norwich Post, 19 Apr. 1859. Kelly, who had helped author the bill, was unsurprisingly trenchant, claiming that one million middle class men would have been enfranchised and any objections could have been worked out in committee. The bill was only defeated because of a ‘dexterous party manoeuvre’, a sentiment echoed by Henniker’s brief address.68 Ipswich Journal, 23 Apr. 1859; Daily News, 26 Apr. 1859. At the nomination Henniker, who was very much in Kelly’s shadow, dedicated the majority of his speech to a pedestrian account of the past two parliaments, which was interrupted by a cry of ‘we know about that – can’t you tell us something fresh!’ When pressed on the question of whether he supported the disenfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders, he was notably ambiguous. Kelly and Adair, meanwhile, clashed over the finer points of Derby’s reform bill, but with the local Liberals having made little inroad into Conservative support, Adair was overwhelmingly defeated in third place, having gained 22 per cent of the total votes cast, 4 per cent less than at the 1841 general election.69 Ipswich Journal, 7 May 1859; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 8 May 1859.

The situation for the Liberals seemed little better at the 1865 general election when Adair issued an address stating that ‘upon the advice’ of members of the local party, he would not stand. He did, though, use his address to praise the government’s foreign policy and the abolition of oaths bill.70 Ipswich Journal, 8 July 1865. Kelly, meanwhile, campaigned vociferously for the repeal of the malt tax, an issue on which he was now one of the country’s leading voices. He also, in a ‘very elaborate’ nomination speech, dismissed the notion that the country’s current financial prosperity was down to the government alone, highlighting the role of ‘railways, steamships and the industry of the people’.71 Daily News, 18 July 1865. He was again returned unopposed, alongside Henniker, who pledged to uphold the established church, ‘whether in England or Ireland’.72Ibid.

Henniker’s elevation to the Lords as Baron Hartismere and Kelly’s elevation as chief baron of the exchequer necessitated a double by-election in July 1866. The replacement of Hartismere with his eldest son, John Henniker-Major, was not completely seamless. Aged only twenty-three and with ‘little notion of political matters’, Henniker-Major endured ‘a rather arduous’ campaign in which he was repeatedly ‘waylaid’ by interventions from local Liberals at his election meetings.73 Public men of Ipswich and East Suffolk, 117-9. Unsurprisingly, the Ipswich Journal praised his ‘courageous, manly and self-reliant manner’, but as was later noted, the ‘sturdy East Suffolk voters had not much faith ... in a schoolboy’.74 Ipswich Journal, 21 July 1866; Public men of Ipswich and East Suffolk, 117. Kelly’s replacement, Sir Edward Kerrison, who was Henniker-Major’s uncle, was the very opposite of his inexperienced nephew. Member for Eye since 1852, Kerrison, who had been intimately involved with the East Suffolk Agricultural Society for many years, was an experienced, safe pair of hands and generally regarded as the ‘leading man in Suffolk’ on political questions.75 Ipswich Journal, 21 July 1866. Indeed the fact that Kerrison, on the grounds of his ‘delicate’ state of health, was absent from the whole campaign, seemed of little consequence. At the nomination Henniker-Major echoed his father’s earlier campaign speeches, presenting himself as a Conservative who supported ‘progress and improvement’, before warning that no alterations to the constitution should be made ‘without due consideration and deep thought’. On the question of foreign policy he championed a closer alliance with America, now unified following the conclusion of the civil war, and unsurprisingly, called for the repeal of the malt tax.76 Daily News, 26 July 1866. With both men returned without a contest, Henniker-Major ‘could hardly have gone to Westminster better chaperoned’.77 Public men of Ipswich and East Suffolk, 119.

Kerrison’s health, however, failed to improve, and in February 1867 he retired from the Commons, announcing that he no longer had ‘the strength equal to the will’ to attend to ‘the requirements of so large a constituency’.78 Bury and Norwich Post, 5 Feb. 1867. First to offer in his place was Frederick Thellusson, 5^th Baron Rendlesham, the son of the former member. In his address, the young and inexperienced Rendlesham hoped that ‘the confidence which this division of the county placed in my late father ... may, perhaps, be considered a plea for my offering myself as a candidate’, but his campaign failed to impress the local Conservative hierarchy, who reportedly felt that he had ‘given no proof of his qualifications’ and failed to show any ‘interest either in local affairs’ or national questions.79Ibid., 5, 12 February 1867. With Adair once again in the field, the Conservatives wasted little time in informing Rendlesham that he did not have the crucial support of the tenant farmers, and he duly withdrew.80 The Times, 13 Feb. 1867. In his place, the local party brought forward Frederick Corrance, the long-serving president of the Framlingham Farmers’ Club. Corrance had been asked to stand at the 1866 by-election, but had declined on the grounds that he did not have the finances to sustain a contest.81 Bury and Norwich Post, 19 Feb. 1867. Following assurances from the local party that a public fund would now be established, he announced his candidature in an address which called for the repeal of the malt tax and described the late Liberal government’s reform bill as ‘a blunder from first to last’.82Ibid. Comparing the appeal of Corrance and Rendlesham, a later account noted that:

Mr.Corrance was a farmers’ friend; Lord Rendlesham hardly knew the difference between a farmer and a shopkeeper. Mr. Corrance understands something about sheep and turnips, the four-course system and the administration of poor relief; to Lord Rendlesham every one of these subjects was a puzzle and a bore.83 Public men of Ipswich and East Suffolk, 2.

On the hustings, Corrance argued that a franchise based on payment of rates was the ‘only broad, comprehensive, and intelligible basis’ for parliamentary reform, while Adair questioned the credibility of the Conservative position on franchise extension, mocking them for ‘attempting to put on Whig clothes’. Adair also called for the enfranchisement of the working class, but when pressed on the issue of where to ‘draw the line’, he refused to be drawn on specifics.84 Ipswich Journal, 16 Feb. 1867; Bury and Norwich Post, 12 Feb. 1867. After trading further blows at the nomination on the subject of parliamentary reform, Corrance was elected by a commanding majority, though he struggled to be heard at the declaration, where Liberal hecklers, unable to cheer the absent Adair, goaded him for his use of ‘flowery language’.85 Ipswich Journal, 23 Feb. 1867.

After the Second Reform Act, which modestly increased the division’s electorate, the Conservatives continued to dominate the representation of Suffolk East, despite an increase in the Liberals’ share of the vote. At the 1868 general election Henniker-Major and Corrance defeated Adair and his Liberal colleague, while Adair’s narrow defeat at the division’s 1870 by-election marked the sixth and last time the indefatigable Liberal stood and lost. Conservative hegemony endured until the constituency’s abolition in 1885, whereupon the county was divided into the single-member divisions of Eye, Lowestoft, Stowmarket, Sudbury and Woodbridge.