Wolverhampton

Economic and social profile:

The ‘unrivalled capital of the newly industrialised Black Country’, the economic region of Worcestershire and Staffordshire rich in iron and coal, Wolverhampton contained a ‘great variety of sooty manufactories’, but as an observer noted in 1834, nevertheless remained ‘very salutary and picturesque’.1J. Lawrence, ‘Party politics and the people: continuity and change in the political history of Wolverhampton, 1815-1914’, Univ. of Cambridge Ph. D. thesis (1989), p. vi; White, History, 164; J. Smith, ‘Industrialisation and social change: Wolverhampton transformed 1700-1840’, in J. Stobart and N. Raven (ed.), Towns, regions and industries: urban and industrial change in the Midland, c. 1700-1840 (2004), 134-46. The most populous town in Staffordshire, Wolverhampton had ‘long been celebrated for the manufacture of almost every article in the ironmongery line’, including locks, keys, hinges, latches, bolts, screws, hammers, hatchets, vices, pincers, cork screws, pliers, tweezers, toys, buckles and spectacle frames, among many others.2W. White, History, gazetteer and directory of Staffordshire (1834), 164, 166. Other important sectors included papier-mâché and japanned goods, brassware and chemical products.3Ibid., 164, 166. From the mid-Victorian period, engineering was an increasingly significant part of the local economy.4Lawrence, ‘Party politics and the people’, p. vii-viii. The town’s economic structure, with a profusion of small workshops producing a diverse range of metal goods, resembled Birmingham’s. Local landowners included the dukes of Cleveland and Sutherland, the Giffard family of Chillington, Henry Hordern and Miss Hinckes.5White, History, 165. The town’s transport links befitted its economic importance. Waterways included the Birmingham, Wyrley and Essington, Stafford and Birmingham, and Birmingham and Liverpool canals, and the Grand Junction, South Staffordshire, Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton, and Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Dudley railway lines were all in place by the late 1840s.6H. Glynn, Reference book to the incorporated railway companies of England and Wales (1847), 6, 133; Parliamentary gazetteer for England and Wales (1844), iv. 591. The 1851 religious census recorded 79 places of worship and 38,804 attendees of religious services, or 37% of the population. Of the attendees, 56% were Anglican, 15.4% Wesleyan Methodist, and 3.2% Catholic. The largest Dissenting denominations were Independents (7.6%) and Baptists (6.1%).7PP 1852-53 [1690], lxxxix. 376. The town’s newspaper was the Wolverhampton Chronicle, founded in 1789, which generally pursued an independent, rather than a strongly partisan, line in politics.8J. Grant, The newspaper press (1871), iii. 329-30. In the 1850s its weekly circulation was 1,500-2,000.9Derived from the newspaper stamp returns: PP 1852 (42), xxviii. 528-9; 1854 (117), xxxix. 492.

Electoral history:

One of the new Staffordshire boroughs created by the 1832 Reform Act, the Liberals controlled the representation of Wolverhampton with little difficulty after seeing off Conservative and Radical challenges in the 1830s. The Liberal MPs Charles Pelham Villiers and Thomas Thornely were consequently unchallenged after the 1837 general election. Popular for their vociferous support of free trade, Thornely and Villiers’s absenteeism left much influence in the hands of the local Liberal elite. Although they had benefited from the support of radical non-electors in the 1830s, thereafter, as Jon Lawrence has noted, ‘the Wolverhampton Liberal party remained confined to a small group of wealthy manufacturers, merchants and professionals, who organised local politics, through an informal, yet impenetrable, oligarchy known as the Liberal Committee’.10J. Lawrence, ‘Popular politics and the limitations of party: Wolverhampton, 1867-1900’, in E. Biagini and A. Reid (eds.), Currents of radicalism: popular radicalism, organised labour and party politics, 1850-1914 (1991), 65-85 (at 67). However, underlying resentment of this elite was increasingly exposed after Thornely’s retirement in 1859. Resistance to the Liberal committee found expression, but met with defeat, at the contested 1861 by-election and the abortive Conservative opposition at the 1865 general election. But thereafter, as Lawrence has shown, hostility to the Liberal committee and ‘party’ generally, increasingly shaped the popular politics of Wolverhampton after the expansion of the electorate in 1867.11Lawrence, ‘Limitations of party’; idem, Speaking for the people: party, language and popular politics, 1867-1914 (1998), chs. 4-5.

The new electorate stood at 1,700 in 1833, gradually rising to 2,170 in 1837, 3,295 in 1849, and peaking at 4,891 in 1866.12PP 1833 (189), xxviii. 241; 1837-38 (329), xliv. 651; 1850 (345), xlvi. 202; 1866 (81), lvii. 557. In 1865 the electorate of 4,830 represented just 1 in 33 of the population, and a parliamentary return the following year stated that 25.7% of the electorate was working class, slightly below the average for English boroughs.13Leicester Chronicle, 1 July 1865; PP 1866 (169), lvii. 749.

Wolverhampton was keenly contested at the 1832 general election, its first since its enfranchisement by the Reform Act. Hostility to the corn laws was a major theme of the campaign. William Wolryche Whitmore, of Dudmaston, Shropshire, a moderate reformer, who had previously sat for Bridgnorth, did not think the immediate abolition of the corn laws would be ‘wise or safe’.14Staffordshire Advertiser, 6 Oct. 1832. Although Whitmore had strong free trade credentials, having repeatedly proposed the modification of the corn laws in the unreformed Parliament, his stance was very unpopular. He was outflanked on the issue by the Radical Reformer Richard Fryer, of The Wergs, a prominent banker and ironmaster, who declared that the corn laws were ‘brought by the devil from hell’. Fryer also advocated the abolition of slavery, triennial parliaments, and the ballot.15Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 Nov. 1832. Another candidate, who pulled out before the nomination, was the improbably named Fortunatus Dwarris, a West India proprietor and barrister on the midland circuit, who offered on a radical platform similar to Fryer.16Staffordshire Advertiser, 8 Dec. 1832. Dwarris had been one of the many candidates linked with the 1826 Stafford by-election, although he did not ultimately stand: HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 25.

The election was given added spice by the appearance of John Nicholson, a radical London tea-dealer, at a late stage in the campaign. This prompted Francis Lyttleton Holyoake, of Studley Castle, Warwickshire, a local banker, to come forward, offering as a ‘Conservative Whig’.17Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 Sept. 1832, 15 Dec. 1832; Morning Chronicle, 18 Dec. 1832. On the way to the nomination, Fryer’s supporters pelted Whitmore’s party with stones and mud, and attacked their flags and musical instruments. Holyoake, who was accompanied by Thomas Giffard, of Chillington, a local landowner, received similar treatment on his arrival.18Staffordshire Advertiser, 15 Dec. 1832. Further acrimony was provoked by Whitmore’s supporters wearing laurels, Fryer’s symbol.19Morning Chronicle, 18 Dec. 1832. The crowd backed Nicholson and Fryer, and held up flags inscribed with ‘No Corn Laws’ and ‘Triennial Parliaments’, as well as a large loaf on a pole. After some prevarication, the returning officer decided to go ahead with the nomination. The show of hands overwhelmingly favoured Nicholson and Fryer.20Staffordshire Advertiser, 15 Dec. 1832.

The ensuing violence led local magistrates, at the behest of the home secretary, to swear ‘nearly the whole of the householders, whether electors or not’, in as special constables. Supporters of Whitmore and Holyoake were hissed and pelted with stockpiled stones during the polling, as were special constables who attempted to intervene. The Riot Act was subsequently read and a troop of Scots Greys called in, who dispersed the crowd and restored order, only for it to flare up when the candidates returned to town. Although unpopular with the crowd, Whitmore topped the poll, his moderate politics finding favour with the limited electorate, forty votes ahead of Fryer in second place. Holyoake was third and Nicholson bottom.21Staffordshire Advertiser, 15 Dec. 1832. At the declaration, Fryer jibed that Whitmore spoke in ‘generalities’, and also complained about the military’s intervention in the election.22Staffordshire Advertiser, 22 Dec. 1832.

Prior to the 1835 general election, at which Fryer and Whitmore retired, the Times wrote that ‘all the parties’ in Wolverhampton were ‘moderate or Conservative Reformers’.23The Times, 12 Dec. 1834. Thomas Thornely, a Unitarian merchant, who had twice contested his native town of Liverpool, accepted an invitation to stand as a Reformer. Charles Pelham Villiers, son of the earl of Clarendon, also stood as a Reformer, but his suspect credentials led Nicholson to stand in opposition. The Radical dismissed Villiers as a ‘placeman’ put up by the election agent Joseph Parkes, ‘the Brummagem Adjutant-General to the Whigs’. Even worse, Villiers had contested Hull in 1826 as a ‘rank Tory candidate’.24The Times, 7 Jan. 1835. In Villiers’s favour were his much-admired oratory and letters of recommendation from eminent Reformers such as Edward Strutt, Charles Poulett Thomson and John Romilly.25Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 Jan. 1835. After unsuccessful attempts to persuade Joshua Walker and A. Hordern, of Oxley Hall, to stand, the Conservatives brought forward another local man, Dudley Fereday, of Ettingshall Park, Sedgley.26Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 Jan. 1835; Morning Post, 19 Dec. 1834; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 18 Dec. 1834; Morning Chronicle, 18 Dec. 1834. With Thornely’s return considered certain and Fereday’s candidature too late, the real contest was thought to be between Villiers and Nicholson for second place.27Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 Jan. 1835.

At the nomination, Thornely advocated reduction of taxation and expenditure, free trade and repeal of the taxes on knowledge. Despite being nominated by Fryer and declaring that ‘a Reformer he had always been, and always would be’, Villiers was much interrupted during his speech. Nicholson was well-received, while Fereday professed his ‘independence’. The show of hands favoured Thornely and Nicholson. Disturbances occurred at the end of proceedings, but a downpour of rain dispersed the crowd. A ‘strong body of special constables’ had been sworn in and the military located nearby in anticipation of further tumult.28Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 Jan. 1835. The popularity of the Radical Nicholson was again poorly reflected in the poll and he finished bottom, behind Fereday in third. Villiers and Thornely finished with the same tally, benefiting from 558 shared votes. Thornely also received 131 splits with Nicholson, whereas Villiers only received 23 with the Radical. Fereday received 297 plumps, 113 splits with Nicholson, (an intimation of a Radical-Tory alliance), and 115 splits with Villiers, probably from voters who thought Villiers was more conservative than he turned out to be.29H. Stooks Smith, The register of parliamentary contested elections (2nd edn., 1842), 173. The popular hostility towards the Conservatives in the town was further underlined by the riots that greeted news of the defeat of the Liberal candidate in the South Staffordshire by-election in May 1835.30On the riots see D.J. Cox, ‘ “The wolves let loose at Wolverhampton”: a study of the South Staffordshire election “riots”, May 1835’, Law, Crime and History, 2 (2001), 1-31.

In November 1836, Thornely wrote to Villiers that at the next election:

I presume there will be two Tories against us, and I would rather have two than one - … I quite agree with you that there must be no division among the Reformers. We are not strong and our whole strength consists in Union. The Tories are a very powerful Party and they were never organised till now, and with them goes all the influence of the Parsons and of the Methodists.31Thomas Thornely to Charles Pelham Villiers, 7 Nov. 1836, Thornely papers, transcripts, I, f. 12, London School of Economics, R (SR), 1094.

He was later reassured by local Liberals that he and Villiers were ‘quite safe in case of dissolution’ as ‘the Tories have taken no measures respecting the registration’.32Thornely to Villiers, 10 Nov. 1836, I, f. 13, LSE, R (SR) 1094. Even so, the Conservatives were determined to challenge the incumbents at the 1837 general election.33Staffordshire Advertiser, 1 July 1837. Their candidates were John Benbow, a trustee of Lord Ward’s estate that possessed substantial property holdings in the Black Country, and the soldier James Ryder Burton, a relation of the earl of Harrowby, of Sandon Hall, who had contested Tower Hamlets in 1835.34Staffordshire Advertiser, 8 July 1837. Local partisans were confident of Benbow’s return, even though the population of the town were dismissed as ‘regular O’Connellites’ by one Conservative observer.35The Times, 29 June 1837, 5 July 1837; The Standard, 3 Aug. 1837. Benbow and Burton also benefited from the endorsement of George Benjamin Thorneycroft, a prominent ironmaster whose family were the mainstay of Wolverhampton Conservatism in this period.36The Times, 25 July 1837. The Conservatives stood on a joint platform of strong support to the established institutions of church and state, criticism of aspects of the new poor law, and opposition to radical political reforms.37Staffordshire Advertiser, 8 July 1837. In response, Thornely promised ‘unyielding opposition’ to the corn laws, and Villiers, alluding to the depressed local economy, told electors that ‘if they wanted a good trade, they must have a free trade’.38Staffordshire Advertiser, 15 July 1837. Having won over sceptics with his parliamentary conduct, Villiers received the backing of Nicholson’s former supporters.39Thornely to Villiers, n.d. (1837), I, f. 24, LSE, R (SR) 1094. After the intercession of Lord Hatherton, who stressed the paramount importance of repulsing Benbow, the Whig duke of Sutherland agreed to support Villiers despite his radical principles.40Hatherton Journal, 29 June 1837, Staffordshire Record Office, D1178/1. Villiers and Thornely won the show of hands at the nomination and were elected in first and second place respectively, winning an easy victory over Burton and Benbow.41Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 July 1837.

The 1835 and 1837 contests effectively settled the representation of Wolverhampton for the rest of the period. Despite his popularity with non-electors Nicholson had been easily defeated in 1832 and 1835. The opinions of the incumbents, particularly their vociferous opposition to the corn laws, reflected those of their constituents, which also reduced the likelihood of independent radical candidates standing. In a straight party fight in 1837 the Conservatives had been convincingly beaten. They did not challenge again until 1861, but remained a latent, unrepresented, and rather inactive minority. As Lawrence has noted, in the 1830s local Liberals (as they were increasingly known) could count on the popular support of the crowd, often manifested in violence against their Conservative opponents. This was not the case later on, particularly after 1867, as the Liberal committee relied on a narrow base of support.42Lawrence, ‘Limitations of party’, 70; idem, ‘Party politics and the people’, 3-4; idem, Speaking for the people, 76-7. Villiers and Thornely were absentee representatives, seldom visiting more than once or twice a year. An important consequence of this was that the registration and election organisation was increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few influential local Liberals. These included the Bilston ironmaster Dimmack, Joseph Barker, Henry Walker, Thomas Simkiss, Alexander Walton, and Jeremiah Wynn. While the town was represented by the popular Villiers and Thornely this arrangement was generally tolerated, but the Liberal committee were subjected to increasing criticism after Thornely’s retirement in 1859. It became apparent, that unlike in the 1830s, the local Liberal elite could no longer rely on popular backing from non-electors.

In January 1841 the Wolverhampton Operative Conservative Association held a meeting which was attended by the earl of Dartmouth, the earl of Bradford and Thorneycroft.43Staffordshire Advertiser, 9 Jan. 1841. In a public letter published in the same month, Thorneycroft complained that since the town’s enfranchisement ‘to advocate the abolition of the corn laws has been considered the best qualification’ to represent the town. Perhaps preparing the ground for the next election, Thorneycroft expressed support for a modification of the sliding scale to even out fluctuations in trade.44Staffordshire Advertiser, 30 Jan. 1841. However, at the general election that June, there was no opposition to Thornely and Villiers despite reports that the register was more favourable to the Conservatives than had been thought.45Staffordshire Advertiser, 26 June 1841. One Conservative commentator sighed that ‘in this Radical-ridden, corn-law bestridden town, I suppose things must remain as they are’.46Morning Post, 14 June 1841. Thornely smugly reflected that ‘the Tories knew they had not the slightest chance of unseating us, so they wisely saved themselves the expense and trouble of a contest’.47Thomas Thornely to Henry Lee, 19 July 1841, in ‘Lee-Thornely letters, 1840-1847’, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd series, 53 (1919-20), 275-325 (at 293). Inevitably, free trade was the main theme of the hustings speeches.48Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 July 1841.

The sitting members’ support for the 1845 Maynooth college bill prompted some disaffection from their Dissenting supporters, who objected to religious endowments by the state.49Thornely to Villiers, 25 Aug. 1845, I, ff. 98-9, LSE R (SR) 1094. Despite the strong grip free trade liberalism had on the constituency, in 1845 the Anti-Corn Law League unexpectedly served notices of objection on a number of electors, which a bemused Villiers thought would cause ‘nothing but mischief’.50Thornely to Villiers, 3 Sept. 1845, I, f. 99, LSE R (SR) 1094. He admitted to Thornely that the Liberals had been lax in their attention to the register, but as the Conservatives had been equally remiss, there would be no electoral penalty.51Villiers to Thornely, 4 Sept. 1845, I, f. 100, LSE R (SR) 1094.

The re-election of Villiers and Thornely at the 1847 general election was prevented from becoming a self-congratulatory celebration of the repeal of the corn laws by the challenge of local Chartists. Joseph Linney made a lengthy speech proposing Samuel Cook, a prominent Black Country Chartist, in which he advocated the six points of the people’s charter, but also called for the separation of church and state and the repeal of the new poor law.52Wolverhampton Chronicle, 4 Aug. 1847, qu. in G. Barnsby, The working-class movement in the Black Country, 1750-1867 (1977), 131-3. However, the returning officer insisted that Cook would have to commit to paying a share of the election expenses before he could speak. When the Chartists argued that this should be made after the speeches and show of hands, but before a poll was demanded, the returning officer declared the incumbents re-elected to prevent Cook from speaking.53Barnsby, Working-class movement, 130-1. Undeterred, Linney challenged the sitting members to explain their opposition to the ten hours bill before the close of proceedings.54Staffordshire Advertiser, 31 July 1847; Daily News, 30 July 1847. Villiers had also been returned for South Lancashire, a constituency that the League’s Manchester machine had been pressuring him to stand for since 1845. Although Villiers complained that ‘these Lancashire folks are beginning to put the screw on me’, he opted to remain at Wolverhampton, as both he and Thornely feared that a vacancy would perhaps let a ‘Tory and protectionist walk in’.55Villiers to Thornely, 19, 24 Aug. 1847, II, ff. 4, 5-6; Thornely to Villiers, 19 Aug. 1847, II, f. 2, LSE R (SR) 1094.

Although Thorneycroft managed to be the inaugural mayor of the town in 1849, Wolverhampton Conservatism remained moribund, and, as Villiers noted, ‘all the Tories were Peelites’. Furthermore, it was noted that the ‘old religious squabbles exist no more’, reducing strong party feeling.56Villiers to Thornely, 15 Jan. 1849, II, f. 11, LSE R (SR) 1094. An additional reason militating against any challenge to the Liberal MPs was that ‘organised Radicalism remained weak’ during the 1850s.57Lawrence, Speaking for the people, 79. As a consequence, there was no opposition to Thornely and Villiers’s re-election at the 1852 general election, the nomination again providing a platform for free trade views. 58The Times, 10 July 1852. Before the election, E. Webster, a radical barrister, had come forward as Thornely was incorrectly rumoured to be retiring, but he quickly withdrew.59Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 Apr. 1852. The Staffordshire Advertiser noted that ‘very little interest was excited in the town; there was not a colour to be seen’.60Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1852. Villiers’s appointment as judge advocate general in Lord Aberdeen’s coalition government required his re-election in January 1853, when there was no opposition.61The Times, 5 Jan. 1853; Daily News, 5 Jan. 1853.

Prior to the 1857 general election it was noted that ‘the general feeling here is one of strong sympathy with Lord Palmerston’.62Morning Post, 13 Mar. 1857. Rupert Kettle, a barrister on the Oxford circuit, offered as a Radical, hoping to capitalise on the unpopularity of the income tax in the town.63The Times, 13 Mar. 1857. Although both Villiers and Thornely promised to support a more ‘equitable’ form of income tax assessment, this was considered by many local Liberals an unsatisfactory response to the resolutions of a public meeting on the issue.64Staffordshire Advertiser, 14 Mar. 1857. Kettle supported the repeal of income tax, but his party label was unclear and his position on Canton opaque, despite his lengthy address.65Staffordshire Advertiser, 21 Mar. 1857. As Kettle had ‘no chance of success’ he withdrew before the poll.66Morning Post, 23, 24 Mar. 1857. A requisition was got up by local Conservatives for John Hartley, a manager in G.B. Thorneycroft and company, which he declined.67Staffordshire Advertiser, 21 Mar. 1857. Hartley declared that the town should ideally have representatives familiar with the staple trades of the town. There was no escaping the fact, however, that Thornely and Villiers had been repeatedly returned without opposition over a long period, which must be taken as evidence of the town’s approval of their conduct. Furthermore, Hartley wrote, whenever he had sought their help, he had been assisted with the ‘utmost courtesy and attention’.68Staffordshire Advertiser, 28 Mar. 1857. The nomination was again attended by ‘very few persons’, no more than 500 people.69Ibid.

The septuagenarian Thornely retired at the 1859 general election as ‘the failing state of my health is such that I am no longer equal to fulfilling the duties of a Member of Parliament’.70Thornely to Villiers, n.d. [1859], II, f. 70, LSE R (SR) 1094. The Liberal committee solicited Ralph Bernal Osborne, former MP for Wycombe, Middlesex and Dover, to be Thornely’s replacement, but he declined.71The Times, 9 Apr. 1859. A meeting of Liberal electors, attended by 450 people, invited Sir Richard Bethell, Liberal MP for Aylesbury since 1851 to stand. At the public meeting, Bethell spoke at length on legal reform and offered support for the ballot, a £6 borough franchise and declared that ‘generally in reform [he] would go as far as Lord John Russell, if not further’.72Daily News, 12 Apr. 1859. However, the ‘hole-and-corner meeting’ was criticised for being composed of a ‘few obscure individuals, who have in recent years greatly profited by their political sway’ and for not consulting electors in Bilston, Sedgley, Willenhall or Wednesfield.73Handbill by ‘An Elector’ qu. in Birmingham Daily Post, 12 Apr. 1859. Both Villiers and Bethell defended their opposition to Derby’s reform bill, and the latter was at pains to emphasise that he came with Thornely’s endorsement.74The Times, 18 Apr. 1859. Henry Walker also defended the process by which Bethell had been brought forward:

It was obviously impossible that a crowded meeting could select a candidate … As soon as he became aware that Mr Thornely intended to resign, he called together those gentlemen, to the number of twenty or thirty, who on former occasions had exerted themselves in favour of the Liberal candidates, and he received replies from seven or eight more who were unable to attend, but who agreed to abide by the decision of that meeting.

The meeting of 450 in Wolverhampton and another at Bilston attended by 1,200-1,500 thereby endorsed Bethell, but it had been very much orchestrated by the Liberal committee.75Birmingham Daily Post, 20 Apr. 1859. However, Bethell and Villiers were returned unopposed.76Morning Post, 30 Apr. 1859. Both members were appointed to Palmerston’s ministry after the election, Villiers as president of the poor law board and Bethell as attorney-general. Bethell was re-elected without opposition in June 1859, after emphasising his commitment to law reform.77Birmingham Daily Post, 28 June 1859. Villiers was also re-elected without opposition in July 1859.78Birmingham Daily Post, 11 July 1859.

Bethell’s promotion to lord chancellor and consequent elevation to the peerage in June 1861 created a vacancy that a number of candidates sought to fill. The Liberal committee’s chosen successor was Thomas Matthias Weguelin, the governor of the Bank of England and former MP for Southampton. A meeting attended by 100 electors from all over the parliamentary borough endorsed Weguelin by 47-25 over Thomas Lloyd, a former mayor of Birmingham who was well-acquainted with Wolverhampton’s iron trade.79Birmingham Daily Post, 28 June 1861. In response, Samuel Griffiths, a local ironmaster stood as an independent Liberal and outlined a critique of the local Liberal committee. He contended that the difficulties had started when Bethell had been invited without consulting the borough, and he had done nothing in Parliament to further Wolverhampton’s interests. Griffiths supported the abolition of church rates, and an extension of the franchise to end the ‘sort of oligarchy such as they had experienced’.80Ibid. Similar sentiments were expressed by Arthur Staveley Hill, the Liberal Conservative candidate, who was backed by the Thorneycroft family and Charles Bagnall, another Black Country ironmaster.81The Times, 2 July 1861. Hill argued:

The gentlemen who had hitherto represented the borough were gentlemen who had come down … only to obtain places of influence, strangers to the town and its wants, and who were never seen but when they came to solicit the suffrages of the electors, … They returned to London and forgot all about Wolverhampton.

Bagnall was jubilant that ‘at last the electors of Wolverhampton were not tamely submitting to vote for any man who might be sent down to them from London by the Reform or some other club’. Hill supported extending the franchise to ‘intelligent and respectable men’ and a ‘judicious compromise’ settlement of the church rates question.82Birmingham Daily Post, 28 June 1861. Weguelin received a rough reception at Bilston, where he was denounced by one elector as ‘nominated by the Government, and … ignorant of Bilston and the trade of most of the inhabitants’.83Birmingham Daily Post, 1 July 1861. Throughout his tour of the constituency, Griffiths condemned the ‘clique who met in a conclave and decided amongst themselves who should be returned without consulting the constituency at large’.84Ibid. He would have not objected to Lloyd, but the clique preferred a ‘man from London, one who would be difficult to access except through them and therefore they would be enabled to keep any influence … in their own hands’.85Ibid. As all three candidates were determined to go to the poll, local temperance reformers tried to exert electoral pressure. By acting as an electoral bloc they hoped to extract pledges in favour of the permissive bill, the Sunday closure of public houses and other demands. However, the canvass books revealed that the teetotallers’ strength among the electorate was ‘not yet sufficient to affect in that proportion the issue of a contest’ in the borough.86Ibid.

At the nomination, Griffiths backed Palmerston’s foreign policy, and like Hill emphasised his local credentials and denounced the clique. Hill was at pains to make clear that he was ‘not a Tory’ but a ‘Liberal Conservative’. Weguelin, who was met with ‘a storm of yells and groans’, alleged that the failure of Griffiths’s bank in the 1857 commercial crises was due to his own ‘ignorance’ of the currency laws and also defended the income tax, which was opposed by Griffiths. Although Griffiths easily won the show of hands, he was convincingly beaten by Weguelin in the poll, with Hill in third place.87Birmingham Daily Post, 2 July 1861. Although it considered Weguelin to be the best candidate, the Liberal Birmingham Daily Post censured the Liberal committee for selecting a candidate by a ‘private meeting’ that resembled ‘a kind of electoral close vestry’. Had a challenger emerged who was as popular among the electorate as Griffiths was with the non-electors, he would have been returned.88Birmingham Daily Post, 3 July 1861. Griffiths would also have triumphed under a less restricted franchise.89Lawrence, Speaking for the people, 81. Wolverhampton had unfortunately ‘acquired the reputation of being little better than a nomination borough’, which was unlikely to be tolerated for long in ‘so large and important a constituency’, the Post accurately predicted.90Birmingham Daily Post, 3 July 1861. At the declaration, Griffiths was vociferous in his abuse of ‘an effete, selfish, rank clique of politicians’, promising that he would always oppose ‘a stranger introduced by the clique’.91Birmingham Daily Post, 4 July 1861.

Griffiths published an address ahead of the 1865 general election, but took no further part in the campaign.92Morning Post, 8 July 1865. However, the incumbents were taken by surprise when Major Thomas Thorneycroft was proposed in his absence at the nomination by two local Conservatives. Thorneycroft’s brother-in-law even objected to his name being put forward, and the show of hands gave only ‘a dozen’ for the Major. However, his proposers then demanded a poll, which was agreed after the mayor received a ‘written guarantee’ that they would pay Thorneycroft’s share of the official election expenses.93The Times, 12 July 1865. The poll produced an easy victory for Villiers, elected in first place, and Weguelin, in second. Thorneycroft’s friends had advised Conservatives to abstain, so annoyed were they at the ‘unwarrantable liberty that had been taken with his name’, and he only received 46 votes.94The Times, 14 July 1865. Following the Liberal triumph, local trades began to organise politically through the Wolverhampton Trades Council, which was formed after the election to exert electoral influence on behalf of labour causes and reform.95Lawrence, ‘Party politics and the people’, 10-23; idem, Speaking for the people, 82-8.

The 1867 Representation of the People Act trebled Wolverhampton’s electorate to 15,772.96PP 1868-69 (419), l. 112. Villiers and Weguelin were returned unopposed at the 1868 general election. In 1871 the Liberal committee established the Wolverhampton Liberal Association. Ostensibly this created a ‘new, more democratic form of organisation’ based on ward meetings, and district committees, but in reality a closed group retained decisive control. The experiment was unsuccessful in attracting mass support due to the pejorative and widely-held understanding of ‘party’ in Wolverhampton.97Lawrence, Speaking for the people, 88-91; idem, ‘Limitations of party’, 67-8. Even so, the Liberals retained both seats comfortably against Conservative challenges in 1874 and 1880.98McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 323. In 1885 the constituency was split into Eastern, Southern and Western single-member divisions. Wolverhampton East remained securely Liberal. Villiers, a Liberal Unionist after 1886, represented the Southern division until his death in 1898. The seat fell to the Liberals in 1900, but was recaptured by the Unionists in 1910.99Ibid., pt. II, pp. 258-9; Lawrence, Speaking for the people, 74. In Wolverhampton West, as Lawrence has shown, there was a vibrant popular Toryism that combined a strong defence of masculine leisure activities against the moral interventionism of Liberals and Nonconformists with a militantly anti-party rhetoric to become a potent electoral force.100J. Lawrence, ‘Class and gender in the making of urban toryism, 1880-1914’, English Historical Review, 108 (1993), 629-52 (esp. 639-43); idem, Speaking for the people, 99-111; idem, ‘Limitations of party’, 73-85. The Conservatives held the seat from 1885-6, and 1892-1906, and in 1910 recaptured the seat from Labour, whose difficulties in attracting and maintaining working-class support is another theme extensively explored in Lawrence’s work.101J. Lawrence, ‘The complexities of English progressivism: Wolverhampton politics in the early twentieth century’, Midland History, 24 (1999), 147-66; idem, Speaking for the people, 115-60.