Thirsk

Economic and social profile:

Thirsk’s location on the York to Darlington road (23 miles north of York) made it an important coaching stop on the route from London to Edinburgh. Coach travel declined once the Great North of England railway arrived in the locality in 1845-6, but Thirsk retained its role as a market town, supplying provisions for urban areas such as Leeds at its weekly market. Thirsk race course held its first meeting in 1855. Although a significant proportion of the population was employed in agriculture, the borough also possessed a range of small industries, including saddlery, brewing, brick-making and the manufacture of coarse linens and sacking. In 1864, A.C. Bamlett set up his agricultural machinery works in the town.1S. Lewis, A topographical dictionary of England (1844), iv, 324-5; VCH Yorkshire North Riding, ii, 58-70 [www.british-history.ac.uk]; http://www.thirskheritage.co.uk/bd14-15.htm; http://www.thirsk.org.uk/bamlett.html; http://www.herriotcountry.com/town-thirsk.

Electoral history:

Prior to 1832, Thirsk was a burgage borough, in which 49 of the 50 qualifying properties in the town were owned by the Frankland family, placing the constituency firmly under their control.2See 1820-32 volume, ‘Thirsk’. It was said to be as ‘a sop’ to Sir Robert Frankland, ‘long a whig, though then a waverer’, that Thirsk kept one of its two members after 1832.3Daily News, 15 Feb. 1849. His fellow Thirsk MP, Robert Greenhill Russell, argued for the retention of the borough’s second member, but his advocacy of Thirsk’s ‘great commercial and manufacturing importance’ fell on deaf ears, and although the ministry conceded that the 1821 census had underestimated the town’s population, one MP was deemed sufficient for the town’s size.4See 1820-32 volume, ‘Thirsk’. The borough had no defined boundary before 1832, but all the burgage properties lay in the township of Thirsk; the 1832 Boundary Act added the townships of Bagby, Carlton Miniott, Sand Hutton, South Kilvington and Sowerby to the constituency. Although the borough had no contested elections during this period, the town was a polling place for the North Riding constituency, and thus did experience contested elections, as in 1835, when it became the scene of an election riot.5Hull Packet, 30 Jan. 1835. In 1852 Thirsk was among the 50 smallest English boroughs and Lord John Russell’s Reform Bill of that year proposed to enlarge it by the addition of Easingwold.6PP 1852 (8), xlii. 315; Manchester Examiner and Times, 18 Feb. 1852.

Although its electorate was increased five-fold by the Reform Act, Thirsk is named by Gash among the proprietary boroughs which survived after 1832. He describes it as falling ‘into some intermediate category between a family and a proprietary borough’ with ‘control of the constituency vested in the hands of only one or two persons’. Frankland, who had sat for the borough since 1815, was re-elected unopposed in 1832, but retired from politics in 1834; no specific reason was given for this decision. However, Gash suggests that the Frankland interest remained dominant in the constituency throughout this period. From 1851, the Franklands were again directly represented in the person of Sir Robert’s son-in-law, Sir William Payne Gallwey. Between 1834 and 1851, two other local landowners, Samuel Crompton and John Bell, served in turn as MP, and according to Gash, there are no indications of a battle for possession in the constituency.7N. Gash, Politics in the age of Peel (1953), 225, 439.

Yet while the Franklands clearly continued to wield a powerful influence over Thirsk’s electoral politics, their dominance did not go unchallenged. The prospect of a contest was raised (albeit briefly) in 1832, when Mr. Gibson of Leicestershire, a government contractor for regimental saddlery, canvassed Thirsk ‘on independent principles’, but he did not pursue his candidature. Nor did William Rookes Crompton Stansfield (later Liberal MP for Huddersfield, and first cousin to Thirsk’s future MP, Samuel Crompton), who despite his strong Yorkshire credentials, could not counter the belief that it would be ungrateful for Thirsk to turn out ‘our much respected old representative’.8Daily News, 15 Feb. 1849. However, subsequent events demonstrated that the Franklands had to take account of other interests in Thirsk, most notably those of the Bell family of Thirsk Hall. Although the two families were on good terms, ‘the Bells saw no reason why Sir Robert Frankland should have Thirsk so completely to himself’. There was, however, no apparent conflict between them on Frankland’s retirement in 1834. With John Bell professing reluctance to stand himself, Samuel Crompton, a local resident and former MP for Derby and East Retford, was agreed on as generally acceptable, and returned unopposed.9Daily News, 15 Feb. 1849. (Reports that Sir John Campbell, the attorney-general, who was seeking a seat after his defeat in a ministerial by-election at Dudley, would stand appear to have been merely speculation.10Hull Packet, 21 Mar. 1834.) Prior to the 1835 general election, one or two meetings of electors took place, at which ‘all appear[ed] satisfied with the conservative whig principles of the honourable member’, and Crompton was re-elected then and in 1837.11Hull Packet, 19 Dec. 1834. Thereafter, however, Crompton allegedly offended some supporters by his excessive demands for compensation for property which he owned on the route of the new York to Berwick railway, which reportedly precipitated his decision to retire at the next dissolution.12Daily News, 15 Feb. 1849.

The announcement of Crompton’s impending retirement brought a more direct challenge from the Bell interest to the Franklands’ dominance. In August 1840, William Harland, who was standing down as Liberal MP for Durham, accepted the Liberal candidature at Thirsk, backed by John Bell.13Leeds Mercury, 22 Aug. 1840. As a ‘very moderate liberal’ – in the event, perhaps too moderate for his supporters – it was hoped that Harland would prove acceptable to Sir Robert Frankland Russell (as he had now become, having taken the additional name of Russell in 1837).14Daily News, 15 Feb. 1849. However, later that month, Charles Stuart Wortley, the son of the Yorkshire magnate, Lord Wharncliffe, came forward as Conservative candidate, with the support of Frankland Russell, who was clearly unhappy about the challenge presented to his control of the borough’s representation, and ‘adverted to the surprise which was generally felt at the sudden and unexpected announcement of a candidate in the person of Mr. Harland’.15Morning Chronicle, 19 Aug. 1840; Leeds Mercury, 22 Aug. 1840; Hull Packet, 4 Sept. 1840. While Frankland Russell had been a ‘moderate Reformer’ during his time in the Commons, his political opinions had evidently shifted by 1840.16Dod’s Parliamentary Companion, 1833, 114. Writing to the Conservative organiser Francis Bonham in December 1839 about the possibility of becoming candidate for Thirsk, Sir James Graham observed that ‘as to Thirsk, the difficulty is to find a Yorkshire candidate: I am sure Sir R. Russell would support any good Conservative connected with the County who was agreeable to his neighbours’.17Sir J. Graham to F. Bonham, 2 Dec. 1839, British Library, Add. MS. 40616, fo. 142, cited in Gash, Politics in the age of Peel, 225.

Although it was reported that Harland had ‘met with eminent success’ in his canvass, two weeks before the 1841 election his committee ‘threw him… overboard’, believing that his recent actions in the Commons had jeopardised his chances.18Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser, 19 June 1841. His vote against the government’s proposals to reduce the sugar duties (being one of just 13 Liberals to oppose this) and his absence on the critical vote of no confidence in the ministry provoked particular concern. Following Harland’s withdrawal, John Bell agreed to take his place, but given his previous reluctance to go to Westminster, Frankland Russell reportedly had to be assured by Bell that his candidature ‘was no joke’ before advising Wortley to retire.19The Times, 22 May 1841; The Examiner, 20 June 1841; Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser, 19 June 1841. Although the Thirsk Liberals found fault with Harland’s vote on the sugar duties, their subsequent willingness to re-elect Bell even once he had voted against the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 suggests that the key issue in 1841 was not so much free trade as Harland’s lukewarm support for the Liberal government, as demonstrated by his absence from the vote of confidence. Bell, on the other hand, was described as a ‘staunch Reformer’, whose ‘more decided principles’ were in contrast with the ‘doubtful’ Liberalism of Thirsk’s outgoing MP, Samuel Crompton.20The Examiner, 20 June 1841, 3 July 1841. Bell’s switch to protectionism appears to have reflected the preponderance of opinion within this rural constituency. Although delegates from the Anti-Corn Law League reportedly held a ‘large and respectable’ meeting at Thirsk in 1844, their presence in the town was countered by a crowded Anti-League meeting, at which the Thirsk Agricultural Protection Society was established.21Leeds Mercury, 24 Feb. 1844.

Assessing Thirsk’s politics in 1849, the Daily News suggested that the main difference wrought by the Reform Act was that ‘two men nominate instead of one’.22Daily News, 10 July 1849. Rather than classifying it as a proprietary borough under the control of the Franklands, it would be more accurate to say that both the Franklands and the Bells possessed a strong electoral interest. The need for the Franklands to negotiate with the Bells was confirmed at the 1851 by-election which followed Bell’s death. Frankland Russell had died in 1849 – the same year in which a Commission of Lunacy declared John Bell to be ‘of unsound mind’, thus ending his political career, though not his parliamentary tenure23Daily News, 10 July 1849. – but his widow, Lady Frankland Russell, secured the Bells’ agreement to return her nominee.24Northern Echo, 11 May 1870. In 1849, her son-in-law, Ralph Neville Grenville (former Conservative MP for Windsor) was rumoured to be ‘hard at work’ in Thirsk in anticipation of a vacancy, but it turned out to be another son-in-law, Sir William Payne Gallwey, who issued an address ‘on Protectionist, Protestant, and moderate Conservative principles’ the morning after Bell’s funeral in 1851, and was subsequently elected unopposed.25Leeds Mercury, 15 Mar. 1851. Gallwey represented Thirsk for almost thirty years, but the Frankland interest did not go entirely unchallenged. In 1857 John Bell’s nephew and heir, Frederick Bell, was chairman of the Liberal election committee which brought forward Sir Charles Douglas, former MP for Warwick. Although Douglas was reportedly accorded a ‘flattering reception’ by the electors of Thirsk, he withdrew before the election.26Leeds Mercury, 10 Mar. 1857. It was not until after the Second Reform Act that Gallwey – and Thirsk – faced their first contested election, in which the Bells again took the lead in challenging the Frankland interest. Having declined to stand himself in 1868, Frederick Bell supported Harcourt Johnstone (son of the Liberal MP for Scarborough) as the Liberal candidate, and was subsequently among those presenting a petition (later withdrawn) against Gallwey’s return.27The Times, 11 July 1868; Bristol Mercury, 19 Dec. 1868. Gallwey continued to represent Thirsk until his retirement in 1880, when he was succeeded by another Conservative, who served until the borough’s disfranchisement in 1885.