Stoke-on-Trent

Economic and social profile:

The newly enfranchised parliamentary borough of Stoke-on-Trent was the political expression of an economic region, the Staffordshire Potteries, which comprised the six towns of Fenton, Burslem, Longton (also known as Lane End), Hanley, Tunstall and Stoke. The pottery trade had developed in north Staffordshire in the early seventeenth century on the back of cheap labour and local supplies of clay and coal.1R.K. Henrywood, Staffordshire potters, 1781-1900 (2002), 16-17; A. Popp, Business structure, business culture and the industrial district: the Potteries, c. 1850-1914 (2001), 1; J.C. Wedgwood, Staffordshire pottery and its history (1913), 3-9. By the early nineteenth century firms such as Wedgwood, Davenports and Mintons had secured royal and aristocratic patronage for their high quality ceramic and porcelain products. However, such firms were generally unrepresentative of the wider trade, which, due to low barriers to entry, was distinguished by the number of small and medium enterprises, many, particularly in Fenton and Longton, producing cheap china.2Popp, Business structure, 2, 25, 50; R.C.M. Fyson, ‘Chartism in North Staffordshire’, University of Lancaster Ph. D. thesis (1998), 16-18. Although the mixing of raw materials had been mechanised, technical difficulties prevented the application of steam power to subsequent stages of production until the later nineteenth century, meaning that fixed capital requirements remained low. Nevertheless, there was a trend towards larger factories in this period.3Popp, Business structure, 41, 45, 89, 118-19; Fyson, ‘Chartism in North Staffordshire’, 17-18. Despite their economic interconnectedness, the six towns were only incorporated into a single municipal borough in 1910, earlier attempts foundering on parochial rivalries, ratepayer anxieties and local differences.4E.J.D. Warrilow, A sociological history of the city of Stoke-on-Trent (1960; 1977 edn.), 259-97. Although Burslem was known as the ‘mother of the Potteries’, by the beginning of the period Hanley was the largest and most important of the six towns.5S. Shaw, The history of the Staffordshire potteries (1829; repr. 1900), 26, 38. Stoke had fewer firms than other towns, but contained the massive manufactories of Mintons and Copeland and Garrett.6Ibid., 2, 61, 64 ; Popp, Business structure, 2. Local Anglicans led a church-building drive in the early nineteenth century, but Dissent was also strong, particularly among Liberal manufacturers including the Ridgway brothers (New Connexion Methodist) and the Wedgwoods (Unitarian); many working-class Radicals and local Chartists were Primitive Methodists.7Fyson, ‘Chartism in North Staffordshire’, 33-9. Although pottery and its ancillary trades predominated, there were a significant number of people employed in iron and coal mines situated nearby. The North Staffordshire Railway, opened in 1846, connected the area to the north west via Crewe and the East Midlands.

Electoral history:

The representation of Stoke-on-Trent was generally split between the parties after its enfranchisement. The inaugural election in 1832 was contested by four Reformers, but by 1837 the Conservatives had seized both seats. The strength of local Conservatism in the 1830s stemmed from mobilising the support of non-electors, their defence of the established church and the influence of William Taylor Copeland and John Davenport, MPs and leading pottery manufacturers. Thereafter popular support for free trade meant that the influence of non-electors, commonly deployed through exclusive dealing, was generally to be counted on the opposite side, allowing the Liberals to recapture one seat in 1841 and take both seats in 1852. The mainstays of the Liberal cause amongst the master potters were the Ridgway brothers, and the Wedgwood family, of Etruria. A local activist recorded that John Ridgway (1785-1860) ‘was the Liberal leader of the Potteries for more than a quarter of a century’.8S. Taylor, Records of an active life (1886), 30. However, the small electorate, the influence of Copeland and his willingness to genuflect towards reforming opinion, and Liberal disunity allowed the Conservatives to retain a foothold in the constituency. To some extent the division of the constituency was congenial to Copeland and his Liberal colleague John Lewis Ricardo, who, as the chronicler of Staffordshire parliamentary history Josiah Clement Wedgwood noted, ‘attempted to create for themselves a vested interest in the representation … and resented intruders from either side’.9J.C. Wedgwood, Staffordshire Parliamentary History, (1934), iii. 105. Aside from Wedgwood’s account, the Potteries have received far less attention from political historians than other industrial regions, though Robert Fyson’s 1998 thesis provides a thorough account of local Chartism, which was especially strong in Longton and Hanley.10Fyson, ‘Chartism in North Staffordshire’, 123-4, 181; idem, ‘Chartism in Longton’, Staffordshire Studies, 12 (2000), 95-108. Despite periods of social and political tension, on a number of occasions local Chartists made common cause with Liberal manufacturers such as the Ridgways, and regularly participated in parliamentary elections.11Ibid., 53-5, 64, 75-7, 122, 141-6, 189-90, 243-9.

In December 1830, Edward John Littleton, Whig MP for Staffordshire, suggested to the new Grey ministry that ‘all the towns which constitute the potteries’ should be enfranchised as a parliamentary borough in any reform scheme.12E.J. Littleton, Memorandum on ‘number of members to be given to the Potteries’, Hatherton papers, Staffordshire Record Office, D260/M/7/5/27/7. Initially absent from the first reform bill, Stoke-on-Trent was added as a single-member borough by Lord John Russell at the committee stage.13PP 1830-31 (0.36), ii. 259. At the government’s behest, Littleton did not press for Stoke-on-Trent’s representation to be increased, but later moved unsuccessfully for the doubling of the borough’s MPs, 4 Aug. 1831.14Littleton to Lord Althorp, 3 July 1831, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D260/M/7/5/27/7; Hansard, 4 Aug. 1831, vol. 5, cc. 768-75. His belated activity did not appease local critics such as the master potter John Davenport, of Westwood Hall, who told Littleton that had he done his job ‘the Potteries would have had two representatives’.15John Davenport to Littleton, 12 Sept. 1831, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D260/M/7/5/27/7. However, Littleton’s private lobbying probably contributed to Stoke-on-Trent being named as a double-member borough in schedule D in the third reform bill, and subsequently the 1832 Reform Act.16PP 1831-32 (11), iii. 42; Hatherton journal, 7/8 Dec. 1831, Staffs. RO, D260/M/7/5/26/7. In 1832 the electorate numbered 1,349, this gradually rose to 2,054 by 1855-6, and, more rapidly, to 3,181 a decade later.17PP 1860 (129), lv. 60; 1857 session 2 (4), xxxiv. 105; 1866 (169), lvii. 749.

The constituency’s first parliamentary election, in December 1832, was contested by four Reformers. Josiah Wedgwood, of Etruria, promised support for the abolition of slavery and freer trade.18Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 Nov. 1832. He was joined in the field by two other master potters, Davenport and the Radical George Mason, of Fenton, as well as the local landowner Richard Edensor Heathcote, of Longton Hall. At a public meeting, Wedgwood expressed his disapproval of the ballot and triennial parliaments, which Mason supported.19Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 Nov. 1832; Liverpool Mercury, 23 Nov. 1832. The Anglican Davenport was forced to deny that he was a religious bigot, stressing his support for toleration and ecclesiastical reforms. Otherwise his opinions were similar to Wedgwood’s.20Staffordshire Advertiser, 24 Nov. 1832. At the nomination, Mason advocated ‘radical reform’, while Heathcote described himself as a ‘reformer, but no revolutionist’. All the candidates endorsed religious liberty and revision of the corn laws, but Mason’s speech was curtailed by one of Davenport’s party throwing a cinder into the crowd.21Staffordshire Advertiser, 15 Dec. 1832. Wedgwood topped the poll, with Davenport’s strong performance in Burslem securing him second place, forty votes ahead of Heathcote, while Mason finished bottom.22Stoke-on-Trent poll book (1832), 42.

Before the 1835 general election rumoured candidates included William Taylor Copeland, head of the ‘great manufacturing firm of Copeland and Garrett’, and moderate reform MP for Coleraine, as well as Heathcote.23The Times, 12 Dec. 1834; Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 Nov. 1834, 6 Dec. 1834; Morning Post, 8 Dec. 1834. Wedgwood retired after being advised that he was unlikely to win a contest.24Staffordshire Advertiser, 27 Dec. 1834. As Mason declined to offer again and Copeland stayed at Coleraine, the field was open for Heathcote and Davenport to be returned unopposed at the nomination, which was attended by 10,000 people.25Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 Jan. 1835. Unlike Davenport who became ‘an exemplary follower of Sir Robert Peel’ after the election, Heathcote offered strong opposition to the new Conservative government, and advocated municipal reform and the abolition of tithes.26Staffordshire Advertiser, 27 Dec. 1834, 3 Jan. 1835; Wedgwood, Staffordshire parliamentary history, iii. 83. John Ridgway hailed the outcome as the ‘death-blow’ for Conservatism, but this was a misreading of the campaign, as Davenport was henceforth to be regarded as a Conservative.27Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 Jan. 1835; Morning Post, 10 Jan. 1835.

After barely a session in the Commons, Heathcote resigned, 6 Feb. 1836, as he had ‘an insurmountable dislike to spend whole summers in town, after the present fashion of legislators’.28Staffordshire Advertiser, qu. by The Times, 26 Jan. 1836. Many names were linked with the vacancy, including Mason’s equally Radical brother Charles, but eventually Colonel George Anson, former MP for Great Yarmouth and brother of the Whig earl of Lichfield was returned unopposed.29Ibid.; The Times, 2 Feb. 1836. The Reformers were again in high spirits after the election, and plotted to oust the increasingly Conservative Davenport at the earliest opportunity.30Leicester Chronicle, 20 Feb. 1836.

The next general election in July 1837 exposed these hopes as wishful thinking. Although they had been moderate Reformers, Davenport and Copeland, ‘the two largest manufacturers in the Potteries’, shifted to Conservatism after 1835 and now stood jointly as representatives of that party. They won a decisive victory, with the key issue of the campaign being the defence of the established church.31Morning Post, 4 July 1837; Derby Mercury, 19 July 1837. As Anson had retired to stand for South Staffordshire, the Liberal candidates were Francis Cymric Sheridan, grandson of the Whig playwright, and Matthew Bridges, of Bristol, two young men lacking local connections. Although Reformers claimed that they had the support of ‘nine-tenths of the population’ and blamed their opponents’ influence for their defeat, the Conservatives were not without popular backing.32Liverpool Mercury, 28 July 1837. An imposing procession through the pottery towns, numbering 9,000 people, displayed banners such as ‘Davenport and Copeland, the friends of the poor’. Copeland jibed that the Reformers had ‘hawked’ the seat about to the heirs of local Whig magnates, but had secured two non-entities as their candidates. Although he strongly opposed the Whigs’ Irish church reforms, Copeland did seek to partly claim the mantle of reform by recalling his earlier support for Earl Grey’s ministry.33Staffordshire Advertiser, 15 July 1837.

The Conservatives again invoked the ‘sound reforming principles of Lord Grey’ to present themselves as supporters of moderate, not radical, reform at the nomination, where they were accompanied by another impressive procession. Copeland admitted that ‘he did possess some local influence, … and he was not ashamed to own it; but it was honourably acquired, and it should be as honourably employed’. Both Reformers spent much of their speeches on the defensive. The Conservative victory in the resulting poll, with over 200 votes separating Copeland and Davenport in first and second place from Bridges and Sheridan in third and fourth, sparked riots in Longton. Windows were smashed, and there was an attempt to free a ‘notorious poacher’ from the police station. The Riot Act was read, but the yeomanry were forced away by the ferocity of the mob, who for a time ‘carried on a system of intimidation’, extorting protection money from the inhabitants ‘under promise of exempting them from the fate of their neighbours’.34Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 July 1837. See also The Times, 31 July 1837.

Confident of repeating their success, in February 1840 the Conservatives selected Frederick Dudley Ryder, the son of the 1st earl of Harrowby, of Sandon Hall, as the prospective replacement for the aged Davenport at the next general election.35Morning Post, 17 Feb. 1840. The registration was in their favour, prompting the Morning Post to claim that ‘the potteries are securely knit to the Conservative interest’.36Morning Post, 18 June 1841. The Liberal candidate was John Lewis Ricardo, nephew of the famous economist, who was apparently ‘spending a good deal of money’ in the hope of establishing an interest.37Ibid. Ricardo’s prospects were enhanced by the free trade issue. After the Whig government proposed a low fixed duty on corn in May 1841, a series of public meetings were held in the pottery towns in favour of the policy and petitions were got up.38Staffordshire Advertiser, 15, 22 May 1841. Although Chartists disrupted an anti-corn law meeting in Hanley, they backed Ricardo at the election.39Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 May 1841; Northern Star, 5 June 1841; Fyson, ‘Chartism in North Staffordshire’, 141-3. The Anti-Corn Law League’s newspaper commended ‘the zeal manifested in our cause by the Potteries towns’, and popular support for free trade was to be a crucial factor in swinging the constituency towards the Liberals over the next decade.40Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 May 1841; B. Daniels, ‘Repeal of the corn laws in Staffordshire, 1838-1850’, Univ. of Keele local history diploma diss. (1971), 5, 22-4, William Salt Library, Stafford; Anti-Corn Law Circular, 21 May 1840.

The Conservative candidates, though endorsing a modified sliding scale, opposed the Whig measure. Despite professing to favour the extension of free trade, Copeland declared himself an ‘enemy to the total repeal of the corn-laws’ which he believed would lower wages.41Staffordshire Advertiser, 12 June 1841. As in other Staffordshire constituencies, Conservatives attempted to mobilise opposition to the new poor law as an alternative popular cry, and in their stronghold of Burslem they also benefited from the foundation of an Operative Association.42Staffordshire Advertiser, 12 June 1841. The army and yeomanry were placed on standby after Copeland was pelted with stones by operatives between Fenton and Longton.43Staffordshire Advertiser, 26 June 1841. After receiving a similar reception at the nomination, the Conservatives announced that they would not address the 10,000 assembled. Their silence allowed Ricardo and his party to emphasise their support for ‘cheap bread, cheap sugar and cheap timber’ and throw insults and allegations without answer.44Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 July 1841. After the nomination, windows at Copeland’s manufactory in Stoke were broken and Conservative public houses were attacked in Hanley, Longport and Burslem. Ricardo established an early lead in the poll and won convincingly with 881 votes, of which 700 (79.4%) were plumpers. Copeland was elected in second place with 614, over a hundred votes ahead of his running mate.45Ibid.; Stoke-on-Trent poll book (1841), 44. During the course of the campaign, the Times noted that Ricardo had spent liberally ‘in order to commence a system of treating’ but no petition was forthcoming.46The Times, 11 June 1841.

The severe depression in the local economy increased class tensions between workers and employers in the early 1840s. In June 1842 a strike by colliers in Longton against proposed wage reductions quickly spread. Although the strike was broken by early August, there were soon further stoppages which were accompanied by rioting, looting and attacks on property, which led to the intervention of the magistrates and troops. Whatever the belief of local elites, Fyson’s definitive account of the 1842 strike has convincingly shown that Staffordshire Chartists had little involvement, although they were critical of the authorities’ heavy-handed response.47This paragraph is based upon Fyson, ‘Chartism in North Staffordshire’, 148-78.

After the repeal of the corn laws the Potteries Anti-Corn Law Association was renamed the Potteries Reform Association. However, there was considerable opposition from many local Liberals, especially Dissenters, to the Whig government’s education scheme, which Ricardo supported.48Taylor, Records of an active life, 17. The incumbents stood their ground at the 1847 general election. They expected no opposition, and one newspaper noted that ‘there now seems little or no practical difference in the[ir] opinions’.49Staffordshire Mercury, qu. in Morn. Chro., 20 July 1847. Although Dissenters sought to bring forward ‘an anti-state church man’ as a second Liberal, ‘leading friends’ of Ricardo and Copeland actively discouraged attempts to introduce a third candidate.50Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1847. Copeland promised to support the Whig government’s education scheme, but declared his ‘decided opposition … to any endowment of the Romish Church’. Ricardo told electors that he would not rest ‘while there shall remain a rag of Protection’.51Staffordshire Advertiser, 17 July 1847. He sought to assuage Dissenters by declaring that although he was an Anglican he was ‘opposed to Church monopoly as well as all other monopolies’.52Staffordshire Advertiser, 24 July 1847. Copeland played up his vote for repeal of the corn laws in 1846, and expressed support for modification of the monetary system.53Staffordshire Advertiser, 31 July 1847.

Local Dissenters proposed Thomas Piers Healey, an Irish Catholic barrister described as a man of ‘ultra-Liberal politics’, at the nomination. Ricardo protested that Healey’s candidature would split the Liberal vote. Healey took this as evidence of ‘a most unholy compact’ between Ricardo and Copeland, which Ricardo denied. Copeland again shunned the nomination, believing that he would not get a fair hearing after receiving a rough reception in Hanley, Burslem and Tunstall during the campaign.54Ibid. Despite his endorsement by Chartist non-electors, Healey finished a distant third in the poll, behind Copeland, with Ricardo topping the poll.55The Times, 30 July 1847; Fyson, ‘Chartism in North Staffordshire’, 189-91. Ricardo and Copeland benefited from 485 split votes, while the former also received 166 plumps and 303 shared votes with Healey. Copeland received 325 plumps.56H. Stooks Smith, The parliaments of England, from 1st George I, to the present time (1850), iii. 288.

If Copeland hoped for a repeat of the non-aggression pact between himself and Ricardo at the 1852 general election, he was to be sorely disappointed. Following the accession of Lord Derby’s protectionist ministry in late February 1852, local Liberals selected Edward Leveson-Gower, of Stone Park, brother of the leading Whig Lord Granville, to be their second candidate at the next general election.57Staffordshire Advertiser, 13 Mar. 1852. Unlike Healey, Leveson-Gower received Ricardo’s hearty endorsement.58Staffordshire Advertiser, 27 Mar. 1852. In innumerable public speeches during the next four months the two Liberals, joined by the former Anti-Corn Law League lecturer R.R.R. Moore, hammered home a free trade message, with support for further parliamentary reform a subsidiary theme.59Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 Apr. 1852, 1, 8, 29 May 1852, 12, 26 June 1852, 3 July 1852; Manchester Times, 12 June 1852. The Liberals seized on Copeland’s absences during the divisions on repeal of the navigation laws and his votes in favour of the corn laws before 1846 as evidence that he was a fair-weather free trader.60Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 Apr. 1852, 8 May 1852, 26 June 1852. Leveson-Gower even dredged up Copeland’s 1841 nomination speech to show that his opponent was ‘not a true Liberal’ and was against cheap bread.61Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 Apr. 1852. Ricardo ridiculed Copeland’s label of ‘Liberal Conservative’, whilst another Liberal denounced him as a ‘sham Reformer’.62Staffordshire Advertiser, 8, 29 May 1852. Whatever Copeland said in Stoke, he ‘ranked with the Protectionists in Parliament’ declared Moore.63Staffordshire Advertiser, 12 June 1852. In vain Copeland protested his opposition to a restoration of the corn laws and complained, with some justification, of the ‘virulence, calumny, and prejudice’ deployed against him.64Staffordshire Advertiser, 20 Mar. 1852, 10 Apr. 1852, 19, 26 June 1852.

The nomination was remarkable for the Liberals producing ‘an immense loaf … with a fine brown crust’ made out of ‘32 stones of flour’ and baked in one of the kilns in a local pottery factory.65The loaf’s dimensions were 4 ft. 6 ins. by 2 ft. 10 ins. by 2 ft. 6 ins.: Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1852. The nomination was apparently attended by 25,000, with Copeland’s dark blue and red colours, and the white and blue silks of the Liberals further adding to the spectacle. Copeland was at pains to emphasise his past support for free trade, but this was challenged by the Liberals, with Ricardo urging the crowd to ‘rally round the big loaf you see before you’. The show of hands for Copeland was small compared to the huge acclamations for his opponents, and Leveson-Gower beat him to second place by eighty votes, with Ricardo again topping the poll.66Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1852. As Norman Gash has noted, despite his personal influence and being backed ‘by most of the great manufacturers except the Mintons’, Copeland was defeated, in large part because of the activity of non-electors.67N. Gash, Politics in the age of Peel (1952), 176. Leveson-Gower later explained the crucial role of working men, who ‘won the election for us by threatening the publicans and shopkeepers to withdraw their custom unless they promised to vote for us’.68E.F. Leveson-Gower, Bygone years (1905), 239.

Copeland bitterly complained that he had been defeated ‘by the most corrupt and unconstitutional means’.69Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1852. His petition, alleging ‘gross, extensive, systematic … open and notorious bribery’, as well as ‘threats, intimidation, promises, undue influence’ was presented, 19 Nov. 1852, and called for the election to be declared null and void.70CJ, cviii. 38-9 (at 38). However, the Speaker was informed, 18 Feb. 1853, that Copeland did not intend to proceed with the petition.71Ibid., 256.

The Liberals were unable to repeat their success at the 1857 general election. The incumbents had hardly visited the constituency since their 1852 triumph and the dissolution caught the Liberals divided and unprepared.72Taylor, Records of an active life, 25. There was strong local support for Palmerston, and ‘much dissatisfaction’ with Ricardo, who, unlike Leveson-Gower, had voted against the Liberal premier over Canton.73Staffordshire Advertiser, 14 Mar. 1857. See also The Times, 19 Mar. 1857. Copeland offered, declaring with characteristic flexibility that he was ‘prepared to give Lord Palmerston an independent support’.74Staffordshire Advertiser, 21 Mar. 1857. His address also claimed that his votes had been ‘much more Liberal’ than Leveson-Gower’s had turned out to be.75Ibid. Other rumoured candidates included the Whig John Edensor Heathcote, of Apedale Hall, son of the former MP, and Admiral Sir John Herbert, for the Conservatives.76The Standard, 24 Mar. 1857; Derby Mercury, 25 Mar. 1857; Liverpool Mercury, 25 Mar. 1857. Although the incumbents embarked on a joint tour, the unity and dynamism of their previous campaign was lacking. Leveson-Gower professed loyal support for Palmerston, while Ricardo was unrepentant about his Canton vote.77Staffordshire Advertiser, 28 Mar. 1857. The situation was further complicated by the candidature of Samuel Pope, a Manchester barrister connected to the prohibitionist United Kingdom Alliance, and ‘a Maine-law Radical’.78Ibid. Pope’s entry into the field was thought to have harmed Liberal prospects, but he withdrew after his speech at the nomination, where he and Copeland won the show of hands, as Chartists vented their dissatisfaction with the incumbents.79Fyson, ‘Chartism in North Staffordshire’, 247. Ricardo attempted to challenge Copeland’s progressive credentials on the ballot and church rates, but these did not provide the same stimulus as free trade in 1852. In any case, Copeland emphasised his past votes in favour of the ballot and the abolition of church rates. He topped the subsequent poll by a commanding margin, over 400 votes ahead of Ricardo, with Leveson-Gower relegated to third place.80Staffordshire Advertiser, 28 Mar. 1857; Stoke poll book (1859), 59. Copeland’s total of 1,261 included 783 plumps, but also 240 splits with Gower and 238 with Ricardo. The Liberal candidates relied upon 455 shared votes, with Ricardo gaining 129 plumps and Leveson-Gower 69.

At the next general election two years later the incumbents were again returned. Copeland had intended to retire, but was persuaded to stand his ground by a requisition.81The Times, 23 Apr. 1859; The Examiner, 23 Apr. 1859. Pope offered again, but finished bottom, with Copeland elected in second place, and despite his absence throughout the campaign due to illness, Ricardo topped the poll.82The Times, 23 Apr. 1859; Birmingham Daily Post, 2 May 1859. Copeland’s total of 1,071 was nearly evenly split between plumps and splits with Ricardo, who topped the poll thanks to his 476 shared votes with Pople and 303 plumps. The continued pattern of cross-voting for Ricardo and Copeland suggests that an electorally significant minority of electors supported a split representation between the two men.

Ricardo’s death in August 1862 sparked a bitter contest as no less than three Liberals sought to claim the late member’s mantle. First in the field was William Shee, a lawyer and former Liberal MP for county Kilkenny. The other candidates included Pope, Henry Riversdale Grenfell, scion of a banking and copper manufacturing family, who had been brought forward by the local Liberal committee, and Alexander Beresford-Hope, former Conservative MP for Maidstone. Beresford-Hope’s campaign was notable for his stout defence of the Confederate states of America.83Birmingham Daily Post, 4 Sept. 1862. Shee repeatedly claimed that Grenfell had been put up by a ‘miserable clique’, and as a former private secretary to two Liberal cabinet ministers, was a career ‘placeman’ and ‘Government nominee’.84Birmingham Daily Post, 4, 8 Sept. 1862. Grenfell retorted that Shee was an ‘old fool’ and insinuated that the Irishman ‘was down there holding a brief for Mr. Hope’.85Birmingham Daily Post, 5 Sept. 1862. Grenfell’s supporters hinted that Shee was standing to secure a judicial position, and in any case there were ‘already too many lawyers in the House’. As one newspaper noted, the campaign was increasingly characterised by ‘rancorous personal hostility’ between the candidates, of whom only Pope emerged with much credit or dignity.86Birmingham Daily Post, 9 Sept. 1862. Beresford-Hope denied that he was in league with Shee, but otherwise sought to stoke Liberal divisions, well aware that if these persisted to the poll, the ‘powerful’ support of local Conservatives would secure his return.87The Times, 5 Sept. 1862; Birmingham Daily Post, 8 Sept. 1862.

Pope proposed a party meeting to select one candidate and avoid splitting the Liberal vote. Shee, the popular candidate, accepted the idea, but Grenfell’s committee rejected it, ostensibly because of its ‘impracticality’.88Birmingham Daily Post, 11 Sept. 1862; Daily News, 11 Sept. 1862. Their alternative proposal was that the committees of the three Liberal candidates should compare canvass returns to determine who had the best chance of victory in the poll.89Birmingham Daily Post, 12 Sept. 1862. However, Pope retired, leaving Grenfell and Shee to continue their squabbling.90Ibid. At the nomination, Shee implied that Grenfell was the ‘creature of a Reform club coterie’ and declared his support for a £6 borough franchise, the ballot, the abolition of church rates and Italian nationalism. Grenfell was ‘received with a storm of disapprobation’ and his speech was inaudible, while Beresford-Hope pronounced himself a ‘progressive Conservative’.91The Times, 24 Sept. 1862.

Surprisingly perhaps, Grenfell was elected with 1,089 votes, over 150 ahead of Beresford-Hope. Despite the popular backing of non-electors, Shee achieved a derisory 32 votes.92Ibid. However, the crucial factor was the withdrawal of Pope, whose canvass returns had suggested that he would have polled more than his total of 579 in 1859, almost certainly enough to have prevented Grenfell’s election.93Birmingham Daily Post, 13 Sept. 1862.

Copeland retired at the 1865 general election, but Grenfell stood his ground. Other candidates included Pope, Beresford-Hope, who now described himself as ‘an independent Liberal Conservative’, and George Melly, a Liverpool merchant and a ‘Liberal of advanced views’.94Birmingham Daily Post, 24 June 1865; The Times, 17 June 1865. Many Liberals felt that Pope had been ‘ill-used’ by the local party, but his candidature was thought to risk the election of Melly, with Grenfell’s return considered certain.95The Times, 17 June 1865; Birmingham Daily Post, 19 June 1865. Consequently Pope’s withdrawal to contest Bolton was thought to have reduced Beresford-Hope’s chances.96The Examiner, 1 July 1865; The Times, 28 June 1865. The nomination was distinguished by the presence of a ‘compact body of roughs’ who stood near the hustings. The candidates were endorsed by different pottery manufacturers, in Melly’s case, a member of the Wedgwood dynasty. Grenfell was again greeted with ‘much uproar and repeated interruptions’, but managed to voice support for the Liberal government. Beresford-Hope told electors that he would ‘free the borough’ and ‘crush the Liberal council’, which ‘will tyrannise over you’.97The Standard, 12 July 1865. A ‘very spirited contest’ followed with Beresford-Hope eventually topping the poll, ninety votes ahead of Grenfell, who had a similar margin over Melly in third. As usual Conservative support had been strongest in Burslem, but Beresford-Hope had also performed well in Stoke and Tunstall.98Birmingham Daily Post, 13 July 1865. Melly later recalled that

The contest degenerated into a trial of purses, and an enormous sum of money was spent on both sides. On our side £3,650 was spent, much of it, no doubt, in bribery and beer, while Mr Hope’s friends admitted to an expenditure of four times that amount.99G. Melly, Recollection of sixty years (1893), 24. See also Taylor, Records of an active life, 29.

Bribery was, however, avoided at the 1868 by-election, occasioned by Beresford-Hope’s resignation to contest a vacancy at Cambridge University in February. Both parties agreed to audit each other’s election accounts, committee rooms were held in public buildings rather than public houses and no solicitors were to be employed by either side during the campaign.100Ibid., 25; The Times, 13 Feb. 1868. After a keenly-fought campaign, Melly, who voiced support for compulsory education, temperance and legal protection for trade union funds, was victorious by 69 votes over the Conservative Colin Minton Campbell, a member of the Minton’s pottery firm.101The Times, 17, 22 Feb. 1868.

The 1867 Representation of the People Act expanded the electorate of Stoke-on-Trent from just over 3,446 to 16,190, and at the general election of 1868 Melly and another Liberal were returned unopposed. The presence of a third Liberal in 1874 allowed a Conservative to be elected, and the barrister for the claimant to the Tichbourne baronetcy, a popular cause célèbre, was returned as an Independent at a by-election in 1875, but Liberal control was restored in 1880.102McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 278-9. In 1885 Stoke was reduced to a single member constituency and a new parliamentary borough of Hanley was created, also returning one member. The Liberals held the former seat until 1895, when the seat was captured by the Unionists, and in 1906 it fell to the Labour party.103Ibid., pt. II, p. 228. The pattern in Hanley was similar, the Liberals controlling the constituency until 1900, when it passed to the Unionists, and then in 1906 to the Labour party.104Ibid., pt. II, p. 110.