Malton

Economic and social profile

‘Pleasantly situated’ on the river Derwent 18 miles north-east of York,1S. Lewis, Topographical dictionary of England and Wales (1844), iii. 214. Malton was ‘in the centre of a large agricultural district’, for which it served as the market town.2Daily News, 12 Feb. 1849. The Derwent was navigable from Malton to the river Ouse, connecting the town with Hull, Leeds, Halifax and other Yorkshire towns to which it supplied ‘porter, malt, corn, and bacon’.3Lewis, Topographical dictionary, iii. 215; T. Whellan, History and topography of the city of York, and the North Riding (1859), ii. 217. Although largely agricultural, the town possessed two or three iron foundries, and small factories for the production of linen, gloves and hats.4Lewis, Topographical dictionary, iii. 215; Whellan, History and topography, ii. 217. The York and Scarborough railway reached the town in 1845, and journey times were improved by the construction of the Malton and Driffield line in 1853.5http://www.ryedale.co.uk/ryedale/social/maltonstation/maltonstation.html The town’s major proprietor was Earl Fitzwilliam, who constructed a new corn exchange in 1845 and extended the town hall ten years later.6Whellan, History and topography, ii. 215. Alongside the town’s Anglican churches a Roman Catholic church was built in 1837, and there were also places of worship for Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Unitarians, Quakers and Plymouth Brethren.7VCH N. Riding Yorks. (1914), i. 529-37. As well as returning its own members, Malton was a polling place for the North Riding. A non-corporate town, it was administered by a bailiff appointed by Fitzwilliam as lord of the manor.8HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 273.

Electoral history

Prior to 1832 Malton was a scot and lot borough ‘under the total control’ of the Whig 2nd Earl Fitzwilliam. Despite its small size – it had just 4,005 residents on the 1821 census – it retained both its seats under the Reform Act, with the boundaries being extended to include the parishes of Old Malton and Norton.9Ibid., 273-5. The latter, on the south side of the Derwent, lay in the East Riding, and although it was reportedly held by ‘tory landlords’, its inclusion did nothing to diminish Fitzwilliam’s stranglehold over the borough’s representation.10Daily News, 12 Feb. 1849. The second earl was succeeded as electoral patron by his son in 1833 and his grandson in 1857. Malton did not experience a single contest between 1832 and 1868, returning Whigs or Liberals consistently throughout this period. Several family members sat for the constituency, although it also provided a safe berth for leading figures in the Liberal party such as Charles Christopher Pepys, the future lord chancellor, and John Evelyn Denison, the future speaker. The Daily News in 1849 recorded that ‘Lord Fitzwilliam’s influence in Malton is the direct influence of property; property in the land, property in the houses, property in the church patronage, property in the townhouse, property in the market-place; property in the news-room, property in the river fishery; property in the weathercock; nay, almost property in the very air you breathe in Malton’. It conceded, however, that the earl was ‘beyond all question... a good landlord’ and that Malton’s inhabitants were ‘by old association and connexion... most generally whigs’, whose principles chimed with the members they were asked to return. Moreover, the men elected were ‘no doubt as good as can be wished’. Nonetheless, the paper protested that ‘these members represent my Lord Fitzwilliam, not the town. The town has no veto in their choice. When a vacancy occurs, an address comes down from London cut and dried’, followed by a perfunctory appearance by the candidates, who ‘never come near save on elections, and then stay no longer than is needful’.11Daily News, 12 Feb. 1849. This was an accurate summary, and indeed on several occasions the earl’s nominees did not even appear during the election at all. The borough was often cited unfavourably by opponents as one of the Whig pocket boroughs which survived the Reform Act.12See the speech by Michael Sadler at Leeds: Morning Post, 29 Dec. 1832, and the comments in The Times, 14 Jan. 1837. Gash lists Malton among those proprietary boroughs still in existence after 1832: N. Gash, Politics in the age of Peel (1953), 439.

At the 1832 general election one of the incumbents, Henry Gally Knight, retired, but the other member, Charles Christopher Pepys, sought re-election.13Sheffield Independent, 10 Nov. 1832. The second seat was to be filled by the earl’s grandson, William Charles Wentworth Fitzwilliam, the oldest son of viscount Milton, despite the fact that he would not reach the age of 21 until the following January.14The Examiner, 25 Nov. 1832. However, if Parliament assembled after he attained his majority, it was believed that he would not be disqualified.15Preston Chronicle, 1 Dec. 1832. He had a ‘reception... of the most flattering description’ upon his first electioneering visit to the town, when he was greeted with music and banners, and his speeches to electors reportedly ‘gave great satisfaction’.16Sheffield Independent, 17 Nov. 1832. He and his fellow Whig Pepys were elected unopposed ‘amidst the cheers of a large assembly of the Burgesses’, after which they both expounded their political views at length.17York Herald, 15 Dec. 1832.

The second earl’s death in February 1833 prompted a change in the representation. The new earl, formerly viscount Milton, had been MP for Northamptonshire North, and his son William (the new Lord Milton) took the Chiltern Hundreds in order to offer for that constituency in his place, coming in unopposed.18Morning Post, 1 Mar. 1833. This created a vacancy at Malton, for which Benjamin Haworth of Rowlston Park, near Hornsea, who was ‘almost a total stranger’ to the constituency, came forward. He issued an address, declaring his support for the Whig ministry, abolition of slavery, the spread of education, abolition of tithes, the imposition of a fair duty on corn in place of the existing corn laws, and ‘an equitable, and above all, a cheap form of Government’.19York Herald, 2 Mar. 1833. Although Haworth promised to return to Malton after an initial visit, he clearly thought better of challenging the Fitzwilliam influence, and did not reappear. This left the earl’s chosen candidate, John Charles Ramsden, of Newby Park, near Boroughbridge, to be elected unopposed. Ramsden, who was related to the Fitzwilliams through his wife, had sat for Malton, 1812-31, and Yorkshire, 1831-2, but had been defeated at the 1832 general election for the North Riding.

The defeat of the new attorney-general, Sir John Campbell, at Dudley in February 1834 gave rise to rumours that Pepys would be ‘compelled to make room for him in the Whig nomination borough of Malton’, but these proved unfounded.20The Standard, 28 Feb. 1834. There were similar rumours about the possibility of Malton providing a safe berth following Lord John Russell’s defeat at Devon South in 1835: York Herald, 9 May 1835. Pepys had succeeded Campbell as solicitor-general, prompting a by-election at Malton that March, which saw Pepys arrive in the constituency on a Sunday, canvass on Monday, and re-elected unopposed on Tuesday. The only interruption to these proceedings came when a Mr. Abbot Jackson, who was apparently drunk, proposed Thomas Wells of Westow Grange to oppose Pepys, but found no seconder. Following his return, Pepys declared that he and his ministerial colleagues would ‘promote such measures as were calculated to benefit the nation, by increasing the liberties and enjoyments of the people’.21York Herald, 8 Mar. 1834. Pepys and Ramsden were re-elected without opposition at the 1835 general election. The presentation of an address from Malton’s Conservatives to Sir Robert Peel that year prompted a correspondent to inform the York Herald that ‘so few are the Tories at Malton, that if Sir Robert wished for a personal inspection of them, they might all be comfortably seated and sent up to him at one time, in Larkin’s wagon, and have plenty of room to spare for parcels and other matter’.22York Herald, 9 May 1835. When Pepys was appointed as first commissioner of the great seal in the new Melbourne ministry, a meeting called by the borough bailiff following a requisition from 165 burgesses declared that as he had the constituency’s ‘continued confidence and support’, they would ‘dispense with his attendance’ at the necessary by-election that May.23Sheffield Independent, 23 May 1835.

Pepys’ elevation to the peerage upon being promoted to the woolsack created a vacancy for which John Walbanke Childers, of Cantley Hall, near Doncaster, was returned unopposed in February 1836. He had sat for Cambridgeshire from 1832, but had failed to secure re-election in 1835. He offered at Malton ‘on Whig principles’,24Morning Post, 29 Jan. 1836. and following his return gave his backing to ‘effective reforms in Church and State’. While he supported the established Church, he declared that ‘he would not consent to tolerate non-residence, and pluralities, and the drones, who, under one name or another, sheltered their laziness under the gothic walls of the old cathedrals. Let the working clergy be fairly remunerated, but let the idlers – the blots upon church usefulness – be placed upon short allowance’. He wished to see Dissenters ‘freed from all vexatious imposts and distinctions’ and favoured the establishment of a system of civil registration of births and marriages. He contended that as Daniel O’Connell’s support for the Liberal ministry was ‘unsolicited and independent’, there was no reason why it should not be accepted.25Sheffield Independent, 20 Feb. 1836.

Ramsden’s death in December 1836 after a prolonged period of ill-health brought another by-election, in January 1837. It was reported that Earl Fitzwilliam had informed voters that ‘they may choose whom they like, provided that the subject of their choice is a Reformer’, but had also suggested that his second son, William Thomas Spencer Wentworth Fitzwilliam, who had become viscount Milton on his elder brother’s untimely death in 1835, was ‘of age, and ready to serve them’.26The Times, 14 Jan. 1837. There were rumours that ‘young Lord Milton is decidedly not a Whig-Radical, if even a Whig’.27Hull Packet, 20 Jan. 1837. However, these were belied by his election speech following his unopposed return, when he praised ‘that great charter of freedom, the Reform Bill’, and declared his intention to vote for ‘useful reform’ and ‘in support of liberal principles’. He cited the beneficial measures carried by Melbourne’s ministry, notably municipal reform, which had been thwarted with regard to Ireland by the Lords, who were ‘ignorant of the feeling of the sister country’.28Sheffield Independent, 4 Feb. 1837. He was supported at the nomination by Childers, and by his kinsman John Charles Dundas, MP for York.29York Herald, 28 Jan. 1837.

Childers and Milton both sought re-election at the 1837 general election, where they were unopposed. Milton was absent from the Malton contest, as he had also decided to offer for Northamptonshire North, where the family had sizeable estates.30There were rumours that as Milton was offering for Northamptonshire North, Sir Culling Eardley Smith, ‘who has been struggling at Pontefract, on the principle of purity of election’, would offer in his place at Malton, but this did not transpire: York Herald, 29 July 1837. He was said to have been ably represented on the Malton hustings by Henry Thompson of Kirby Hall, near Little Ouseburn, who spoke on his behalf and joined Childers at a celebratory dinner at the Talbot Inn, attended by 50 or 60 gentlemen. There was also a dinner for electors at the White Horse Inn.31Leeds Mercury, 5 Aug. 1837. Malton proved to be a useful safe resort for Milton, who only polled third in Northamptonshire North.

There were rumours at the 1841 general election that Malton might again serve as a ‘refuge’ for Milton, who was seeking election for the West Riding alongside Lord Morpeth.32Morning Post, 12 June 1841. He subsequently observed that he had been ‘very unwilling to quit my old post, but I felt that when such a large constituency as that called on me to come forward, I could not refuse their call’.33York Herald, 18 Apr. 1846. To have also offered at Malton could have provided an unwelcome opportunity for his opponents to claim that he was doubtful of his chances in the West Riding. Childers therefore acquired a new colleague at Malton, John Evelyn Denison, a veteran Liberal MP who had sat most recently for South Nottinghamshire (until 1835).34Morning Post, 12 June 1841. After proceeding through Malton, New Malton and Norton, ‘mounted on two horses, decorated with orange favours’ and accompanied by a band and ‘a large display of banners’, they arrived at the steps of the town hall for the nomination. Following their unopposed return Childers praised ‘the good the ministry had effected, especially in our foreign relations, and in Ireland’, and promised his support for its proposals for free trade in corn, timber and sugar and its plans to settle the ‘vexatious question’ of church rates. Denison likewise endorsed the Liberal ministry. They then ‘again rode round the market-place, in lieu of a chairing’, after which the electors dispersed for ‘a good dinner and liquors, there being about 20 to 25 persons at each public house, having a sovereign each to spend’, while the MPs gave ‘a grand dinner’ for their leading supporters.35York Herald, 3 July 1841.

Childers took the Chiltern Hundreds in April 1846, allowing Milton – who had failed to secure the West Riding seat in 1841, as had Morpeth – to come in for the vacancy at Malton. Although the weather was ‘extremely unfavourable’, Milton was accompanied to the hustings by bands of music and orange banners bearing inscriptions such as ‘Lord Milton, the friend of the people’, ‘Civil and Religious Liberty’, ‘Agriculture and Commerce’ and ‘No Monopoly’. Unsurprisingly repeal of the corn laws was the dominant issue, and Milton was praised by his proposer for having ‘fought the battle of free trade’ in the West Riding in 1841. Milton himself noted that one of his earliest votes in the Commons had been for corn law repeal. Following his unopposed return he proceeded through the town on horseback, and later addressed voters at a ‘sumptuous dinner’ attended by Morpeth, who had recently been elected for the West Riding. As well as looking forward to the repeal of the corn laws, Milton noted the arrival of the railway in Malton, which he was sure would be beneficial. Morpeth praised Earl Fitzwilliam, who had long opposed the corn laws, as ‘foremost among the happy prophets of the coming good’.36York Herald, 18 Apr. 1846.

Milton did not offer again in 1847, being returned instead for county Wicklow, where the family had extensive estates. A correspondent to the Yorkshire Gazette wrote that ‘we know nothing as to who will be sent down as our member, to succeed the heir of Wentworth’.37Yorkshire Gazette, cited in The Standard, 26 July 1847. There were mutterings of discontent from ‘some gentlemen of good position in the town’ about their lack of input into the choice of candidates, but ‘a little diplomatic treatment’ from Fitzwilliam’s agent was said to have ‘plastered o’er the sore’. However, ‘that sore is felt. It smarts and irritates. It does so all the more because there are in Malton men of independence of purse as well as of opinion’.38Daily News, 12 Feb. 1849. Despite these complaints, Childers and Denison were returned unopposed as the earl’s nominees, and on election day Malton had ‘a gay and bustling appearance, and the bells rang merrily at intervals’. Following their return, Denison ‘spoke at considerable length’, reviewing the measures passed by the previous Parliament, and in particular ‘the settlement to the poor and the injurious effects upon every town and village, and upon Malton particularly’. He and Childers departed shortly afterwards, ‘and in a short time the town resumed its usual appearance of quiet and order’.39York Herald, 31 July 1847. Despite the earl’s support for free trade, there were protectionist meetings at Malton in 1849 and 1850, although the key speakers came from outside the constituency.40Leeds Mercury, 22 Dec. 1849; Morning Post, 6 May 1850.

While Denison sought re-election in 1852, Childers retired, and ‘a general meeting of the electors’ was convened ‘to take the necessary steps for obtaining another candidate’.41York Herald, 19 June 1852. In practice, however, this simply meant rubber-stamping the earl’s choice of candidate, his youngest son, Charles William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, who was then abroad.42York Herald, 26 June 1852. The only hint of dissension came from a Mr. Sewell, who referred to the earl’s doubts about Russell’s reform bill – he had apparently said that ‘he preferred a mild despotism to any further electoral reform’ – but he was called to order by the chairman of the meeting, which unanimously resolved to invite Charles Fitzwilliam to stand.43Morning Chronicle, 25 June 1852; Leeds Mercury, 26 June 1852. With the earl’s son absent, it fell to Denison to canvass the electors, and he addressed ‘a crowded meeting’ at the corn exchange, when he spoke mainly on ‘free trade, law reform, and the bill for the shooting of hares’. He was also questioned about the inequalities of income tax, papal aggression, the militia act and church rates, ‘to all of which, without replying specifically, Mr. Denison promised his best consideration’.44York Herald, 10 July 1852. The Fitzwilliam nominees were elected on a show of hands, with Charles Fitzwilliam represented at the nomination by his brother-in-law, Leonard Thompson, of Sheriff Hutton. After Thompson and Denison had spoken, they processed around the constituency ‘mounted on horses with orange-coloured caparisons’, accompanied by ‘a band of music, banners, and a large number of attendants’, and then entertained ‘the elite of their constituents’ to dinner at the Talbot Hotel.45Ibid.

It was not until well over a year after his return that Charles Fitzwilliam became aware that he was Malton’s MP, as he was hunting bears in the Rocky Mountains when the election took place. His family ‘were unacquainted with his movements; and, at last, they became seriously alarmed’, before word reached England in December 1853 that ‘the missing member [was] found at last’, having arrived at ‘Fort Laramia, in a bear skin, on his return from California’.46Daily News, 13 Dec. 1853. John Bright cited this case to illustrate the need for further electoral reform at a Reform banquet at Sheffield the following month.47The Times, 21 Jan. 1854. Even then, Charles Fitzwilliam did not return immediately to England, and only addressed his constituents for the first time in October 1854, more than two years after his election. He and Denison spoke at a dinner attended by around 60 of Malton’s leading inhabitants. Denison defended the Crimean war as a ‘just’ and ‘necessary’ war against ‘the aggressive steps which had been taken by Russia to subvert the liberty of the rest of Europe and the world’.48Morning Chronicle, 27 Oct. 1854. Noting the unprecedented number of election petitions presented after the 1852 general election, he was pleased that he could serve on the general committee of elections ‘with clean hands’, as there had been no bribery at Malton.49York Herald, 28 Oct. 1854. Charles Fitzwilliam thanked the electors for their patience in awaiting his return from America. He professed his ‘liberal opinions’ and praised ‘the wise principles which regulated the commercial policy of England’. Observing that ‘even under the peaks of the Rocky Mountains he had seen the manufactures of Sheffield, Leeds and Bradford’, he emphasised the importance of maintaining open trade with America.50Morning Chronicle, 27 Oct. 1854. He declared with regard to education that ‘every denomination should have a fair chance’. The dinner ended with a toast to Earl Fitzwilliam, who as a landlord ‘deserved their best services’, and who was praised as ‘the great champion of freedom, of reform, and of good government’.51York Herald, 28 Oct. 1854.

Denison, whose family seat lay at Ossington Hall in Nottinghamshire, took the opportunity to come in unopposed for the Northern division of that county at the 1857 general election. James Brown, of Rossington, near Doncaster, offered in his place alongside Charles Fitzwilliam.52The Standard, 14 Mar. 1857. Brown, who had served as high sheriff of Yorkshire, was the son of a Leeds wool merchant, and had acquired extensive estates in the county.53HP Commons, 1832-68, ‘Brown, James’ [forthcoming]. He had supported Charles Fitzwilliam’s abortive candidature for a vacancy in the West Riding in 1848.54Morning Post, 22 Nov. 1848. The two men were returned unopposed, the only noteworthy feature of the proceedings being that for the first time they took place on the balcony of the newly extended town hall.55York Herald, 4 Apr. 1857. The death of the third earl in October 1857, when he was succeeded by his son (and Malton’s former MP) William Thomas Spencer Wentworth Fitzwilliam did nothing to alter the borough’s politics, and although it was rumoured that William Cayley Worsley, of Hovingham Hall, would oppose the incumbents in 1859, they were spared a contest.56York Herald, 16 Apr. 1859. It seems likely that Worsley was the individual referred to in a later newspaper report who had an address printed ‘but did nothing more’ in 1859: Ibid., 18 Feb. 1865.

There were again rumours of a challenge in 1865, when it was said that Brown would retire to contest the new southern division of the West Riding.57York Herald, 18 Feb. 1865. This proved to be untrue, but there was ‘very great surprise’ that June when Charles Fitzwilliam was adopted as Liberal candidate for that constituency, whereupon it was suggested that his nephew, William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, viscount Milton, might be invited to contest Malton in his place.58Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 22 June 1865. However, Charles Fitzwilliam’s views on the franchise proved insufficiently advanced for the West Riding, and he withdrew to the family stronghold of Malton, leaving Milton to step in for the West Riding.59The Examiner, 15 July 1865; Leeds Mercury, 19 July 1865. Conservative plans to ‘test the feeling of the borough’, as their party had ‘increased of late years’, came to nothing when it became evident that both incumbents would seek re-election.60Daily News, 3 June 1865; Preston Guardian, 24 June 1865. After Fitzwilliam and Brown had been nominated at the hustings, the returning officer’s call for any other nomination ‘provoked some laughter, and a feeble cry of “Jones” and “Robinson”’ (Brown, Jones and Robinson being the title of a recent novel by Anthony Trollope). Following their return, both members voiced their confidence in the Liberal ministry, and declared their support for the abolition of church rates. Fitzwilliam endorsed the ballot, and defended his vote against Baines’s borough franchise bill, contending that ‘he objected to piecemeal legislation by irresponsible persons’, but would support a reform bill brought in by a responsible government.61Leeds Mercury, 13 July 1865. Brown regretted that the Derby ministry’s reform bill had not been proceeded with, as he believed that ‘there was much good in it, and all it wanted was a good sifting in committee’. He promised to back any bill which enfranchised ‘the thrift and the intelligence of the country’, and thought a £6 franchise could be obtained. He argued that the issue of the malt tax should be left to the chancellor of the exchequer, and, responding to questions about the closing of public houses on Sundays, declared that ‘any measure not interfering too much with the liberty of the subject’ would receive his support.62Ibid.

Charles Fitzwilliam subsequently incurred the ‘greatest dissatisfaction’ from some of his supporters after voting with the Adullamites on the Liberal ministry’s 1866 reform bill. It was rumoured that some of Malton’s more advanced Liberals had named an opponent to him in anticipation of a dissolution, and that the Conservatives were also considering running a candidate.63Leeds Mercury, 21 June 1866. Malton’s small population and its position as a pocket borough meant that it was an obvious target for disfranchisement when electoral reform was on the cards. Russell’s 1854 reform bill had proposed to cut one of its MPs, while John Bright in 1859 wished to disfranchise it entirely.64The Times, 24 Feb. 1854, 18 Jan. 1859. In the event, it survived the Second Reform Act, but was reduced to one seat, which remained firmly under the Fitzwilliam family’s control. Brown retired in Charles Fitzwilliam’s favour at the 1868 general election, when the scion of Wentworth came in unopposed. He continued to represent the borough until 1885, comfortably outpolling a Conservative challenger both in 1874 and 1880. The Third Reform Act saw Malton become part of the new Thirsk and Malton division of the North Riding, which was a safe Conservative seat thereafter.