Hereford

Economic and social profile:

Situated on the river Wye, the county town and cathedral city of Hereford was ‘surrounded by rich pasture, orchards and varied scenery’.1Dod’s electoral facts, 1832-1853, impartially stated, ed. H. J. Hanham (1972), 142. In 1844 the Parliamentary Gazetteer described Hereford as having a ‘neat and cheerful’ appearance, ‘though a little sombre by the serious air of cities more devoted to ecclesiastical establishments … than to trade or manufactures’.2Parliamentary gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), ii. 330. The city had ‘never been of any note for manufactures’ aside from a declining glove trade. It was, however, a marketplace for the trade in cider, hops, wool, timber, wheat and other agricultural products.3Ibid., 337. The Hereford to Shrewsbury line, which opened in 1853, gave the city valuable railway links. The city was served by the two major county newspapers, the Conservative Hereford Journal, founded in 1781, and the Liberal Hereford Times, established in 1832. In 1851 the religious census recorded that 49% of the population of the Hereford poor law union area attended Anglican services on the census day, with 16% attended Dissenting chapels.4PP 1852-53 [1690), lxxxix. 291, 301.

Electoral history:

With the exceptions of the 1837 and 1865 general elections, when the Conservatives captured one seat, Hereford’s representation was generally monopolised by the Liberals. After 1841 the Conservatives, ignoring their own weakness on the register, made a habit of unwisely contesting elections that they had no chance of winning. The intense partisanship that characterised the city for much of this period was refracted through Hereford’s distinctive local political culture. Local Conservatism had a High Tory flavour, a legacy of the influence of cathedral clergymen, known as the ‘Black and Tans’, and the corporation.5S. J. Johnston, ‘Hereford city: parliamentary elections and political culture, 1818-1841’, University of Manchester, M. Phil. thesis (1994, catalogued as 1995), 35, 370, 386, 390-1. On the other side, the prevalence of bribery and undue influence in the constituency meant that Hereford Reformers were early advocates of the ballot, even though their views were generally moderate, even Whiggish, on most other issues.

In other respects, there were considerable continuities with the unreformed period. Significantly, the city’s rival newspapers regularly used the labels Whig and Tory rather than Liberal and Conservative, even until quite late in this period. While there were occasional attempts to establish permanent party organisations, the central headquarters for Reformers or Liberals remained the Green Dragon Hotel. Furthermore, the Conservatives never once put up two candidates. While critical of their opponents’ ‘monopoly’, their objective was a return to the pre-1832 era of electoral compromises and shared representation.6Hereford Journal, 16 June 1841.

The electoral culture of Hereford was marked by high levels of political participation. The first five elections after the 1832 Reform Act were contested and eight out of thirteen elections went to a poll during the whole period. The 1835 and 1837 elections had turnouts of 89.7% and 91.2% respectively.7H. Stooks Smith, The register of parliamentary contested elections (2nd edn., 1842), 66; F. O’Gorman, Voters, patrons and parties: the unreformed electoral system of Hanoverian England, 1734-1832 (1989), 189. The electorate, in part because of the survival of the freeman franchise, was widely diffused. For example, in 1832 the 920 electors comprised 20% of the male population.8Johnston, ‘Hereford city’, 446. In 1866 a parliamentary return classified just over a quarter of Hereford’s electorate as working-class.9PP 1866 (169), lvii. 748. Election rituals, particularly the procession of the victorious candidates through the city also allowed non-electors plenty of opportunities to participate.10Hereford Times, 15 Dec. 1832, 10 Jan. 1835, 9 Oct. 1841; Hereford Journal, 26 July 1837, 6 Oct. 1841. For example, in 1847 women waved their handkerchiefs from windows during the ‘chairing’ of the Liberal Members.11Hereford Times, 31 July 1847. Until the mid-1850s, elections were vivid affairs with the rival Whig and Tory parties sporting green and purple colours respectively.12Stooks Smith, Register of parliamentary elections, 66.

Before 1818 control of Hereford’s representation had been shared between the Whig duke of Norfolk and the Tory corporation. After the duke’s death in 1815, the Tory James Somers Cocks, 2nd earl of Somers, high steward of the city, stepped into the breach as patron, but was unable to claim more than one seat.13HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 478; Johnston, ‘Hereford city’, 25-6, 42, 44. Somers’s heir, Viscount Eastnor, and Edward Bolton Clive, who was first returned at the enormously expensive 1826 contest, were unchallenged in 1830 and 1831.14Johnston, ‘Hereford city’, 124.

The 1832 Reform Act disenfranchised over 600 non-resident freemen. The estimated unreformed electorate of 1,110 was replaced with an electorate of 920, of which 461 were resident freemen.15HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii.478; PP 1833 (189), xxvii. 159. The electorate generally fluctuated between 900 and 1,000, but had risen to 1,215 by 1865.16PP 1866 (169), lvii. 748. While the overall number of voters remained stable, the freemen steadily declined, falling to 382 by 1842 and 214 by 1858.17PP 1844 (11), xxxviii. 433; 1859 sess. 1 (140), xxiii. 140.

Somers’ heir, Viscount Eastnor, retired at the 1832 general election, his family’s liberal Toryism no longer finding favour in a constituency increasingly polarised between Reformers and Ultra-Tories.18Johnston, ‘Hereford city’, 124. The staunch Tory Richard Blakemore, of the Leys, who had spent ‘an immense sum of money’ in vain at the 1826 contest, came forward, while Robert Biddulph, of Ledbury, stood alongside Clive as a Reformer.19Hereford Times, 7 July 1832. This signalled the end of the era of compromises. As a local Reformer, Captain George Adams, observed, ‘the days have gone past when elections are got up at private coteries’.20Capt. George Adams to Thomas A. Knight [1832], K74, bundle 621, Downton Mss, Herefordshire RO, qu. in Johnston, ‘Hereford city’, 163. The election was given added spice by allegations that Blakemore’s agent Richard Sill had bribed Carpenter, the clerk of Messrs. Bodenham, the solicitors for the Reform party, to leave the city. As Carpenter had signed and delivered all the Reformers’ objections to electors, his absence meant that these could not be sustained in the registration courts.21Hereford Times, 10, 17 Nov. 1832; Hereford Journal, 14 Nov. 1832; Daily News, 3 Sept. 1849; PP 1835 (547), viii. 62.

Clive reaffirmed his independence and support for reform at the nomination, while Biddulph spoke in favour of a low fixed duty on corn, the abolition of slavery and retrenchment. Blakemore expressed Tory sentiments, but lost the show of hands and retired early on the second day leaving Clive and Biddulph to be returned in first and second place.22Hereford Journal, 12 Dec. 1832; Hereford Times, 15 Dec. 1832. Clive and Biddulph shared 360 votes, accounting for 92% and 95% of their respective totals, while plumps accounted for 81% of Blakemore’s total.23Stooks Smith, Register of parliamentary elections, 66. These markedly partisan voting patterns were repeated at subsequent elections.

Anticipating the forthcoming dissolution, Clive observed in late 1834 that the

Tories were so weak that the utmost that they could attempt would be one, but after their defeat at the last election, which was very decided, I do not think they will make any attempt, as I was not opposed in 1832. Biddulph behaved liberally and he paid all above £500 ... I was in Glamorganshire with Robert Clive in October I there met Mr. Blakemore’s nephew. Mr. B. was the Tory candidate in 26 & 32. He assured me that his uncle would never appear here again.24E. B. Clive to Sir John Broughton, 23 Nov. 1834, British Lib., Add. 47227, f. 69.

In the event, Blakemore allowed local Conservatives to put his name forward at late notice at the 1835 general election on the strict understanding that he was not to be put to any personal expense or a personal canvass.25Hereford Times, 3 Jan. 1835. The nomination was notable for Biddulph’s conversion to the ballot, caused by his experience of the previous election ‘when many persons said they wished to vote for me, if they had not other interests they were compelled to support’.26Hereford Journal, 7 Jan. 1835. Biddulph was also genuflecting to his supporters, however. It was notable that although Hereford’s representatives generally held moderate or even Whiggish opinions throughout this period, sooner or later all the non-Conservative MPs came to adopt the secret ballot. Although he was an ‘invisible candidate’ Blakemore finished only nine votes behind Biddulph, with Clive topping the poll, a telling indication of the strength of local Conservative sentiment.27Hereford Times, 10 Jan. 1835. A disturbance was caused after the declaration by a ‘body of ruffians’ who had been drinking the local brew, cider.28Ibid.

The party polarisation that emerged after 1832 was sustained by the rivalry of the Conservative Hereford Journal (established 1781) and the Liberal Hereford Times, which had been founded in 1832. Furthermore, this partisan, polarised culture, with frequent contests, led to a more intensive use of treating, bribery and other forms of influence to mobilise electors, than in the previous period of generally unopposed compromises.

According to the local solicitor John James, bribery was carried on ‘to a much more considerable extent than before’ 1832. With pardonable exaggeration, he explained to an 1835 parliamentary inquiry that electoral corruption was ‘scarcely known’ in Hereford before the Reform Act.29John James evidence: PP 1835 (547), viii. 49-63 (at 54). In 1832 £30 was charged for a vote, and in one case £55 was asked, and many ‘golden promises’ were made to electors.30E. P. Richards to Lord Bute, 15 Dec. 1832, National Library of Wales, Bute Estate Letter books, iii. 71; Hereford Journal, 12 Dec. 1832. A banker acting on Blakemore’s behalf issued loans to electors, in one case as much as £33, the promissory notes acting as security for their votes, to be called in at election time.31PP 1835 (547), viii. 54. This tactic was probably borrowed from Leominster, where a similar system was operated by Coleman the banker until the collapse of his firm in 1826: Daily News, 30 Aug. 1849. Small sums were also paid to electors after elections.32PP 1835 (547), viii. 55. More frequent contests and party competition, which stimulated the use of bribery, were in large part a consequence of the reduced cost of post-reform elections. Contests had been rare before 1832, partly because of the enormous expense of bringing out-voters to poll and paying admission fees for freemen. Blakemore, for instance, had spent £14,000 at the 1826 election, while the successful candidates had spent £6-7,000.33Ibid. By contrast, James claimed that the 1832 and 1835 contests cost candidates £1,000-£2,500 each.34Ibid. It was something of a paradox that, in the right environment, reducing the cost of elections could lead to an increase in bribery.

Before its replacement with an elected town council in December 1835, the Tory corporation exercised considerable influence, particularly through the charities it controlled. The attractiveness of the hospital, or almhouse, was an especially appealing inducement to poorer freemen.35Ibid., 56-8 (John James), 113 (Joseph Parkes); PP 1835 (116), xxv. 400. The corporation’s authority over licensing also enabled them to influence the forty publicans who lived in the city. Combined with other inducements, James estimated that the corporation could mobilise 150 votes.36Ibid., 57. Tory clergymen attached to the cathedral also threatened to take their custom elsewhere to exert pressure on shopkeepers.37Ibid., 55. Unsurprisingly given the number of public houses, a culture of treating continued to flourish at city elections.38Ibid., 49-50.

By the time of the 1837 general election, the leadership of the ‘High Tory interest’ had passed from the defunct corporation to Tory clergymen associated with the Protestant Conservative Association and Sir Edwin Scudamore Stanhope, 2nd baronet, of Holme Lacy. Dr. Mereweather, dean of the cathedral was especially prominent, publishing an address in favour of the Conservative candidate, Daniel Duvall Higford Burr, of Gayton Hall.39Daily News, 3 Sept. 1849. Incremental gains at the 1835 and 1836 revisions meant that the Conservatives could claim a majority of two on the electoral register by the time of the general election.40Hereford Journal, 17 Oct. 1835, 5 Nov. 1836. While the Reformers organised an impressive meeting at the Green Dragon, their opponents were quietly confident of returning their candidate.41Hereford Journal, 19 July 1837; Hereford Times, 22 July 1837. Biddulph and Clive highlighted their support for municipal reform and the Whig government’s Irish policy on the hustings, while Burr accused the government of seeking to ‘ruin and subvert’ the established church.42Hereford Journal, 26 July 1837.

After being returned in second place behind Clive, Burr spoke from a balcony and theatrically pointed to the cathedral declaring that ‘he should always try to preserve that edifice’. He also thanked the ladies of the city for ‘the very kind reception which he had experienced’ during his canvass. ‘Whenever he called upon an elector, although he might not have succeeded with him, his wife, his sister, or his daughter, was sure to advocate his cause’, he explained.43Hereford Journal, 26 July 1837. Only twenty-four votes separated the three candidates, with 90% of electors turning out. The Reformers’ total declined slightly, while Burr was able to secure a higher number of plumps (which comprised 77% of his total) than Blakemore and enough splits to beat Biddulph into third place by ten votes.44Stooks Smith, Register of parliamentary elections, 66. His return was undoubtedly aided by his expenditure of £3,000.45Daily News, 3 Sept. 1849.

The lesson the Hereford Times drew from the contest was that the ballot was needed to counter ‘foul influences’, but also that the Reformers relied too much on the popularity of the incumbents without preparing the ground through thorough organisation. It welcomed the establishment of a new Reform Association to rectify this.46Hereford Times, 29 July 1837. Their local solicitors, chiefly Messrs. Bodenham, secured a Liberal majority on the register at the next revision in autumn 1837, which was followed up with further gains in 1838.47Hereford Times, 7 Oct. 1837, 6 Oct. 1838. Even so, the Conservatives continued to enrol new claims and object to opposing voters, leaving the situation delicately balanced.48Hereford Journal, 7 Oct. 1840. As the Hereford Times reflected after the 1840 revision, the Liberals had a small majority on the register, making it imperative that they remained united.49Hereford Times, 17 Oct. 1840.

In the event, the Liberal Clive and his running mate Henry William Hobhouse, of Farley House, Somerset, won an easy victory over Burr at the 1841 general election, for a number of reasons. Firstly, with the local economy strongly tied to agriculture, both Hobhouse and the Hereford Times opposed the abolition of the corn laws. Preferring instead the moderate fixed duty proposed by the Whig government, they successfully neutralised the protectionist cry.50Hereford Times, 8 May 1841, 19 June 1841. A fixed duty, it was argued, would stabilise prices, protect the farmer and provide a boon to manufacturing and the poor man. Secondly, Burr’s attempt to get up opposition to the new poor law as a rival popular cry backfired badly. It was Burr’s misfortune that a handbill issued by his supporters provoked George Richard Wythen Baxter, a local resident and author of the famous anti-poor law tract, The book of Bastilles, into publishing a withering critique of his voting record on the issue. Concluding his review, Baxter asked electors ‘to read the foregoing, and then vote for the NULLITY, Higford Burr - if you can’.51Hereford Times, 19, 26 June 1841. Hobhouse capitalised by hastily announcing his support for revision of the 1834 Act, especially to facilitate outdoor relief.52Hereford Times, 19 June 1841.

Thirdly, Dr. Mereweather’s intervention also proved counter-productive to the Conservative campaign. He apparently warned one elector to vote for Burr otherwise he would jeopardise his son’s prospects of a choristership. Hobhouse subsequently wrote to Dr. Twistleton, the canon, for assurance that the elector would suffer no penalty.53Daily News, 3 Sept. 1849; Hereford Times, 3 July 1841. Alluding to Mereweather’s being passed over for the vacant bishopric of Hereford a few years earlier, Clive quipped that ‘intimidation at parliamentary elections was not the right line to a mitre’.54Hereford Times, 3 July 1841.

Three months after this triumph, Hobhouse unexpectedly resigned following the collapse of his bank. At the ensuing by-election the rich London merchant Robert Pulsford, brother-in-law of William Hayter, MP for Wells, was returned as a Liberal. His opponent Edward Griffiths, of Newcourt, who declined to be put to any expense or attend the nomination, was easily beaten.55Hereford Journal, 29 Sept. 1841, 6 Oct. 1841; Hereford Times, 2 Oct. 1841. The requisition to Griffiths, only signed by a quarter of the electorate, and the canvassing returns, had provided plenty of warning that a contest was hopeless.56Hereford Times, 9 Oct. 1841. Even the Hereford Journal had conceded that the Conservative cause was in a ‘very unsatisfactory’ state and that efforts would have been better directed to ‘attending diligently to the registration’ than to contesting a poll.57Hereford Journal, 29 Sept. 1841. They had learnt their lesson by 1845, when Sir Robert Price, of Foxley, the former Whig county MP, came in unopposed after Clive’s death.58Hereford Journal, 30 July 1845. Seymour Fitzgerald, described as a ‘Carlton club knight-errant’, briefly appeared in the constituency but wisely decided against standing.59Hereford Times, 2 Aug. 1845.

An attempt by the Conservatives to rally Anglicans and Dissenters around a Protestant, anti-Maynooth platform at the 1847 general election ended in a humiliating fiasco. A requisition to the former MP for Canterbury, Henry Gipps, garnered only 23 signatures.60Hereford Times, 10 July 1847; Hereford Journal, 14 July 1847. Pulsford retired in favour of George Clive, son of the late MP, who offered general support to Russell’s government.61Hereford Journal, 23 June 1847; Hereford Times, 26 June 1847. However, Clive was forced to withdraw at late notice as under the terms of a new law his appointment as a county court judge made him ineligible to sit in Parliament.62Hereford Journal, 21 July 1847; Hereford Times, 24 July 1847. After a meeting at the Green Dragon, Henry Morgan Clifford, of Perrystone, chairman of the county’s quarter sessions, was adopted as the second Liberal to stand alongside Price.63Hereford Times, 24 July 1847. In their desperation to force a contest, a faction of Conservatives alighted on Edward Glover, known as Mr. Serjeant Glover, who had previously offered as a candidate for Worcester.64Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 29 July 1847; Hull Packet, 11 June 1847. But it was striking that local notables, including Stanhope, stood aloof from the campaign.

Much to the embarrassment of the local Conservatives, Glover withdrew before the nomination, after an interview with his opponents in which he confessed that he had insufficient support to justify a contest. This shambles meant that Price and Clifford were returned unopposed. The Whig baronet declared on the hustings that Glover had expressed himself ‘quite as ready to follow Lord John Russell as any other political leader in the House of Commons’. It was a harsh lesson to his opponents, Price crowed, ‘not to rashly pledge themselves ... in favour of a man of whom they know nothing’.65Hereford Times, 31 July 1847. The whole episode once again revealed the misplaced optimism of local Conservatives, and had Glover gone to the poll he would in all likelihood have been beaten by over 200 votes.66Hereford Times, 7 Aug. 1847.

Prior to the 1852 general election, the local branch of the National Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association passed resolutions backing Price and Clifford, approving especially of the latter’s support for the ballot and ‘every other Liberal measure’.67Hereford Times, 20 Mar. 1852. Price, however, opposed the ballot, although he was not against shorter parliaments and extending the franchise. Augustus Meyrick, of Goodrich, offered as the Conservative candidate, declaring general confidence in Derby’s ministry, but was at pains to emphasise his opposition to a reimposition of the corn laws.68Hereford Times, 22 May 1852.

Meyrick’s campaign was assisted by William Henry Cooke, a barrister and native citizen, who brought his characteristic brand of mudslinging to the campaign.69See also his candidature for Walsall at the 1847 general election. In the Hereford Journal he authored an article targeting Price and Clifford’s involvement in Agua Fria, a Californian gold company. He repeated his accusations at the nomination when he nominated Meyrick, declaring that ‘he regretted to see the members for his native city paraded in the London papers as mixed up with every bubble scheme’. Clifford rejected the claim as a ‘scurrilous’ libel, and both he and Price argued that Meyrick could not be a true free trader and support a government that had not categorically ruled out the restoration of agricultural protection. For his part, Meyrick denied that there was any inconsistency in his views and attacked the weakness of Russell’s late government. The show of hands favoured the incumbents, prompting Meyrick to demand a poll. 70Hereford Times, 10 July 1852.

The declaration was notable for the Conservative mayor and returning officer, E. Wemyss, rebuking Cooke for going behind his back to use the Hereford Journal (which the mayor had formerly edited) to ‘libel other persons’. Price and Clifford, returned in first and second place respectively, won an easy victory over Meyrick. The Liberals had been so confident of victory that they had offered to show the Conservative committee the canvassing returns, independently verified, to stop Meyrick wasting his time and money. The offer was declined by their opponents, who erroneously took it as a sign of Liberal vulnerability.71Ibid.

Price resisted growing pressure to resign after ruinous investments and ‘a damaging series of mortgages’ rendered him a virtual bankrupt in late 1855.72HP Commons, 1820-1832, vi. 890; The Times, 31 Dec. 1855; Hereford Journal, 16, 23, 30 Jan. 1856, 13 Feb. 1856, 13 Mar. 1856. He held on until accepting the Chiltern Hundreds in February 1857, retiring in favour of George Clive. At late notice Clive was challenged by William Kevill Davies, of Croft Castle, who was met by only thirty supporters at the nomination and none of the local Tory notables. While Clive expressed his backing for Palmerston, Davies surprisingly revealed himself as an advocate of the ballot, and was at pains to emphasise his free trade credentials. He was heavily outpolled by Clive, who gloated that his opponents ‘had only brought forth, as usual, a mouse and this time it was a very small one’.73Hereford Times, 14 Feb. 1857.

The result prompted the Hereford Journal to bemoan how the Conservatives’ disorganisation meant that, unlike the Liberals, they did not know their own strength on the register, which led them into fighting pointless contests.74Hereford Journal, 18 Feb. 1857. The by-election was also notable for revealing the impact of the 1854 Corrupt Practices Act on Hereford’s electoral culture. The absence of flags, banners, and music bands, which under the new legislation candidates were prohibited from paying for, kept ‘the city in a state of comparative quietude’.75Hereford Times, 14 Feb. 1857.

The decisive outcome of the 1857 by-election meant that the Conservatives did not oppose Clifford and Clive at the 1857 and 1859 general elections. On the first occasion, both incumbents declared their support for Palmerston over Canton, Clifford expressing his general admiration for the premier’s ‘manly and English’ foreign policy.76Hereford Times, 14 Mar. 1857. Both men advocated the ballot and the extension of the suffrage at the 1857 nomination, when Clive warned that unless Palmerston adopted a more progressive policy, ‘Lord John or some other leader will ... be put in his place’.77Hereford Times, 28 Mar. 1857. In 1859 Clifford and Clive defended their opposition to Derby’s reform bill. The election proceedings were described as a ‘tame affair’ by the Hereford Journal.78Hereford Times, 9, 30 Apr. 1859; Hereford Journal, 4 May 1859.

By the time of the 1865 general election, the Conservatives were in a much better position. Aided by a Mr. Garrald, the registration had been ‘well attended to’ and they had a strong candidate in the barrister Richard Baggallay, a ‘most eloquent man’ and future attorney-general.79Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 17 June 1865; The Standard, 26 June 1865. A second candidate, in the form of Evan Pateshall, the former mayor, quickly withdrew citing ‘pecuniary circumstances’.80The Standard, 26 June 1865. Baggallay was received with ‘deafening applause’ at a disorderly nomination and topped the poll in a close election. He finished eleven votes ahead of Clive, who was elected in second place, and twenty-seven ahead of Clifford, who was relegated into third.81Birmingham Daily Post, 13 July 1865. Suitably emboldened, the Conservatives petitioned against Clive’s return alleging bribery, treating and undue influence.82Hereford Journal, 24 Feb. 1866. This was countered by a Liberal petition against Baggallay, which called for Clifford to be returned in his place.83PP 1866 (255), x. 462. The select committee declared Baggallay and Clive duly elected, 7 May 1866. The evidence proved that nine men had been paid bribes of £10 each, one man had been paid £9 and another £5, but the committee argued that such corruption had taken place without the knowledge or approval of Baggallay, Clive or their agents.84PP 1866 (255), x. 461.

As a general election was imminent under the 1867 Representation of the People Act, which expanded Hereford’s electorate from 1,215 to 2,380, with the boundaries left unchanged. There was no opposition to Baggallay at the September 1868 by-election occasioned by his appointment as solicitor-general. At the general election that November, Clive and another Liberal defeated two Conservatives, but were unseated on petition in March 1869. The Liberals held both seats at the resultant by-election. The Conservatives gained one seat at the 1874 general election, but were unable to retain it in 1880.85McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, eds. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 137-8. They fared better after Hereford became a single member constituency in 1885, controlling the representation 1886-92, 1893-1910.86Ibid., pt. II, p. 113.