Elgin District

Economic and social profile:

Elgin District (or Burghs) contained the county towns of Elgin and Banff, both situated south of the Moray Firth; Peterhead, further south and east on the Aberdeenshire coast; and Kintore and Inverury, which were inland burghs. It also included Cullen, in Elginshire, which consisted of ‘little more than a street’ and was ‘so unimportant’ that the earls of Seafield relocated the whole burgh in 1820 it when it encroached on their residence.1PP 1835 [30], xxix. 263. In 1851 the population of the constituency was 24,072, 81.5% of whom lived in Banff, Elgin or Peterhead.2PP 1857 session 2 (4), xxxiv. 106-7. Elgin was the ‘centre of a large and well-improved agricultural district’.3PP 1835 [30], xxix. 523. Banff was attractively located by the sea, but in 1836 the New statistical account of Scotland observed that many local people were in ‘very straitened circumstances’ and the burgh had a stagnant population and economy.4New statistical account of Scotland (1834-45), xiii. 36, 47-8. Peterhead was near to granite quarries, but fishing was the mainstay of its economy, although there was a profitable shift from whale to herring fishing at the start of this period.5Ibid., xii. 363-6.

While Banff, Elgin and Cullen were clustered together, they were separated by a relatively large distance from Kintore, Inverury and Peterhead, which were all in Aberdeenshire. Peterhead was 58 miles from Elgin. At the start of the period, the main transport link was provided by the Aberdeen to Inverness road; this was supplemented by a railway between the same two cities as part of the Great North of Scotland Railway network in the 1850s. However, as the line followed the coast it meant that the distance between Elgin and Peterhead by rail was 103 miles.6PP 1867 (12), lvi. 592.

According to the 1851 religious census Banff, Elgin and Peterhead possessed 10, 13 and 9 places of religious worship respectively. In Banff the established Church of Scotland accounted for 38.3% of the attendees at religious services on the census day, the Free Church 37.1% and the United Presbyterians 7.9%. Support for the Presbyterian denominations was spread more evenly in Elgin, with the established Church, the Free Church and the United Presbyterians accounting for 29%, 29.7% and 28.1% of attendees on the census day. Peterhead differed significantly: there was a higher proportion of worshippers attending the established Church (45%), a significant segment of the population were Episcopalian (13%), while the Free Church was relatively weak (21.6%).7PP 1854 [1764], lix. 336, 338, 343.

Electoral history:

The Elgin Burghs comprised, in descending order of electoral importance, the burghs of Elgin, Banff, Peterhead, Kintore, Inverury and Cullen. The district remained in Liberal hands throughout this period, but this was far from assured, especially in the 1830s and 1840s. The Conservatives posed a serious challenge for a time and came within 14 votes of victory at the 1841 general election. Internal divisions threatened to undermine Liberal control in 1847. Unlike in the larger Scottish towns, however, these disputes revolved around the nature of representation and influence in the burghs, rather than religious divisions over patronage in the Church of Scotland. The sitting Whig MP Sir Andrew Leith Hay was accused, with some justice, of wishing to drop and resume the representation of the burghs when it suited him. Hay retorted that his critics merely wanted to reduce the district to the pocket burgh of the Whig Duff family, earls of Fife in the Irish peerage. The Duffs possessed ‘vast estates’ in the district and the extraordinary popularity of James Duff (1776-1857), 4th earl of Fife, locally known as ‘the good earl’, was exhibited in the extensive celebrations that annually marked his birthday across large swathes of Elginshire and Banffshire.8Elgin Courier, 10 Oct. 1845, 8 Oct. 1852, 13 Mar. 1857. The Duffs were victorious in 1847 and held the seat without opposition for the remainder of the period. The Duffs’ influence was concentrated in Elgin and Banff, the burghs with the largest number of electors, but was partially balanced by the Conservative Ogilvy-Grants, earls of Seafield, in Peterhead.9Dod’s electoral facts, 1832-53, impartially stated, ed. H. J. Hanham (1972), 107. Almost 60 miles from Elgin and isolated on the Aberdeenshire coast from the rest of the district, Peterhead often acted ‘a little in antagonism’ to the other burghs and complained that its interests were not consulted nor adequately represented.10Aberdeen Journal, 16 Dec. 1857. The different religious structure of Peterhead compared to Elgin and Banff (see above) may also have partially influenced its Conservative tendencies. There were a greater proportion of Churchmen and Episcopalians and a relatively small number of Free Churchmen and Presbyterian Dissenters.

After 1790 the representation of Elgin Burghs had been arranged so that the earls of Kintore and the Findlater-Grant families took turns to nominate the MP. This compact was disrupted and ultimately broken by the earl of Fife, whose brother General Alexander Duff, was MP 1826-31.11HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 603-8. The only alteration to the composition of the district made by the 1832 Scottish Reform Act was to add the non-royal burgh of Peterhead. Before 1832 each burgh corporation had been able to cast a single vote at parliamentary elections: burghs that were insignificant in terms of population and trade had equal weight with larger ones. The Scottish Reform Act instituted a £10 household franchise that meant that Scottish burgh districts had an aggregate popular electorate for the first time. This gave greater weight to the more populous burghs within a district.

In 1843 Elgin, Peterhead and Banff had 217, 213 and 223 electors respectively and together accounted for 78.7% of the district’s electorate.12PP 1844 (11), xxxviii. 439. Peterhead briefly supplied the largest proportion of electors in the early 1850s before being outstripped by Elgin.13PP 1852 (8), xlii. 327. However, its geographical isolation and the close political identification between Elgin, Banff and the Duff family, meant that this did translate into commensurate influence in the return of MPs. Of the smaller burghs, it was remarked that they ‘have not [the] weight of numbers to do much, except in a close contest’.14Aberdeen Journal, 16 Dec. 1857. The electorate gradually increased during this period. By the 1857 general election there were 289 electors in Elgin, 235 in Peterhead, 232 in Banff, 125 in Inverury, 45 in Cullen and 41 in Kintore.15PP 1857 sess. 2 (329), xxxiv. 125.

There were three candidates at the 1832 general election. Alexander Morison, of Auchintoul, was a Reformer, whose canvass quickly drove the anti-reformer incumbent Sir William Cumming from the field.16Aberdeen Journal, 12 Sept. 1832. Cumming’s Tory followers put up Holt Mackenzie, who had East India connections, although his stated principles were decidedly progressive. He supported reducing the ‘taxes on knowledge’, criticised patronage in the Church of Scotland and expressed a willingness to support the ballot if it was necessary to protect electors. The third candidate was the Whig Andrew Leith Hay, of Leith Hall and Rannes, Aberdeenshire, who had unsuccessfully contested the district in 1831. He called for the reduction of sinecures and taxes, which he blamed on ‘that Tory reign which has domineered over the country for the last 50 years’. Hay and Morison were in agreement on many points, both favouring the revision of the corn laws, modification of the East India Company charter, burgh reform and the assimilation of the Scottish and English laws of entail. The English system was based on ‘a more equitable principle’ noted Morison. Due to his experience of the West Indies, where he had lived for a time, Hay was equivocal on the abolition of slavery, calling for ‘moral and intellectual improvement’ to precede emancipation.17Aberdeen Journal, 19 Sept. 1832.

Hay won the show of hands and the subsequent poll, finishing 125 votes ahead of Mackenzie, with Morison a further 100 votes behind. Although Mackenzie polled slightly more votes in Elgin, Hay’s large majorities in Banff, Peterhead and Inverury proved to be decisive.18Aberdeen Journal, 3 Jan. 1833. Hay was re-elected unopposed in July 1834 after his appointment as clerk of the ordnance. In his hustings speech he suggested that the difficulties over the question of patronage in the Kirk could be resolved if the appointment of parish ministers had to be approved by the majority of heads of families in the congregation.19Aberdeen Journal, 2 July 1834.

Despite Hay’s victory, by November 1834 the duke of Buccleuch’s election agent Donald Horne noted in his survey of Scottish constituencies that the sitting member ‘could ill afford a contest’ and that ‘there is an influential conservative party, and a contest might be tried’.20‘Donald Horne’s election surveys, 1834-40’, in J. I. Brash ed., Papers on Scottish electoral politics, 1832-54 (1974), 227. Although Mackenzie briefly offered at the 1835 general election, he was quickly replaced by William Brodie, of Brodie, who echoed Peel’s moderate Conservatism by calling for the reform of proved abuses while protecting the institutions of church and state from reckless radicalism.21Aberdeen Journal, 31 Dec. 1834, 7 Jan. 1835. Brodie was on the backfoot throughout the nomination proceedings after Hay dubbed him the ‘nominee of the Duke of Gordon’ and his speech was largely inaudible due to the hisses of the crowd. The show of hands was ‘almost entirely in favour’ of Hay who won the subsequent poll by 120 votes. Although Brodie triumphed in Cullen by 39 votes to nil, this was easily overturned by Hay’s majorities in the more substantial burghs of Elgin (135-92), Banff (98-60) and Peterhead (97-51), as well as Inverury (39-20) and Kintore (15-2).22Caledonian Mercury, 22 Jan. 1835.

Horne thought that Brodie might stand against Hay at the by-election in May 1835, caused by his re-appointment as clerk of the ordnance in Melbourne’s second ministry.23Donald Horne to duke of Buccleuch, 1 May 1835, in ‘Donald Horne’s election surveys, 1834-40’, 232. But a declaration of support for Hay, signed by a majority of electors in Elgin, the largest burgh, followed by similar endorsements from Banff and Peterhead, deterred any opposition, leaving the absent Hay to be re-elected unopposed at the nomination.24Aberdeen Journal, 29 Apr. 1835, 6 May 1835. Rumours that Brodie would stand at the 1837 general election were ill-founded and Hay was again returned unopposed.25D. Horne, Memorandum on ‘Scotch representation’, [July 1837], in ‘Donald Horne’s election surveys, 1834-40’, 241; Aberdeen Journal, 5 July 1837.

Hay’s appointment as governor of Bermuda in January 1838 created a vacancy, for which Fox Maule, one of the leading Scottish Whigs and a former minister who had lost his seat at the previous general election, quickly came forward.26Aberdeen Journal, 31 Jan. 1838. Maule was forced to deny that he was the nominee of Hay or the government and, less convincingly, that he was using the constituency as ‘a stepping-stone to re-enter the House of Commons’.27Caledonian Mercury, 5 Feb. 1838. He faced no opposition as both the Grant family and Mackenzie, the only rumoured challengers, considered it a hopeless case.28Caledonian Mercury, 29 Jan. 1838, 5 Feb. 1838. Maule’s progress around the constituency was impeded by heavy snow; one fourteen mile journey took five hours. His speeches were largely defences of the Whigs’ record in government since 1830, but also referred to the increasingly rancorous divisions within the Church of Scotland, between Moderates and Evangelical (or Non-Intrusionist) critics of lay patronage. As the main Liberal Non-Intrusionist, Maule described himself as an ‘uncompromising opponent of Church patronage’, and declared that the ‘majority of the people’ in the parish should recommend their minister.29Caledonian Mercury, 5 Feb. 1838.

Maule regarded Elgin Burghs as a temporary berth. With no Liberal successor in place, the Conservatives began to plan for the next dissolution. Although Horne complained in November 1838 that the Conservatives had neglected the registration, a year later he wrote that ‘the registrations have been attended to and Mr [Thomas Abercromby] Duff of Haddo the Conservative Candidate thinks he has a fair chance’.30‘Donald Horne’s election surveys, 1834-40’, 264. In 1840 Horne noted that Duff was ‘very confident’ of victory.31Ibid. As a distant relation of the earls of Fife, Duff might even siphon off some votes from the dominant Whig interest in the district. Ahead of the 1841 general election, a Scottish correspondent to the Morning Post listed the district as one of the constituencies that the Conservatives had a good chance of capturing.32Morning Post, 25 June 1841.

The Liberal candidate was the former MP Sir Andrew Leith Hay, who was criticised by his opponents for the ‘shameful way’ he handed over the burghs ‘like a drove of cattle, from the grazings of Leith Hall to the pastures of Brechin Castle’ (the seat of the Maule family).33‘A Conservative elector’, letter, Aberdeen Journal, 30 June 1841. However, Hay won the poll by 14 votes, which was controversial as many Conservatives believed that the canvassing returns had indicated a majority for Duff. Hay won narrowly in Elgin (94-84), convincingly in Banff (104-52) and overwhelmingly in Kintore (23-4), while Duff took Peterhead (94-52), Cullen (24-3) and Inverury (39-28).34Aberdeen Journal, 7 July 1841. Duff petitioned against the result, 6 Sept. 1841, alleging that many of Hay’s votes were invalid, due to erroneous, improper or lapsed qualifications, while a number of his own party had had their votes incorrectly rejected. Others had been employed by Hay during the election, which should have disqualified them from voting. Duff also accused his opponent of bribery and treating.35CJ, xcvi. 536-7. However, the speaker announced that the petition had been withdrawn, 19 Apr. 1842.36CJ, xcvii. 204. A Conservative, alluding to the earl of Fife, later observed that ‘on that occasion an influence, which is certainly great, was most powerfully exerted at the very last’ to secure Hay’s return.37Aberdeen Journal, 4 Aug. 1847.

In April 1845 rumours circulated that Hay had agreed to retire in favour of Granville Loch, the son of James Loch, Liberal MP for Wick Burghs. This resembled Hay’s earlier arrangement with Maule, and Loch visited Leith Hall.38Elgin Courier, 18 Apr. 1845. Hay was absent for the entire 1845 session due to the precarious financial position of the estate he had recently inherited from his father, although this was not public knowledge at the time. When Hay declared in August 1846 that he would stand again at the next general election, it caused an acrimonious breach with many of his supporters.39Elgin Courier, 28 Aug. 1846. In November 1846 George Skene Duff, nephew of the earl of Fife and son of General Alexander Duff, MP 1826-31, announced that he would stand as a Liberal and free trader at the next election. He denied seeking to use his family’s influence illegitimately. His relation to the earl of Fife ‘may be a guarantee for my consistent adherence to the principles’ he had espoused, but, he asserted, he would rely on his ‘own character and principles’ and not ‘family influence’ for support.40North of Scotland Gazette, quoted in Elgin Courier, 27 Nov. 1846.

In the intervening period before the 1847 general election, Hay’s opponents developed a critique of his parliamentary conduct. The Elgin Courier sniped that Hay had ‘given them [the burghs] up when it suited himself, and returned to represent them when the course of events made it convenient for him to do so’. His electoral support had declined to such an extent that he had only scraped home by 14 votes in 1841, having been rescued by the ‘strenuous efforts of the family and friends’ of the Duffs. Hay should therefore retire to avoid splitting the Liberal vote and letting in a Conservative, the newspaper concluded.41Elgin Courier, 30 Apr. 1847. The Banffshire Journal dubbed Hay the ‘knight-errant’.42Banffshire Journal, quoted in Elgin Courier, 21 May 1847. Hay’s defenders countered that Duff’s candidature was the ‘result of a deep-laid scheme to subjugate the Elgin Burghs to the Fife family’.43Morning Advertiser, quoted in Elgin Courier, 14 May 1847.

Deserted by many of his former supporters, Hay looked to Conservative support and launched increasingly bitter attacks on the Duffs during the election campaign, describing them as ‘a family who wanted to have the domination of these burghs’.44Elgin Courier, 18 June 1847. Hay’s strategy was fatally undermined by the introduction of a Conservative candidate, Alexander Bannerman, son and heir of Sir Charles Bannerman, baronet, of Crimonmogate.45Aberdeen Journal, 23 June 1847; Elgin Courier, 25 June 1847. Hoping to profit from Liberal divisions, Bannerman promised to support a ‘fair trial’ for free trade in corn, but defended the navigation laws.46Aberdeen Journal, 7 July 1847.

At the nomination, Duff’s proposer pointedly remarked that ‘the electors of Elgin had to consider that the Duff family had been very kind and liberal to Elgin’ before listing various acts of beneficence by the earl of Fife. Hay bitterly complained that ‘every trickery – every meanness … had been used to injure him’ by the Duffs and their allies. He defended the 1845 Maynooth College Act, a brave move, given its widespread unpopularity in Scotland, and also backed non-sectarian education.47Aberdeen Journal, 4 Aug. 1847. He ended by predicting that after the poll, the electors ‘would then see their old cock sitting triumphantly upon his perch, after having annihilated the bantams which assailed him’.48Elgin Courant, 6 Aug. 1847. Duff was received with ‘great uproar’, and quoted a letter from Loch, 9 Mar. 1846, stating that Hay had promised to resign in favour of him. Duff jeered that Hay had abandoned the burghs in 1838 and planned to do so again. In his address Bannerman avowed Protestant and Conservative opinions.49Aberdeen Journal, 4 Aug. 1847.

Hay once again won the show of hands but finished third in the poll, behind Bannerman in second place, and Duff who was elected in first place. Hay performed well in Elgin and Inverury and Bannerman in Peterhead, but Duff’s votes in the two largest burghs, Elgin and Banff, where his family’s influence was greatest, proved to be decisive.50Aberdeen Journal, 11 Aug. 1847. The Elgin Courier hailed the result as a vindication for local Liberals, who had successfully ousted Hay after he had lost their confidence. The newspaper noted that the ‘recent dislocation of political parties seems to have augmented rather than reduced the Liberals here’, presumably referring to Peelite secessionists, and that the Liberals would be in an even stronger position once their own divisions were healed. It predicted that ‘it is possible that many years will pass ere there be a contest in the Elgin Burghs again’.51Elgin Courier, 13 Aug. 1847. In fact there was not another contest that went to a poll until the 1880 general election.

After the Derby ministry took office in February 1852, W.J. Whyte, a protectionist physician, of Towiebeg, published an address in anticipation of an imminent dissolution. He styled himself as a champion of local independence who would ‘wipe off the stain, which at present attaches to them, of being the pocket burghs of a wealthy family’. His eclectic address declared support for a low fixed duty on corn, the reinstatement of the navigation laws, the ballot and public health measures.52Aberdeen Journal, 3 Mar. 1852. His address was dismissed locally as a ‘farce’, and he had withdrawn by the time of the general election in July, leaving Duff to be returned unopposed. Respected for his ‘regular and unremitting’ attention to his parliamentary duties, Duff reaffirmed his support for free trade in his hustings speech. He attacked the foreign policy ‘blunders’ of Derby’s government and argued that their response to Lord Melgund’s Scottish education bill ‘ought to convince all Scotchmen that they could expect no liberality from such a source’. He declared his opposition to the ballot but criticised Lord John Russell’s 1852 reform bill for insufficient redistribution from the smaller to the larger towns. After his return, the crowd enjoyed a barrel of porter that had been provided at Duff’s expense.53Elgin Courant, quoted in Aberdeen Journal, 14 July 1852.

The 1857 general election followed shortly after the death of the ‘good earl of Fife’, who was succeeded by Duff’s elder brother James Duff, 5^th earl of Fife, Liberal MP for Banffshire since 1837.54Elgin Courier, 13 Mar. 1857. (As James Duff had succeeded to an Irish peerage he was able to stand again for Banffshire at the 1857 general election. He resigned from Parliament in June 1857). There was no question, then, of the death of the late earl affecting Duff’s electoral position, and he was returned unopposed at the nomination. Like his elder brother at Banffshire, Duff took a strongly Palmerstonian line in his hustings speech, contrasting the ‘plain good sense of the nation’ with the ‘brilliant sophistries’ spouted by the opportunistic coalition that had defeated the premier over Canton. He drew attention to the ministry’s Scottish measures such as the Valuation Act and the 1856 Registration of Voters Act, which facilitated a more efficient purging of electoral registers north of the border. Duff had supported the education bills proposed by James Moncrieff, the lord advocate, but all had been abandoned due to their inability to secure support from Scotland’s competing Presbyterian denominations. Duff reflected ruefully that ‘Scotland has herself to thank if we have no Education Bill’.55Aberdeen Journal, 8 Apr. 1857.

When Duff resigned citing ill health in December that year. Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, of Eden, near Banff, a distant kinsman of the earls of Fife, and a cosmopolitan intellectual and writer, offered almost immediately. This led one elector to comment that ‘something very like a compact has been entered into by the Messrs. Duff’.56Aberdeen Journal, 16 Dec. 1857. Needless to say, he could count on the influence of his Duff relations. Grant Duff (as he was generally known) stood on Liberal principles, but was rather more advanced than his Whig predecessor. He voiced the fashionable cry for administrative reform, ‘conditional support’ for the ballot, and backed parliamentary reform. His opponent was Sir James Weir Hogg, a former chairman of the East India Company, and Conservative and then Peelite MP for Beverley and Honiton. Although he was backed by the Seafield interest, Hogg had few local connections and it was ‘no secret that his anxiety to get into Parliament is to represent the East India Company’, which was threatened with abolition in the wake of the Indian mutiny.57Elgin Courier, 18 Dec. 1857.

The Elgin Courier commented that Hogg was ‘unquestionably a dextrous platform speaker, and his address is peculiar for that sort of by-play which elicits applause, without committing the speaker to anything’. Styling himself a Liberal Conservative, Hogg played up his past support for free trade and emphasised that he had backed Russell and Palmerston on occasion.58Ibid. Hogg later beat a ‘precipitate retreat across the Spey’, much to the annoyance of his supporters from Peterhead who had travelled 70 miles to attend the nomination.59Elgin Courier, 25 Dec. 1857. He claimed that although he had the backing of Elgin and Peterhead, the dominance of the ‘local interest’ in Banff and the other burghs compelled his withdrawal.60Elgin Courant, quoted in Aberdeen Journal, 23 Dec. 1857. This was most likely for public consumption, for if Hogg had really commanded majority support in two of the three largest burghs he would have stood a strong chance of being returned. Although Grant Duff was returned unopposed at the nomination, he struggled to be heard above a storm of hissing and ‘took the very wise course of addressing his remarks to the reporters’.61Elgin Courier, 25 Dec. 1857. Reflecting upon the election, the Elgin Courier noted that ‘apart from the Conservative party, who are numerically small’, Grant Duff’s opponents ‘were chiefly made up of a series of discontented factions’ whose animus was really directed against the Duff family, earls of Fife, rather than Grant Duff himself.62Ibid.

Grant Duff was returned unopposed at the 1859 and 1865 general elections. On the former occasion the rumoured candidacy of Thomas Bruce, the agent of the earl of Seafield, came to nothing.63Elgin Courier, 22 Apr. 1859. Both of Grant Duff’s hustings speeches, as well as the annual statements of his parliamentary conduct that he gave each autumn, dwelled on the question of reform. He defended the Liberal party’s opposition to Derby’s reform bill in 1859, called for the implementation of the English 40s. freehold franchise north of the border and argued that on the basis of its taxation and population Scotland was entitled to 73-74 seats rather than the present 53.64Aberdeen Journal, 27 Apr. 1859. In 1865 Grant Duff advocated an extension of the franchise that would ‘give to the working classes a real but by no means a preponderant power’. He looked to William Gladstone, who he described as the ‘very incarnation of debating power’, as the future leader of the Liberal party and predicted the disestablishment of the Irish church.65Aberdeen Journal, 19 July 1865.

The 1868 Representation of the People (Scotland) Act increased the electorate to 3,080. Grant Duff was unchallenged at the 1868 and 1874 general elections. He was victorious in 1880, the only time he faced a contest, and vacated the constituency on his appointment as governor of Madras in 1881.66McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, eds. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 104. Despite opposition from Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, like much of north-eastern Scotland, Elgin Burghs remained in the hands of the Liberals 1885-1910.67Ibid., pt. II, p. 82.