Carlisle

Economic and social profile

The Border city and county town of Carlisle was a castellated borough at the confluence of the rivers Caldew and Eden.1HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 219-228. The manufacture of cotton, checks and gingham dominated the borough’s economy, with approximately one-fifth of its population employed as weavers.2C.F. Barnes, ‘The trade union and radical activities of the Carlisle handloom weavers’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 78 (1978), 157. Carlisle’s cotton industry was monopolised by Ferguson Brothers, who owned Holme Head Works in Denton Holme, and Peter Dixon and Sons, who in 1836 opened an immense cotton mill in Shaddongate, with its 300 foot chimney (the eighth tallest in the world) dominating the city’s skyline.3J. Godwin, ‘Duke Street, Carlisle, a street of handloom weavers’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 88 (1985), 227; D.J.W. Mawson, ‘Longthwaite cotton mill’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 79 (1976), 161-8. The installation of power looms in Carlisle’s factories dramatically undermined the livelihood of its handloom weavers, who in 1838 successfully called for a Royal Commission to investigate their affairs.4PP 1840 (220), xxiv. 373. It was subsequently reported that weaving ‘was a business at which no man can ever again obtain a comfortable and respectable livelihood’ and in December 1841 the town council petitioned the Commons for relief, claiming that no fewer than 398 families were dependent on casual charity.5Barnes, ‘Carlisle handloom weavers’, 159. Joseph Broom Hanson, a weaver and leader of the local Chartists, established a Carlisle co-operative society of weavers, but many of the weaving shops were bonded to the Ferguson and Dixon firms.6Ibid., 159-60. In 1834 the Quaker Jonathan Dodgson Carr established a bread and biscuit factory in Caldewgate and thereafter the city became renowned for the manufacture of Carr’s biscuits.7C. Newman, ‘The industrial and manufacturing city’, in M. Brennand and K.J. Stringer (eds.), The making of Carlisle: from the Romans to Railways (2011), 162. As a port, salmon fisheries and the coasting trade were also represented in the city’s economy.8Dod’s electoral facts, impartially stated, ed. H.J. Hanham (1972), 49-50. The Newcastle and Carlisle railway, the first line to cross from the east coast to the west coast of Britain, opened in 1838 and the Lancaster and Carlisle railway opened in 1846, with the latter being leased to the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) in 1859.9P. Robinson, ‘The Railway city’, in Brennand and Stringer (eds.), The making of Carlisle, 177. The city’s function as a railway hub subsequently encouraged heavy engineering in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the manufacture of rolling stock and cranes ‘became a Carlisle industry of international significance’.10Newman, ‘The industrial and manufacturing city’, 153.

Electoral history

Before 1832, Carlisle politics had been dominated by the Cumberland Whig hierarchy, the ‘Blues’, who were assisted by the dukes of Norfolk and Portland and the earls of Carlisle in their bid to undermine the influence of the Lowther family and their supporters, the ‘Yellows’.11HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 219-228. On becoming head of the Lowther family in 1802, the Tory 1st earl of Lonsdale, one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom, had arranged a compromise with the duke of Norfolk over the representation of the borough, but at the 1816 by-election, when the Whig veteran John Christian Curwen defeated the renegade Whig Sir Philip Musgrave, this rather uneasy truce collapsed and thereafter parliamentary elections were fiercely contested, with the freemen being polled a further seven times in the pre-Reform era.12C.H.H. Owen, ‘Lowther, William, first earl of Lonsdale (1757-1844)’, Oxf. DNB., www.oxforddnb.com; HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 219-228. Lonsdale’s trenchant opposition to Reform diminished his influence after 1832, and although the dukes of Norfolk, represented in the constituency by their kinsmen the Catholic Howards of Corby, and the earl of Carlisle retained some influence, it was, according to Charles Dod, neither stable nor commanding.13Dod’s electoral facts, impartially stated, ed. H.J. Hanham (1972), 49-50.

Instead, following the 1832 Reform Act, the Ferguson and Dixon families, the town’s dominant cotton manufacturers, played an increasingly pivotal role in the leadership of the Liberal party. With only a limited number of handloom weavers on the register, though, they largely owed their influence to their role as civic leaders, rather than as employers.14H.J. Hanham, Elections and party management: politics in the time of Gladstone and Disraeli (1978), 70-1. Election to the town council, therefore, became an increasingly important source of political influence, and the Fergusons and Dixons monopolised the mayoralty after the council’s first elections in 1835.15Joseph Ferguson was mayor 1836-7; Peter Dixon 1837-8; John Dixon 1839-41; George Dixon 1842-3, 1848-9; Peter James Dixon 1852-4; Robert Ferguson 1854-5, 1858-9. The ‘Blues’ dominated parliamentary elections thereafter, although internecine conflict and unease concerning the Howards’ Catholicism undermined party unity, and the Conservatives broke their hegemony in 1847, 1857 and 1865. The ‘Blue’ Carlisle Journal (circulation 60,000 in 1832) and the ‘Yellow’ Carlisle Patriot (30,000) further fostered partisan rivalries and candidates frequently referenced their editorials during the campaign.16HP Commons, 1820-1832, ii. 219. Extra-parliamentary activity was also an important part of Carlisle’s political culture. The Radical handloom weavers, who had been a prominent force during the Reform agitations, often intervened at the hustings, and the Carlisle Chartist movement, in which the Female Radical Association played a major role, nominated candidates for parliamentary contests.17Barnes, ‘Carlisle handloom weavers’,157; M. Chase, Chartism: a new history (2007), 32-42. Elections were frequently riotous affairs, with teenage boys playing a particularly prominent role in the mayhem.18For example see Morning Chronicle, 28 June 1841; Daily News, 2 May 1859.

At the 1832 general election the two sitting members, the Radical William James of Barrock Lodge and the Whig Philip Henry Howard of Corby Castle, came forward to defend their seats. Although both men were endorsed by the Carlisle Reform Association, led by the cotton manufacturer John Dixon, they had separate committees and rooms.19R.S. Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs from the Restoration to the Reform Bill of 1867 (1871), 263-4. Infighting over nominations to the corporation coupled with Radical unease over Howard’s moderate views caused dissension among the Blues, prompting the Radicals, with tacit support from local Conservatives, to bring forward Mr. Atherley, a local barrister, but after issuing an address he withdrew owing to lack of support.20Lancaster Gazette, 17 Nov. 1832; Morning Chronicle, 15 Dec. 1832. Determined to capitalise on Liberal disunity, members of the corporation, led by the Tory mayor William Nicholson Hodgson, subsequently persuaded Sir John Malcolm, the diplomatist and former administrator in India, to stand as a Conservative.21Morning Chronicle, 18 Dec. 1832. At the nominations James, who launched a ‘violent and ... dastardly attack’ upon the editor of the Carlisle Patriot following its criticism of his support for Joseph Hume’s motion to omit from the preamble of the cholera precautions bill the words ‘whereas it has pleased God almighty to visit’, was enthusiastically received, but Howard, who was greeted with ‘a tremendous storm of yellings and hooting’, cut an unpopular figure, and ‘had he not been well primed with brandy, with which he had kept supplying himself from a pocket-flask since he came upon the hustings, he never would have been able to face it’.22Morning Post, 13 Dec. 1832. However, despite this hostile reception, Howard topped the poll, with James decisively returned in second place, underlining the fact that those most fiercely opposed to Howard were the non-electors, dismayed at his opposition to further franchise reform. An analysis of the poll reveals that while local activists were divided, the Liberal vote was generally united, with the winning candidates receiving 393 shared votes, although the fact that 17 per cent of James’s votes were plumpers suggests that a significant proportion of his supporters were unwilling to back Howard.23W.W. Bean, The parliamentary representation of the six northern counties of England (1890), 45.

At the 1835 general election James made way for William Marshall of Patterdale Hall, Cumberland, brother of John Marshall, MP for Leeds, 1832-35.24Sheffield Independent, 3 Jan. 1835. A supporter of triennial parliaments and the ballot, he had solid Radical credentials, and in his address declared that ‘from rank Tories, no honest reformer can expect good’.25Parliamentary Test Book (1835), 104-5. The Conservative members of the corporation, after much procrastination, brought forward William Garnett, president of the chamber of commerce at Manchester, but after failing in their rather desperate bid to secure a coalition with Howard, who pledged his loyalty to the ‘Blues’, he withdrew following the nomination.26Morning Post, 7 Jan., 10 Jan. 1835. Marshall and Howard, who retained separate committees, finally agreed to support each other, and were returned unopposed. They were subsequently re-elected without a contest at the 1837 general election, underlining the lamentable strength of Conservatism and the Lowther interest in the borough in the decade following Reform.27Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs, 264.

Towards the end of the 1830s Carlisle witnessed a flurry of extra-parliamentary activity. John Dixon, a member of the council of the Anti-Corn Law League, co-ordinated an active course of agitation in the town that was championed by the Carlisle Journal.28Ibid., 272. More dramatically, the Chartist movement enjoyed considerable support amongst Carlisle’s non-electors. In August 1838 a quarter of the city’s population heard Feargus O’Connor speak from the town hall steps, and thereafter the local movement, led by the weaver Joseph Broom Hanson, persistently swamped public meetings of other organisations with Chartist resolutions.29 Northern Star, 25 Aug. 1838; Chase, Chartism, 32-4; Barnes, ‘Carlisle handloom weavers’, 159. The Female Radical Association was especially active in collecting women’s signatures for the petitions. In 1839 female signatures constituted twenty per cent of all those collected in the locality.30This was a high percentage. For example in Birmingham, women’s signatures constituted 13 per cent of the total collected: Chase, Chartism, 42. The Carlisle Patriot, although aligned with the ‘Yellows’, also gave sympathetic support to the Chartists, strengthening their ability to permeate the local political consciousness.31Ibid., 242.

The Carlisle Chartists were a vociferous force at the 1841 general election, which was a riotous contest. Canvassers from all sides were routinely pelted with stones, the main perpetrators reported to be ‘children and half-grown lads’, and a series of violent disturbances required the military to be called out.32Morning Chronicle, 28 June 1841. Moreover, following a Chartist meeting that had precipitated the smashing of the town hall’s windows, the clerk banned any further assemblage in the market square.33Ibid. The Chartists initially brought forward Richard Welford, a Chancery barrister, who issued an emphatic address, championing the Charter in addition to calling for the repeal of the corn laws and the disestablishment of the Irish church.34Ibid. Welford subsequently made way for Hanson, who labelled Howard ‘a liar, slanderer and hypocrite’ for calling the Newport rioters ‘incendiaries and robbers’ and dismissed Marshall’s radicalism as a sham, calling him ‘one of the most useless members that sits in the House of Commons, capable of nothing but discussing wine and walnuts’.35Ibid.; Northern Star, 19 June 1841. Hanson was subsequently nominated by James Arthur, a bookseller whose regular correspondence with James Bronterre O’Brien was published in the Northern Star, and seconded by John Dobson, a handloom weaver, but despite overwhelmingly winning the show of hands at the nomination, he withdrew before the poll ‘for want of money’. He also lacked, in his words, ‘the humbug qualification’ necessary to take his seat in the event of his return.36Morning Chronicle, 2 July 1841.

Despite Hanson’s withdrawal, Chartist interventions at the hustings had been effective. Howard and Marshall were repeatedly put on the defensive over their condemnation of the Newport rioters, and the canvass of Edward Goulburn, the first Conservative candidate to make it to the poll since 1832, went well following his denunciation of the new poor law, an issue on which the Chartists, backed by the Carlisle Patriot, had campaigned.37Morning Chronicle, 28 June, 2 July 1841. However, Howard and Marshall, supported by the Ferguson and Dixon families, represented a united and formidable front, and following a turbulent day of polling that culminated in the reading of the Riot Act, they were comfortably re-elected.38Northern Star, 3 July 1841. The winning candidates received 335 shared votes, with Howard, who topped the poll, also gaining 82 split votes with Goulburn, reflecting the Conservative sympathies of a portion of his supporters.39Bean, Parliamentary representation, 45.

At the 1847 general election the hegemony of the ‘Blue’ party was finally broken. William Nicholson Hodgson, a director of the Lancaster and Carlisle railway and former mayor, came forward as a protectionist, with the issue of free trade dominating the campaign.40Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs, 274. With Marshall vacating his seat to contest East Cumberland, the ‘Blues’ put up one of their leaders, John Dixon, also a former mayor and now head of the cotton manufacturers Messrs. Peter Dixon and Sons. Dixon, as an employer and a civic leader, was reported to have ‘many warm supporters’ and following a canvass in which he professed his unwavering support for free trade and the established church, topped the poll.41Morning Post, 13 July 1847. Hodgson, who pledged to defend protectionist and Protestant principles, was returned in second place, defeating Howard by 31 votes. Hanson was again nominated as a Chartist, but declined to go to the poll.42Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs, 274. An analysis of the poll reveals that Howard’s defeat can be explained by his loss of Conservative support. In 1841 20 per cent of his vote was split with the Conservative candidate; in 1847 this figure had fallen to just 5 per cent, with 13 per cent of Hodgson’s votes split with Dixon.43Bean, Parliamentary representation, 45. Although the free trade issue had ostensibly dominated campaign discourse, therefore, Dixon and Hodgson’s staunch advocacy of the established church, in contrast to Howard’s Catholicism, was arguably more of a decisive factor. Hodgson also enjoyed considerable support amongst the 400 freemen electors, receiving 252 of their votes, compared to 89 each for Dixon and Howard.44The Times, 2 Mar. 1848.

However, Howard’s supporters petitioned against the return of Hodgson on the grounds of bribery, corruption and treating, 6 Dec. 1847, and a further petition was lodged against the return of Dixon, on account of the Blenkinsop coal company, in which he was a partner, holding a contract with the board of ordnance at Carlisle, 7 Dec. 1847. Another petition against Dixon’s return on the grounds of bribery, corruption and treating was submitted, but it was subsequently withdrawn.45Bean, Parliamentary representation, 45-6; PP 1847-48 (156), x. 567-9. The election committee, which exposed the lengths to which Hodgson’s committee had gone to provide refreshment tickets for the freemen, found that Hodgson was, by his agents, guilty of treating, and as Dixon did not contest the charge of holding a government contract, the election was declared void, 6 Mar. 1848.46The Times, 7 Mar. 1848. However, the committee also concluded that, as the acts of treating were not committed at Hodgson’s expense, he was not disqualified from standing again.47Ibid. Dixon also subsequently cleared himself of his government contracts, allowing him to offer again.48Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs, 274-5.

The subsequent by-election of March 1848 saw the ‘Blue’ party descend into internecine warfare. At the beginning of the canvass it emerged that Dixon, to ensure that the petition against his original return on the grounds of bribery, corruption and treating was dropped, had agreed not to coalesce with a second Liberal candidate in the event of a by-election. This ‘most injudicious compromise’ outraged Howard’s supporters.49Liverpool Mercury, 14 Mar. 1848. With Howard, Dixon and Hodgson all coming forward, an extra dimension was added to the contest when the Chartists put up Dr Peter McDouall, a nationally active orator and central figure in the National Charter Association, who called on the middle classes to ‘lay aside the prejudices and fears with which they regarded the Charter’ and received ‘a whole forest of both washed and unwashed hands’ when the show of hands was taken at the nomination.50Northern Star, 18 Mar. 1848; The Times, 15 Mar. 1848. After an unusually quiet polling day, Hodgson topped the poll, with Howard a comfortable second. Dixon, his credibility undoubtedly damaged by his compromise with the Conservatives, saw his share of the vote drop from 34 per cent to 26 per cent.51Morning Chronicle, 16 Mar. 1848; Bean, Parliamentary representation, 45-6. Moreover, the split at the top of the Blue party was reflected in the poll. Whereas Dixon and Howard had received 409 shared votes in 1847, this figure dropped to 186 at the by-election. With Howard gaining 150 plumpers, it was clear that Dixon had alienated a decisive amount of his previous supporters.52Ibid.

The 1852 general election witnessed the return of Sir James Graham, MP for Carlisle 1826-9, who had vacated his seat at Ripon in order to contest his native city. Following his outspoken criticism of the ecclesiastical titles bill, Howard, who had staunchly defended his Catholic faith and called Lord John Russell and his supporters ‘the friends of intolerance’, felt that his position was untenable and retired.53Hansard, 15 May 1851, vol. 116, cc. 1004-7; Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs, 274-5. A requisition was subsequently signed by nearly five hundred electors requesting Graham and Joseph Ferguson, the cotton manufacturer and one of the leaders of the ‘Blue’ party, to stand.54Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs, 274-5; J.T. Ward, Sir James Graham (1967), 257. For Graham, who had been defeated in a very bitter contest at East Cumberland in 1837 following his gravitation to the Conservatives, his return to Carlisle was a moment of catharsis: ‘I have come home at last’, he told his audience at the nomination.55Daily News, 9 July 1852. With Hodgson standing again, the ‘Yellows’, particularly Robert Perring, the editor of the Carlisle Patriot, who warned that if Graham was returned the city would ‘be called the asylum for the destitute’, persistently reminded Graham of his former treachery. The nomination became a ‘novel and whimsical’ affair when Hodgson’s supporters, ‘perhaps to avoid the disadvantage of being followed by two opponents in succession’, refused to nominate him first (as was usually the custom with a sitting member). In turn, the ‘Blues’ declined to nominate Graham and Ferguson, the deadlock only being broken thirty minutes later when, in an unprecedented moment, Perring along with Rough, the Conservative agent, nominated Graham to represent the city, to ensure that Hodgson would follow him on the hustings.56Ibid.

Graham briefly alluded to his tenure as home secretary during Peel’s ministry, insisting that the Conservative government had supplied the people with cheap food, but he principally focused on his support for free trade and, in a move that surprised some Peelites, he insisted that he had ‘no apprehensions’ regarding an extension of the franchise. Ferguson also championed free trade, arguing that the Derby ministry ‘could not be trusted’ to pursue such a course, leaving Hodgson, who had previously stood as a protectionist, to rather unconvincingly insist that he had been a long-time supporter of free trade.57Ibid. Graham topped the poll, declaring that ‘the wanderer has come home’, and Ferguson finished a comfortable second.58Morning Chronicle, 10 July 1852. The unity of the Blue vote was striking, with the winning candidates receiving 502 shared votes, 96 per cent of Graham’s total.59Bean, Parliamentary representation, 46. A petition was subsequently launched against their return, 24 Nov., but following a report from the examiner of recognisances that concluded that the recognisance to the petition was objectionable, 6 Dec., the petition came to nothing.60Ibid.

Graham’s appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty necessitated a by-election in January 1853. The Chartist Charles Sturgeon, a London-based barrister who had unsuccessfully contested Nottingham at the 1852 general election, issued an address in which he called for the main points of the Charter and labelled Graham ‘a Tory’.61Morning Chronicle, 1 Jan. 1853. Following Sturgeon’s nomination, Graham, who joked to the mayor Peter Dixon that in accepting it his ‘humour [was] inexhaustible’, questioned what right, as an uninvited outsider, Sturgeon had to thrust himself upon the constituency. Sturgeon denied that he had ‘sneaked into Carlisle’, but following a good-natured exchange in which he declared that demanding a poll would be ‘detrimental to the cause he had at heart’, he withdrew from the contest. Graham, who restated his support for franchise extension but admitted that he could not back the ballot, was returned unopposed.62Ibid., 3 Jan. 1853.

At the 1857 general election the unity of the ‘Blues’ was again torn apart. Graham, who believed that the Chinese war was ‘unworthy and unwise’, called Palmerston ‘a Tory of the deepest dye’ and refused to coalesce with Ferguson who, although frustrated with Palmerston’s ‘deficiency’ in the cause of reform, backed the premier over events at Canton.63C.S. Parker, Life and letters of Sir James Graham, 1792-1861 (1907), ii. 304; Ward, Sir James Graham, 289; Daily News, 28 Mar. 1857. Ferguson’s supporters subsequently invited Thomas Perronet Thompson, a Radical who had played a prominent role in the Anti-Corn Law League agitations, to stand in the Liberal interest, but Graham, who had initially considered retiring, stood his ground, and Thompson’s candidature never materialised.64Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs, 276-7. Although Graham and Ferguson both proceeded to the poll, there was little sense of unity, and at the nomination, no blue flags or banners were paraded. Hodgson, who once again offered in the Conservative interest, ridiculed the state of the ‘Blues’, arguing that if Graham and Ferguson, holding such opposed views, were both returned, Carlisle ‘would be the laughing-stock of all England’.65Daily News, 28 Mar. 1857. Hodgson topped the poll and Graham, who was endorsed with ‘disinterested magnanimity’ by Philip Henry Howard, was returned in second, 33 votes ahead of Ferguson. The disunity of the ‘Blue’ party was reflected in the poll: only 79 per cent of Graham’s votes were shared with Ferguson (down from 96 per cent in 1852) and Graham and Hodgson, who both opposed the Chinese war, received 77 split votes.66Bean, Parliamentary representation, 46.

‘Blue’ unity was restored, however, at the 1859 general election when Graham came forward alongside his nephew, Wilfrid Lawson. Although connected by family, the coalition was a curious one, as they held diametrically opposed views on the ballot, with Lawson a zealous advocate and Graham, a consistent opponent, admitting that ‘I cannot honestly, at my time of life, depart from the course I have hitherto taken’.67Morning Chronicle, 23 Apr. 1859; Daily News, 22 Apr. 1859; Parker, Sir James Graham, 379. Hodgson, who offered as an ‘independent member’, attempted to capitalize on the ballot issue, but he was put immediately on the back foot as Graham and Lawson launched a united and scathing attack on Derby’s reform bill. Mocking his pretensions to be ‘independent’, Graham called Hodgson a ‘hybrid, cross bred, spurious reformer’, who had to ‘swim with Lord Derby’s reform bill around his neck’, while Lawson derided the ‘twelve or thirteen men, calling themselves cabinet ministers’ who had produced a bill ‘to stem the torrent of democracy’.68Daily News, 30 Apr., 2 May 1859. Moreover, to counter allusions to his political inconsistency, Graham invoked the memory of the Reform movement and the 1832 general election in Cumberland, declaring that ‘I then fought under the blue flag; I fight under the blue flag still’.69Ibid., 22 Apr. 1859. Further pressed at the nomination by the ‘Yellows’ on his reputation as a ‘turncoat’, Graham, in a speech described by Gladstone as ‘superlative’, simply stated that ‘if a man ... refuses to alter his opinions, such a man may be fit for a lunatic asylum’.70Parker, Sir James Graham, 381. Following a raucous day of polling in which ‘many half-grown lads ... betrayed a rather gentle disposition to riot’, Graham was comfortably returned in first place, with Lawson coming in second.71Daily News, 2 May 1859. With the two winning candidates receiving 503 shared votes (93 per cent of Graham’s total), the unity of the ‘Blue’ vote was beyond doubt. Although two electors subsequently petitioned against the result, 21 June 1859, on the grounds of bribery and corruption, the election committee declared that Graham and Lawson were duly elected, 28 Feb. 1860.72Bean, Parliamentary representation, 47.

Graham died in October 1861, necessitating a by-election. The ‘Blue’ party brought forward Edmund Potter, a Manchester merchant who was head of one of the largest calico printing works in the world.73M. Hewitt, ‘Potter, Edmund (1802-1883’), Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com. Through his role with the Manchester Reform Association, Potter had earned a reputation as a successful broker between middle-class Liberals and working-class Radicals, and a committee of Carlisle non-electors issued an address to the working men strongly urging them to support him.74Ibid., Morning Chronicle, 22 Nov. 1861. In 1866 23.7 per cent of Carlisle’s electorate were working-class, a slightly above average figure for this time: PP 1866 (170), lvii. 49. As secretary to the Manchester Garibaldi fund, however, a meeting of local Catholics resolved not to vote for him given his views on Italian affairs, though the registered Catholic vote was reported to number around only twenty.75Ibid. Potter’s prospects were temporarily undermined when a local lawyer, Edward James of the northern circuit, issued an address in the Liberal interest, but he subsequently withdrew in favour of Potter, citing that he was anxious not to split the ‘Blue’ party.76Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs, 278. At the nomination Potter advocated the ballot, the abolition of church rates, and peace and non-intervention, and ‘offered himself not in his individual capacity, but as a supporter of the Liberal party’.77Daily News, 27 Nov. 1861. In contrast, Hodgson insisted that, if returned, he would be an independent member, but, during a fractious contest, he was forced to defend his record on voting for franchise reform and free trade measures, and was ambiguous on the church rate issue.78Ibid. Potter’s status as an outsider was a potential source of weakness, but, contrary to expectations, he narrowly defeated Hodgson by three votes, becoming the first candidate not native to Cumberland to be returned for Carlisle in the post-Reform era.

The 1865 general election at Carlisle was a fractious affair. Lawson, who had introduced the permissive bill which called for a neighbourhood to have a ‘local veto’ over the establishment of ‘drink shops’, was extremely unpopular with local publicans.79Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs, 278. The indefatigable Hodgson, who once again came forward, capitalised upon Lawson’s unpopularity, and ran a strong pro-publican campaign. Following a bitter contest, nomination day was a ‘scene of uproar, riot and confusion’.80Newcastle Courant, 14 July 1865. Lawson concluded his address ‘amid a perfect shower of missiles’ while Potter, who championed ‘Gladstone and the people’, was barraged by a ‘fusillade of powder and unclean things’. Hodgson, who had always cut an unpopular figure amongst the non-electors, was greeted by the discharge of ‘a pistol’ and was ‘pitilessly assailed’ by ‘a constant shower of coloured powder bags, soot bags, potatoes, rotten eggs, and stale butchers’ offal’.81Ibid.; The Times, 13 July 1865. The tally was dramatically close. Hodgson narrowly topped the poll and Potter came in second, just eight votes ahead of Lawson, who later reflected that ‘I had committed the unpardonable sin of bringing in the permissive bill. ... Drink was king then’.82Quotation taken from Sir Wilfrid Lawson: a memoir, ed. G.W.E. Russell (1909), 68. An analysis of the poll reveals that the Liberal vote largely remained united, with Potter and Lawson receiving 549 shared votes (91 per cent of Potter’s total), but Hodgson, who had 554 plumpers, secured a critical 35 split votes with Potter, and 27 with Lawson.83Bean, Parliamentary representation, 47. Hodgson, a director of the London and North Western Railway, also benefited from the small, but significant 30 votes of the railway workers resident in the borough.84Hanham, Elections and party management, 87.

Carlisle’s electorate increased to over 4,500 as a result of the 1867 Representation of the People Act, though no changes were made to the borough’s boundaries.85PP 1867-68 (3972), xx. 146-8. Lawson regained his seat at the 1868 general election, and the Liberals dominated parliamentary contests thereafter, with Potter being replaced by Robert Ferguson, Joseph’s son, in 1874. In 1885 the borough lost its second seat, but the Liberals continued to enjoy uninterrupted representation until the First World War. A helpful, though dated, overview of the region’s parliamentary elections can be found in Robert Ferguson’s Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs from the Restoration to the Reform Bill of 1867 (1871).