Gateshead

Economic and social profile:

Situated on the south bank of the river Tyne, directly opposite Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Gateshead was a town of considerable manufacturing and commercial importance, with its inhabitants chiefly engaged in the coal and iron industries.2PP 1835 (116), xxv. 119-20. The Gateshead Park, Gateshead Fell, Oakwellgate and Shipcote collieries were located in the borough itself, and were connected by wagonway to the Tyne. The ironworks of Hawks, Crawshay and Sons was the town’s largest employer, with approximately 800 men and boys, and produced anchors, chains, bolts and spades. In 1849, the firm also built the High Level bridge which crossed the Tyne. The grindstone and later the building stone quarries also employed a section of the local population, but this trade was limited. Chemicals, pottery, glass and rope making were also represented in the town’s economy.3Manders, Gateshead, 51-97. From the 1840s onwards, the borough enjoyed remarkable economic prosperity, and its rate of growth was faster than all of its Tyneside rivals.4T.J. Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms in reformed England: case studies from the North-east, 1832-74 (1975), 112. The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway Company’s line from Redheaugh, on the west side of the borough, to Carlisle opened in June 1838, and the first section of the Brandling Junction Railway Company’s line from Gateshead to South Shields opened in January 1839. The line from Euston to Gateshead was completed by the Newcastle and Darlington Railway Company in 1844.5Manders, Gateshead, 110-18.

Electoral history:

Allocated a single member by the original reform bill of March 1831, the creation of the borough of Gateshead was keenly contested in Parliament. While the majority of MPs with seats in the north-east pressed its claims to be distinct from Newcastle-upon-Tyne,6Hansard, 5 Aug. 1831, vol. 5, cc. 840-80. the Conservative Lord Londonderry, who held extensive coal interests in County Durham, objected that Gateshead was ‘a most filthy spot, containing the vilest class of society’ and argued that it would become a nomination borough for Lord Durham, a son-in-law of the prime minister Lord Grey, whose family, the Lambtons, also possessed extensive estates in the region.7Ibid., 23 May 1832, vol. 12, cc. 1378-98. His protests, however, cut little ice and the creation of the borough was confirmed by the 1832 Reform Act. The resulting electorate was overwhelmingly middle-class in composition, with the average voter a £40 rather than a £10 householder, and even by 1866, only 9.4 per cent of voters were working class, compared to 23.5 per cent in the neighbouring borough of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.8Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 112; PP 1866 (170), lvii. 49-51.

On the eve of its first parliamentary election, the predominant interests were those of the coal-owning families of Lambton and Bowes, whose shared Liberal allegiance now superseded the hitherto influential bishop of Durham, who had historically opposed the town’s interests being represented in the Commons.9Ibid., 110. The family firm of Bowes and partners was managed by John Bowes, Liberal MP for South Durham, 1832-47, and son of Mary, Dowager Countess of Strathmore. In 1837 the firm owned four collieries within the borough boundary. The key figure in Gateshead politics, however, was William Henry Brockett, a local merchant and manager of a marine insurance company, who had helped form the Gateshead Reform Association in April 1831, led the town council in 1835, and became principal proprietor of the newly-established Gateshead Observer two years later.10W. Stokes, ‘The rise and fall of an enterprising provincial paper: the Gateshead Observer, 1837-1886’, Journalism Studies, xii (2006), 428. Working with leading members of the town council, such as his father-in-law Thomas Wilson, a partner in the chemical manufacturers Losh, Wilson and Bell, and the ironmaster George Hawks, Brockett was head of a formidable electoral machine that married the town’s business interests with local Liberalism. He effectively secured the return of the Liberal nominee in all six general elections before his retirement from political life in 1852, whereafter the constituency remained dominated by the proprietors of local companies.11N. McCord, ‘Gateshead politics in the age of reform’, Northern History, iv (1969), 168-9.

Events leading up to the 1832 general election, however, suggest that the Gateshead Reform movement was not necessarily unified. The original and unanimous choice of the Gateshead Reform Association and the Northern Political Union to become the borough’s first MP was Cuthbert Ellison, who had previously sat for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1812-30, and was lord of the manor of Gateshead, but his decision to retire from public life opened up divisions within the movement.12Ibid., 173. Charles Attwood, a leading Gateshead iron manufacturer, who was president of the Northern Political Union and brother of Thomas Attwood, MP for Birmingham, declared his interest, only for his candidature to be opposed by Brockett, who felt that his opinions were too extreme.13Manders, Gateshead, 268. Backed by Lord Durham, Brockett brought forward Cuthbert Rippon, the owner of Stanhope Castle, County Durham, and an investor in the local coal and lead trades, prompting Attwood to reluctantly opt instead for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he was defeated.14P. Cadogan, Early Radical Newcastle (1975), 98. An outspoken opponent of clerical pluralism, Rippon was a popular candidate with the town’s Nonconformists, and after calling for the removal of bishops from the House of Lords and the abolition of the corn laws, he was returned without a contest.15Newcastle Courant, 15 Dec. 1832; McCord, ‘Gateshead politics’, 173-4.

Tensions within local Liberalism resurfaced at a public dinner held for Lord Durham in Gateshead in October 1833. Brockett, as chairman of the dinner committee, declined to consult Attwood in the arrangements, and was subsequently accused by the latter, in published correspondence, of attempting to ‘shamefully gag the people’ by ensuring that there would be no criticism of the government at the event.16Standard, 23 Oct. 1833; Morning Chronicle, 24 Oct. 1833. Attwood subsequently attempted to stage a protest outside the dinner where he attacked Brockett and Durham, arguing that they did not represent the political feelings of the electors, but it was sparsely attended and came to nothing.17The Times, 28 Oct. 1833. With Attwood and his supporters marginalised in Gateshead Liberal politics, there was no challenge to Rippon at the 1835 general election, which passed without incident. At the beginning of his canvass in December 1834, Rippon’s election committee, chaired by Brockett, resolved to abolish all chairing, bands of music and other ‘Tory instruments of popular degradation’, and at the nomination, Rippon’s invitation to his audience to challenge his conduct was met with silence.18Morning Chronicle, 7 Jan. 1835; Newcastle Courant, 6 Jan. 1835. Attacking the newly appointed Conservative ministry for being ‘the most vicious and flagrant administration that ever was known in the annals of this country’, he was re-elected unopposed.19Ibid.

On the eve of the 1837 general election, Rippon’s credibility was gravely undermined when it emerged that he was on the brink of bankruptcy, due to unwise speculation in the coal trade. His private life was also under scrutiny when it became known that his mistress, whom he openly kept in Stanhope, was a cousin, as was his wife.20Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 110-11. Determined to be re-elected, but reluctant to canvass personally, Rippon, in a published handbill, declared that ‘the cowardly whisperings of secret calumniators – the industrious canvassing of Christian meddlers – and the vended lies of prostituted journalists are not unknown to me – but I defy them all’.21Quoted in Manders, Gateshead, 271. With his reputation weakened, a rival local Liberal candidate, John William Williamson, who was a magistrate and deputy lieutenant for the county, came forward, and was joined by a local Conservative, Robert Smith Surtees. Although described as being ‘better suited to figure in the New Sporting Magazine than in Parliament’,22William Hutt to William Henry Brockett, 2 Feb. 1837, quoted in Ibid. Surtees framed himself as a credible alternative, calling himself ‘a constitutional reformer’ and backing the abolition of sinecures, pluralities and a redistribution of church wealth.23Newcastle Courant, 21 July 1837. Alarmed by the challenge, Brockett canvassed the constituency in order to determine Rippon’s likely fate. Reassured that his seat would be safe, the Gateshead Liberals duly rallied behind the discredited Rippon, although he refused to appear in the borough, and Surtees withdrew before the nomination. Williamson, however, proceeded to the poll, but was easily defeated, reflecting the strength of Brockett’s electoral machine.24Manders, Gateshead, 271-2.

In March 1839, with Rippon’s credibility by now irrevocably shattered, Brockett moved to secure the candidature of William Hutt, who, although MP for Kingston-upon-Hull, was closely connected to Gateshead. In 1831 he had married Mary, dowager countess of Strathmore, the mother of the influential Liberal coal-owner and MP for South Durham John Bowes, which brought him coal-holdings in north Durham and a nearby home at Gibside, and he was a close associate of Brockett, with whom he corresponded regularly.25McCord, ‘Gateshead politics’, 175. Although initially reluctant to accept Brockett’s overtures, as ‘the electors may have good reasons for dismissing R[ippon]’ but ‘I can have none for opposing him’, Hutt, upon receiving a formal requisition from 360 Gateshead electors that was precipitated by the bedchamber crisis, declared his candidacy on 15 May 1839.26Quoted in Manders, Gateshead, 272.

At the 1841 general election Rippon retired and Hutt duly offered in the Liberal interest. His call for household suffrage based on ‘everyone assessed and rateable to the poor’ was challenged, however, by William Cook, a Gateshead poor law guardian and staunch opponent of Brockett’s influence, who, addressing a Chartist meeting, called it an ‘ambiguous bait’ that had been ‘thrown out to catch the electors of Gateshead’.27Northern Star, 26 June 1841. Chartism in Gateshead, however, was noticeably weak, and when John Mason, a full-time Chartist lecturer and former Tyneside shoemaker, declared his intention to stand, he was unable to secure even a nomination after his only proposer was revealed by the mayor not to be an elector.28Newcastle Courant, 2 July 1841. The mayor did, however, permit, Mason to make an address, and, in a speech that lasted for over three-quarters of an hour, he attacked ‘the shopkeepers of Gateshead, there not being two found among them on the side of the working men’. He then asked Hutt what was his ‘reason for denying the elective franchise to the producers of wealth and granting it to those who only disposed of the wealth after it was produced’, to which the Liberal candidate replied that as Mason was ‘not an elector, but a stranger, he would not answer’.29Northern Star, 3 July 1841. Despite Mason’s attempted intervention, Hutt was returned unopposed.

Although Hutt was re-elected without a contest at the 1847 general election, his political principles were again challenged by William Cook, who published a handbill criticising his voting record, with Hutt’s vote for the Maynooth grant being especially condemned. Cook also intervened at the nomination to attack Hutt’s views on suffrage, prompting the latter to insist that he supported universal suffrage but ‘not until all classes were better instructed in their political duties’ and that he ‘was against universal suffrage, therefore, not upon principle, but solely on the grounds of its inexpediency’.30Newcastle Courant, 30 July 1847.

At the 1852 general election, Cook finally brought forward a rival Liberal candidate against Hutt, whom he accused of ‘misrepresenting’ the borough for ten years, as he was ‘continually opposed to the rights of the working classes’.31Newcastle Courant, 9 July 1852. Cook’s frustrations at Brockett’s influence were also evident, when he described Hutt as ‘the representative of a little knot, a contemptible section, a small cabal – introduced to the borogh by trick and artifice’.32Local collections; or, Records of remarkable events, connected with the borough of Gateshead (1852), 91. His choice of candidate was Ralph Walters, a Radical Newcastle lawyer and owner of property in the borough, who campaigned largely on the basis that Hutt and his supporters on the town council were only lukewarm reformers.33McCord, ‘Gateshead politics’, 177. The ensuing campaign was strikingly personal and bitter, with Hutt, in a published response to Walter’s criticism of his voting record, calling his opponent ‘unfit society for men of veracity and honour’.34For the published correspondence see Local collections; or, Records of remarkable events, connected with the borough of Gateshead (1852), 57-9. Walter responded by asserting that ‘if he had acted towards Mr Hutt in the manner he had to him, he should not have dared to stand before them on the hustings without committing the grossest insult upon them’, and a duel between the two men was only narrowly averted.35Newcastle Courant, 9 July 1852; Manders, Gateshead, 273.

With the Liberal vote potentially split, the Conservatives brought forward Adolphus Liddell, son of the first baron Ravensworth, and a member of a Conservative family with extensive mining and agricultural interests in Northumberland and County Durham. Labelled a protectionist by his opponents, Liddell sought to reassure the electorate that he was against any duties on food, but he was noticeably vague on the issue of the franchise, stating that ‘it is not my business to define what is the right limit that ought to be given to the suffrage’.36Local collections, 97-8. Hutt, who was completely dismissive of Walters’s pretentions, subsequently framed the contest as ‘a struggle of principle, and not of person’ between Liddell and himself, and argued that the proposals of the Conservative candidate had ‘no indications in them calculated to advance the public good’.37Newcastle Courant, 9 July 1852.

Behind the rhetoric of the campaign, it was the way in which Hutt and his election committee mobilized their supporters that was decisive. The iron manufacturers George Hawks and George Crawshay placed their influence at Brockett’s disposal, while Hutt, who was a partner in a major local colliery undertaking with John Bowes, assured Brockett that he would speak to his employees about potential votes, ‘and take care they do not escape us’.38Quoted in McCord, ‘Gateshead politics’, 178. Backed by this proficient electoral machine, Hutt was returned by a comfortable margin, whereafter Brockett, whose health had deteriorated, resigned as a councillor, to concentrate on his lucrative post as secretary to the Tyne Commission, leaving the management of parliamentary elections to George Hawks and his fellow business leaders on the town council.39Ibid., 179; Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 114. An analysis of the poll book and rate book for 1852 reveals that Hutt had garnered the majority of his support from the upper middle classes, whereas Walters relied largely on the votes of the shopkeepers, suggesting that social distinctions, alongside the efforts of Brockett, also shaped political support. The Conservative vote reflected the social composition of the constituency as a whole.40Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 171-2. Using the rate book and poll book from 1852, Nossiter also calculates that the mean rateable value of those who voted for Hutt was £50, compared to £45 for Liddell and £22 for Walters.

Significantly, the hostility evident at the 1852 general election did not generate any further Liberal factionalism, as Hutt was re-elected unopposed on the next four occasions, suggesting that the MP’s spat with Walter and Cook was personal and not principled. Indeed, following Hutt’s uneventful re-election at the 1857 general election, where he had praised Palmerston’s ‘energy and wisdom on taking the reins of power’, 41Newcastle Courant, 27 Mar. 1857. Hutt and Cook appeared to have settled their differences over suffrage extension at the general election of 1859, which was precipitated by the failure of the Derby ministry’s reform bill. After Hutt explained that he would support a £5 or £6 franchise, and was in favour of triennial parliaments, Cook declared that the former’s ‘votes, without exception, had given entire satisfaction to those friends whom he now represented’ and that ‘their member had made a great advance in the last seven years’.42Newcastle Courant, 15 Apr. 1859. In response, Hutt insisted that he ‘was not conscious of having moved at all’ and he believed that ‘if Mr Cook had really understood his views, he would never have been found among his opponents, as he had in times past’. He concluded by stating that he ‘hoped there was a prospect of their understanding each other better in the future’.43Ibid.

Appointed paymaster-general and vice-president of the board of trade by Palmerston in February 1860, Hutt was returned without opposition at the ensuing by-election, where, in his absence, he was represented by Hawks for proceedings that lasted only ten minutes.44The Times, 14 Feb. 1860; Newcastle Courant, 17 Feb. 1860. By the time of the 1865 general election, Hutt had led the British negotiations at Vienna for a treaty of commerce with Austria. Facing no contest, he reassured the electors that, despite the infrequency of his visits to the constituency, he was ‘wholly unchanged’ by his ministerial exertions, which did ‘no discredit ... either to Gateshead or me’.45The Times, 7 June 1865. Although he was opposed by a Conservative at the 1868 general election, he was re-elected with a comfortable majority and retired at the dissolution in 1874.

Although the 1867 Reform Act quadrupled the borough’s electorate five-fold to over 5,500, the local, moderate Liberals maintained their comfortable grip on parliamentary elections. After Hutt’s retirement in 1874, his successor, the Liberal Walter Henry James, who was the grandson of Cuthbert Ellison and had impeccable local connections, held his seat until his elevation to the Lords in 1893, and the absence of any sustained Radical challenge in this period has led one historian to comment that Gateshead’s ‘adolescence was uncommonly prolonged’.46H.J. Hanham, Elections and party management: politics in the time of Gladstone and Disraeli (1978), 68. At a by-election in 1904, John Johnson, the secretary of the Durham Miners’ Association, became Gateshead’s first Lib-Lab member.47Manders, Gateshead, 277-9. The borough and its electorate are analysed in Thomas Nossiter’s Influence, Opinion and Political Idioms in Reformed England: Case Studies from the North-east, 1832-74, and Norman McCord’s ‘Gateshead politics in the age of reform’, Northern History, iv (1969), 167-83. The Brockett Collection at Gateshead Central Library provides a wealth of correspondence and handbills relating to the constituency’s politics between the first and second Reform Acts.