Hertford, a prosperous market town and centre of the corn and malt trades, had a reputation in the early nineteenth century for electoral independence.
At the general election of 1820 there was no challenge to Cranborne and the other sitting Member, Nicolson Calvert of Hunsdon, near Ware, who had sat on the independent interest since 1802 and generally acted with the Whig opposition in the House.
Inhabitants of Hertford petitioned for the abolition of slavery, 14 May 1823.
A dinner of electors purporting to be the ‘friends of Duncombe’, 1 Aug. 1825, was marked by excessive drunkenness; and the ‘respectable individuals’ who would give him the most effective support thought it expedient to disown such behaviour.
The corporation and all respectable people are unanimous. It is only the journeymen and those who want a row that are for Duncombe ... [He] has no real interest and can have no money, for they say he owes an amazing sum in gaming debts.
Add. 45550, f. 202.
With the dissolution postponed, electioneering ceased until Duncombe, who made a distribution of half-price coal, precipitated a general canvass in January 1826. Lady Cowper informed Frederick Lamb that Rooke had been ‘found out to have embezzled £3 or £400 of the River [Lea] Company’ and might ‘be obliged to leave Hertford’. She added:
William’s election is awkward and will be hard run. I believe he could certainly carry it if he would exert himself, but I never saw such a want of energy, or they say a worse canvasser. He never talks the people over, but takes an answer at once, always seeing things in the view of his opponents, as he did in politics, and too candid, and doing the thing by halves, and always despairing. Even Duncombe told Lady Jersey that William would lose it by his want of activity. It is a great pity now he ever embarked in it, but there is no retreating, unless some event should give him a reason for doing so. William says he has never heard one word of politics, the cry is independence, and the aim of our friends custom and advantage of any sort.
Herts Mercury, 21, 28 Jan., 4, 11, 18 Feb., 29 Apr. 1826; Add. 45551, f. 3; Lady Palmerston Letters, 146-8.
Two weeks later it was reported in London that Duncombe was ‘quite sure’ of beating Lamb, whose heart was not in the contest. Anonymous public slurs on his unhappy marriage, which had recently ended in separation from his promiscuous and unbalanced wife, helped to persuade him in April to cut his losses and withdraw. He transferred his interest to the young Henry Lytton Bulwer*, whose mother was heiress of the Lytton property at Knebworth, and who had made a name for himself as a man of letters and active supporter of Greek independence. Bulwer stressed his local connections and professed to be ‘uninfluenced by party feeling’. He was reported to have been endorsed by Calvert and by the Whig reformer, the 20th Lord Dacre, a former county Member. According to Lady Cowper, her husband, who had of course backed Lamb, now decided to remain ‘neuter’, thinking it ‘best for his interest not to interfere’, and ‘prudent for future advantage’ to let the others ‘fight it out’. It was supposed that Bulwer had ‘small chance’ of success, but anticipated that he might ‘try a petition for bribery’.
Bulwer, who had to contend with allegations that he had colluded with Lamb, took the opportunity of a meeting on the distressed state of the Lancashire manufacturing districts, 10 May 1826, to make his presence felt in the borough. Duncombe’s main battle cry was electoral independence, but he admitted his approval of the recent liberalization of the ministry, and so opened himself to accusations of political inconsistency. It was announced in the first week of May that Thomas Robert Dimsdale, who had become head of the family the previous year, would stand for Hertford at the general election after the current one. Byron, who was ostentatiously supported by Lady Salisbury, was nominated by Alderman John Moses Carter, a brewer and former mayor, while Duncombe was proposed by Gripper and seconded by Charles Maslen, a Dissenting minister. Maslen quizzed Byron on his attitude to repeal of the Test Acts, which the Dissenters had made an election issue, but received an evasive answer, and failed to make him repent of his vote on the Smith affair. Catholic relief appears not to have played much part in the election, but Byron stood by his opposition to it, claiming that it had made him very popular in the town. On subsequent days he could not get a hearing. On the evening of the penultimate day some of Duncombe’s supporters smashed windows in the Salisbury Arms, and Gripper was unseated by his horse when it was hit by a decanter thrown in retaliation. Byron and Duncombe finished level, almost 100 ahead of Bulwer, after four days of polling, in which 659 electors participated: Duncombe had 198 plumpers (52 per cent of his total). All of these received a white hat plus one pound, while those who split their votes got 10s. It was said that almost all the poor voters from the slums of Butchery Green had supported Duncombe.
Alderman Matthias Gilbertson, a former mayor, reported to Salisbury the day after the election that
the system and the means ... [which Duncombe’s supporters] have resorted to to obtain plumpers beggars all description. That creature Maslen, called a minister of the gospel, exhorting persons to break their word and dragging them to the hustings to stamp and record their disgrace was really shocking. We should undoubtedly have maintained and I believe increased our majority yesterday morning had not many of the last 30 that were polled sworn falsely.
After a further day’s reflection, he wrote:
Now that Duncombe’s explosion has taken place and we are getting a little cool, we may ... pronounce how he succeeded, and form a pretty correct opinion by what means he obtained his plumpers, a number far exceeding anything we anticipated and to which he may attribute his election. That we had to encounter all the cant and stalking horse system of aristocratical influence, partial, overbearing and undue influence of the corporation, no small beer, no sheep’s head broth and no red herrings is nothing; they are naturally looked for, and are the constant paraphernalia of a contested election, and nearly as much made use of in one town as another and have but little effect if not bolstered up by more powerful excitements or inducements. That this election was carried by Duncombe by the gifts of those white hats decidedly effecting an influence on the voters I have not the least doubt. And whether it would be prudent to take any measures, or to collect evidence is, I think, a matter claiming consideration. I confess it appears to me that if Mr. Duncombe’s return remains unnoticed, you sanction one of the very worst proceedings, and suffer to remain on record that which will make every future election more and more disgraceful. If hats are thus to be given, the next will be a hat and a coat, and then a whole suit, and no one can say where it may end, perhaps in being disfranchised altogether.
Although Salisbury considered Byron’s failure to head the poll ‘tantamount to a defeat of the whole respectable part of the town’, he saw no point in petitioning against Duncombe, as Bulwer was ‘in the same situation with regard to hats and treating’. For the moment, he thought it best to remain ‘quiet ... letting Duncombe’s popularity subside of itself, which it will do’; but he considered it necessary to take action of some sort, for ‘if matters go on as they have done Hertford must shortly cease to be represented by the kind of men who up to this time had the honour of being chosen’. He was clear that Bulwer’s politics were ‘such as we could never cordially support’. Almost two weeks after the election Alderman John Ord, another former mayor, analyzed the election for Salisbury:
The late scenes we have witnessed are fortunately new to the borough ... We have not had opposed to us, in any great degree, the influence of money, the weight of interest, or the mere irritation of party feeling, but opposition more powerful than all: a determined spirit of insurrection gradually produced by the continued efforts of the leaders of the other party, and a cool and fixed resolution, in the lowest class of voters, to disregard gratitude for past kindness, to reject the claims of master and landlord, and to assert at all hazards their pretended rights. It was a knowledge of this which made their party so sure, and caused them so little trouble flocking to the poll, stimulating each other to acts of violence, that they might be all equally criminal and expecting by their number and union to escape individual retribution. The coals which had been distributed in the winter, the good fare, or the money promised at the time, which in fact was not more than usual, had I believe very little effect upon them: no money would have turned them from their purpose on the day of election, and it is proved no personal consideration had any weight with them. The distribution of white hats before the election did us the greatest injury: it was the badge under which they could commit disorders with impunity, as they were sure of being supported; it marked them out to each other and it showed them their strength and their power.
Ord thought that the respectable leaders of the independent party had sustained ‘greater losses than they can support’ and predicted that, being ‘alarmed at the general discredit their conduct has brought upon them’, they would ‘most likely’ ally themselves with ‘the party of Baron Dimsdale, when they may be enabled to exercise the same intemperance at less expense, and with less responsibility’. He claimed that Byron had been well supported by the town’s tradesmen, notwithstanding 60 broken promises, and observed that the ‘natural’ belief that Lamb had come forward as a locum ‘did us much harm’, while the appearance of Bulwer ‘without any real chance ... only weakened us without injuring them’. For the future
great care should now be paid to the selection of overseers and those who have any official influence over the poor, as the improper conduct of such persons has caused us much annoyance. The system of splitting houses, and of turning hay lofts into residences should be looked into. The duty of insisting upon being supported by their workmen should be strongly recommended to masters and tradesmen ... Nor is this a time in which the ingratitude and contempt of the lower class should be passed over with impunity. I cannot but feel convinced that under the unforeseen circumstances against which we have had to contend, nothing but a strong local attachment to Mr. Byron could have brought him to his present state on the poll. He ought to have been much higher, but we must be thankful it is not worse.
He considered that Alston, who a week after the election announced that he would stand at the next opportunity, ‘can have no possible chance’: ‘the party of the Grippers ... will not support him, they think him vacillating, and have no opinion of his abilities’.
Byron’s leading supporters rallied at a dinner, 11 July 1826, when Samuel Grove Price* of Knebworth, a young barrister with a reputation as a scholar, delivered an anti-Catholic rant. A week later Gripper, Maslen, Searle, Canning, Rooke and William Pollard, a Quaker draper, were among those who dined with Duncombe to celebrate the success of ‘the honest and powerful voice of the people’ in shaking ‘the houses of Salisbury and Panshanger’. Duncombe called for parliamentary reform and the abolition of sinecures, and Maslen revealed plans for the formation of an association to protect independent electors exposed to intimidation from landlords and employers.
Although the Catholic question was aired at the normally non-political mayor’s feast in September 1828, emancipation appears to have excited little interest, and certainly no great indignation, in Hertford. Duncombe, of course, supported it, as did Byron, even though in doing so he was at odds with Salisbury.
Went to Hertford to T. Duncombe’s dinner under the idea of Byron being about to retire. I was very well received by the canaille of the town, and should probably have come in, but the report turned out not to be true, so I must wait.
Herts Mercury, 27 June, 4 July 1829; Life and Corresp. of Thomas Slingsby Duncombe ed. T.H. Duncombe, i. 111; Beds. RO, Wrest Park mss L31/419.
Nicholson, who told Salisbury that ‘more confusion never prevailed on any similar occasion’, saw in Fordwich’s ‘most unwise and ill judged’ declaration a ‘wisedrawn policy of Messrs. Gripper and Co.’: he believed that they ‘would substitute Lord Fordwich for Duncombe if they could’. A month later he cited the authority of his brother Thomas, an attorney now acting for Bulwer, in support of an unlikely story that Fordwich and Duncombe had each appointed a person to ‘examine into the state of the town with reference to their objects as candidates, and this being done, to make public their determination’. Nicholson believed that neither Lord Cowper nor Lord Melbourne (as Lamb now was) had had prior knowledge of Fordwich’s intentions. He fancied that if Fordwich did stand, Bulwer, who was supported by Alderman Edward Ellis, would come forward ‘as it were in opposition to him’; but he considered that Bulwer posed no serious threat to Byron, for his analysis of the canvass book gave Byron 478, Duncombe 458 and Bulwer 316. Yet he was at pains to inform Salisbury of dissatisfaction with Byron, which he to some extent shared, among some of the leading supporters of the Hatfield House interest. He claimed in July 1829 that Alderman Henry Alington had ‘of his own head’ tried to dissuade Byron from seeking re-election; reported in August that ‘nobody believes that Byron will stand’, and detailed in October 1829 a conversation with Gilbertson, who had been critical of Byron for at least a year, and now declared that if Fordwich stood he would support him ‘as a young nobleman living in the neighbourhood, and whose family have placed us under the greatest obligations’.
By late April 1830, when the worsening state of the king’s health ‘made parties a little restless’, Salisbury, in consultation with Nicholson, had decided to ditch Byron, though he had not yet informed him of his intention. Ruling out neighbouring country gentlemen, they had concluded that the marquess’s interests would be best served by his bringing in ‘a man ... dependent entirely’ on his influence. Salisbury had also received an offer of co-operation from Bulwer, to which he was disposed to accede to the extent of promising him ‘secondary support’ once his own nominee was safe. Through Dimsdale, about to leave for the continent, the young Sir Culling Smith* of Bedwell Park, who had recently succeeded to the family baronetcy and estates, expressed an interest in standing if Byron did not; but Salisbury and Nicholson deemed him unacceptable. Nicholson pressed his employer to respond positively to Bulwer’s approach and to pay Dimsdale and Carter the courtesy of giving them early notice of his plans:
We shall never stand better than we do at present, or, rather, a more favourable opportunity shall never be presented which shall prove more likely to bring the borough to a state of quiet. I have now an opportunity of dovetailng Lord Cowper’s interest with yours, in the assistance which I shall be able to get from my brother, and of fastening tight upon Baron Dimsdale, without any sacrifice on the part of your Lordship. Baron Dimsdale will in his absence authorize me by power of attorney, as far as his interest may be directed to the object in question, to have it exerted in support of your lordship’s friend.
Although Salisbury warned Nicholson not to get carried away, be ‘too sanguine of success’ or ‘commit yourself to your brother with regard to Lord Cowper’s interest’, he made a favourable response to Bulwer’s offer. He stressed ‘the absolute necessity’ of their understanding ‘remaining secret till the time of election’, so that ‘it may not be possible for any of my tenants to plead previous engagements or ignorance of the intention to ask plumpers’. At Salisbury’s insistence, Nicholson secured a written undertaking from Dimsdale that he would support any Hatfield House candidate except Byron, and that he had no personal designs on a seat for Hertford. Nicholson further explained to the marquess:
I have never mentioned to my brother the effect ... his acting, if we see it necessary, with Bulwer may have upon Lord Cowper’s interest. Mr. Bulwer is supposed to have taken the place of Lord Melbourne, and Lord Melbourne had Lord Cowper’s interest; and before my brother took his station with Mr. Bulwer, he ascertained that it was consistent with his past exertions for Lord Melbourne to support Bulwer.
He noted a rumour that the independents were thinking of starting Robert Otway Cave, Member for Leicester, and rashly forecast that Duncombe, who ‘sees nobody, and nobody either hears or sees anything of him’, was ‘prepared for a retreat’.
A month later it emerged that Salisbury’s intended replacement for Byron was his young cousin Lord Ingestre, the son of the 2nd Earl Talbot and a serving naval officer, who had taken a dim view of Catholic emancipation. Ingestre accepted the offer with the proviso that an invitation for him to stand for his native Staffordshire would take priority (none was forthcoming); and on the basis that the cost of the election would be met by Salisbury, and the annual expenses by himself.
It seems he had hoped, taking it for granted that Byron would not stand, that he should be allowed to walk over the course ... If he should fail ... he would have to sustain the expenses which the contest would have brought upon him, and he is not in a situation very conveniently to meet them; but if he were successful, his mother would pay them.
Nicholson intervened with his brother to quash a move started by Ellis to petition Salisbury to make Bulwer his nominee, considering that the marquess had ‘conceded to Bulwer all that could be required’. On the subject of the London voters, he thought little was to be gained by spending money on them, as they were ‘a bruised reed’ who ‘always make for the winning side’ when they arrived in the borough.
It would be the commencement of a system of treating, which would lead to very great expense, besides the injurious consequences of such a system to my interest in future. My influence in Hertford must be founded upon the permanent advantages which the town receives from its connection with me ... The interest now stands better than it has ever done, and it has so risen under a system directly opposed to that which you ... recommend. If we were driven to the wall, as a last expedient money might be distributed in the way you propose, or rather under the name of an invitation to dinner, but, although it might be necessary to do it to gain an election, it is also necessary to recollect that from that moment I must withdraw from any exertion of influence. The place would become like St. Albans, and it would no longer be worth the consideration of any respectable individual.
Nicholson was suitably abashed, though he observed that the customary relief donations were ‘so much interwoven with the cause as to be almost inseparable from it’. He was anxious that Ingestre’s candidature should be kept a secret for as long as possible, but he was worried by the untoward activity of Bulwer’s leading supporters, who were not ‘so quiet as one might wish’, though he accepted that ‘we cannot prescribe to them what they shall do’ Bulwer himself was in Hertford on 10 June, but was reported to have been talked out of his idea of ‘assembling his club, which ... comprises 150 voters’.
Duncombe promoted electoral independence and substantial reform, Bulwer declared his support for moderate reform and Ingestre dealt almost entirely in conventional platitudes. A ‘Poor Man’s Fund’ was opened by the independents to relieve the victims of landlord oppression. There was little disorder in the approach to the election, but 40 special constables were sworn in as a precaution. In mid-July 1830 Nicholson reported that the canvass indicated that Ingestre would poll about 490, that he had ‘clearly split upwards of 50 of Duncombe’s former plumpers’ and that Bulwer had divided about 35. He went on:
Bulwer is losing ground with us in personal regard, and that interest which we had wished to entertain for his success has much diminished. His friends have become personally hostile to our party. I have marked a few of them, and their future proceedings will be vigilantly watched. Such conduct answers one good purpose (and so far it may be encouraged) - our friends stick close to us, and to one another. But a rupture must be avoided. I will try to avoid steering too close to the wind.
Under pressure from Ingestre’s committee, he had agreed to treat ‘all our friends’, 14 July, though he was ‘not clear that the treating did any good’.
The present fear now seems to be among those people who had promised Lord Ingestre and myself, since they suppose the books to have been seen, or who, contrary to other promises, had pledged themselves to give me a plumper. If they find that they do not suffer from any mark of your Lordship’s displeasure, their soreness towards me, and their belief in the circumstance, will most probably wear away. Indeed I hear now that my former friends are coming round, and under this idea I have not attacked many of them.
Hatfield House mss 2M/Gen., Bulwer to Talbot, 2 Aug., to Salisbury, 4, 10 Aug., reply, 5 Aug., Talbot to Salisbury [c. 4 Aug.] 1830.
Nothing came of a projected dinner to rally the supporters of Bulwer, who was not again heard of as a candidate at Hertford in this period. (Byron dissuaded him from attending the new mayor’s inaugural dinner in September.) Duncombe’s friends dined together, 26 Aug. 1830, when Fordham and George Rew, a Hertford gentleman, were among the speakers, and Lord Glengall accused Bulwer of having accepted money from Salisbury to stand down; he was subsequently forced to make a public retraction of the slur.
At the end of January 1831 Salisbury, who before Christmas had distributed through the corporation food, blankets and clothing to the poor women of Hertford, asked the duke of Wellington whether he should attempt to undermine the planned town meeting to petition for parliamentary reform by pointing out that any practical scheme would almost certainly have the effect of disfranchising the poorest voters. His boast that he could prevent any petition from being carried proved to be an empty one, for the meeting, 4 Feb., petitioned unanimously for reform and for repeal of the taxes on coals, soap and candles. The speakers for reform included Muggeridge, now a firm supporter of Duncombe, who also addressed the meeting, Rew, and the Rev. Thomas Lloyd, rector of Sacombe. The petitions were presented, 17 Feb.
Just after the second reading of the reform bill Nicholson, while discounting a story that Fordham was about to come forward as a reformer, told Salisbury that ‘something is brooding about Fordwich’, who was now sitting for Canterbury. He suspected that the Cowpers were being egged on by Lloyd to put him up, but did not think they would do so, even though he believed that Fordwich would obtain many second votes from Hatfield House supporters. He nevertheless complained to the marquess that ‘we are a little ricketty here’ and that ‘many of our friends go about with long faces’. He urged Salisbury to give short shrift to those of his supporters who, being disposed to ‘funk the contest’, were saying that Ingestre should be replaced by a neighbouring gentleman, ‘a man who understands trade’:
I am sure I have guns enough for any campaign, but they require to be well planted. The enemy will flank your lordship’s tenantry. Care must be taken of them. The reform question is a new difficulty, and a formidable one.
On 28 Mar. 1831 he reported:
Our opponents are moving about as if an immediate dissolution were certain. I have been ... endeavouring to make a contrary impression. I think the feeling is to get up the people, and ascertain their strength for two candidates, and not that they have come to any conviction that it will be so early as they assert. Duncombe will certainly be stronger than ever he was, and have supporters in the reform he never could have calculated upon. A strong hand must be put upon those whom we ought to control, for they are all reformers to a man, and they think the best part of the bill is that which disfranchises the lower class of voters and extends the limits of the borough. As to the return of Lord Ingestre, I have no misgiving; but I wish our friends would not croak as they do.
He did not believe that any of their 35 leading supporters would ‘wholly desert us’, but thought that no more than 20 would promise plumpers, while some would wait to see who might start, other than the sitting Members:
The greatest apprehension arises where a second candidate takes away any part of the more respectable men, because attached to them are labourers, who by giving a vote to either of the candidates supported by their masters, will contend that their wishes are so far met, and not value the preponderance of feeling which might be expressed in favour of any particular candidate.
A fortnight later he informed Salisbury that their opponents boasted of having obtained 200 signatures for a requisition for ‘a third man’; but he was sure that if it was intended for Levi Ames of Ayot St. Lawrence it would not be successful.
The present is not the time to try the experiment. If our opponents start two, they will divide their strength, which once broken will operate in our favour on some future occasion, and not endanger Lord Ingestre’s return on the present.
He was confident of making Dimsdale see ‘sense’, especially as his wife was already canvassing for Ingestre alone. Reports that Melbourne’s brother, George Lamb*, or Henry Ward† of Gilston Park would stand with Duncombe proved to be false; but Alston went to Hertford and declared his candidature. After only a day’s canvass, however, he withdrew, on the pretext that so many voters were already pledged that success would be impossible without considerable expenditure. He was immediately replaced by John Currie of Essendon, the head of a London distillery business, who had hitherto played no public part in local politics: it was alleged by the Hatfield House interest that Alston, whose reforming credentials were much older and more convincing, had been ditched because Currie had offered Duncombe better financial terms.
Ingestre was returned for Armagh, and on the advice of Carter he issued an address to Hertford, 25 May 1831, stating that his seat in Parliament would enable him to look after local interests, and blaming his defeat on a ‘very considerable number’ of broken promises. Carter, asked by Salisbury to assess Ingestre’s chances at the next election, replied:
I really am of opinion that a very strong interest exists in favour of his lordship. At the same time I must be frank ... and state as my own conviction that a very different course must be pursued before the day of trial or I shall still have great doubts of ultimate success. In the first place ... we have active and spirited opponents; they are always at work. To defeat their plans it is absolutely necessary that our own friends should be active also, and I am decidedly of opinion that to encourage exertions and keep alive a feeling of interest in our cause, Lord Ingestre ought to avail himself of the first opportunity of going round and personally thanking those electors who voted for him. This is always expected, but unfortunately was altogether neglected at the previous election and which I know created a great deal of conversation unfavourable to his lordship. I am also of opinion that with different arrangements, much less money might be expended and still the cause would be better promoted. In fact, without wishing to enter into too much detail, it was not altogether reform that lost Lord Ingestre the election. There were very many conspiring causes which had tended to create prejudice and which it was morally impossible to get over.
Hatfield House mss 2M/Gen., Carter to Salisbury, 18, 26 May; Hertford Mus. HETFM 4434.1, Ingestre’s address, 25 May 1831.
Three weeks after the election Gripper and a number of those who had been active for Duncombe since his first appearance in Hertford, including the Quakers Pollard, Richard Shillitoe, a surgeon, Henry Squire, a miller, and Joseph May, a chemist, held a public meeting to air their grievance over the alleged alienation by previous corporations of common lands held of the crown for the benefit of the poor. Rew and Muggeridge were also present, as were Gripper’s son and brother. A committee was formed and a subscription opened, and in September 1831 an information against the corporation was filed in chancery. The plaintiffs dropped the case in 1835, but not before the proceedings had cost the corporation almost £900, to raise which it had to sell some of the disputed property.
In the House, 27 July 1831, when Duncombe tried to have Aldborough disfranchised, Lord Stormont asserted that Hertford was
the most notoriously corrupt place in the kingdom. No man who does not make up his mind to spend a large sum of money has a chance of obtaining a seat for it. It is necessary to build houses in the town, and to go down in a carriage and spend a little money, and perhaps, to bring down a friend to spend a little more.
Duncombe did not respond, but Calvert observed that during his time as Member for Hertford he had been beholden to no patron and had spent not a shilling on bribery. Stormont’s pointed retort was that Calvert did not say that votes had not been bought there since 1826. Salisbury’s agents had, meanwhile, paid their voters; and Nicholson advised the marquess to abandon his idea of excusing their plumpers from any arrears of rent, which would irritate ‘others who might owe nothing but who did us the same service’. He suggested that there would be no harm in letting them know that their ‘considerate course’ was appreciated and that arrears would ‘not be pressed’ for the time being.
Early in 1832 a club, known as the Union, was set up to rally and consolidate the Hatfield House interest.
in inhabitant householders and in the freemen
Number of voters: 731 in 1831
Estimated voters: about 800
Population: 3264 (1821); 4028 (1831)