The Border city and county town of Carlisle was a castellated borough at the confluence of the rivers Caldew and Eden. It comprised two parishes (St. Mary and St. Cutherbert), divided into five wards, and its corporation, ‘an exclusive body on the grounds of politics and religion’, consisted of a mayor or returning officer, elected on the first Monday after Michaelmas (charter day), a further 11 aldermen, a recorder, two bailiffs, a town clerk and 24 ‘capital intigers’, chosen from among the freemen citizens by the mayor and the majority of aldermen.
The decision of the Blue tradesmen (the low Blues) to nominate the native nabob Joseph Parkins as third man in 1818, when the party’s hierarchy were engaged in the Whig lawyer Henry Brougham’s* challenge to the Lowthers in Westmorland, had posed no threat to the return of Curwen and the sitting Yellow Sir James Graham, who through his wealth and Edmond Castle influence aspired to a personal interest.
not a doubt existed ... of a coalition ... though at the very time that cards were circulated by the Blues containing this assurance, both Curwen and James most solemnly protested the contrary. There are [some] who have voted on Sir James’s side and that of his opponents ... Chairing for Sir James was utterly out of the question and it was with very considerable difficulty and much danger that Sir J. and his friends proceeded from the town hall to the Bush. An absolute conflict took place between Sir J.’s party and the radicals, and many of the former was seriously hurt. Mr. Peter Dixon was thrown down and trampled upon and others suffered from brickbats, stones, sticks, etc., etc., which were thrown with the determined intention of taking Sir J.’s life. He went surrounded by his friends, and beyond them by 100 constables ... The mob has been most unruly and if the military had not been here (much as the necessity is to be lamented) undoubtedly it would have been very terrible ... Mr. Forster’s windows were broken last night, and this morning it was once in agitation to nominate Sir H[ew Dalrymple] Ross, that Sir J.’s split votes might be thrown on him.
Middleton mss S76/35/2, 3.
Curwen’s election for Cumberland, where he replaced his fellow Whig Lord Morpeth†, 17 Mar., further divided their party, who, with Musgrave already in the field feared defeat at the ensuing by-election.
The Lowther-dominated corporation refused to sanction but failed to prevent the Blues adopting a loyal address to Queen Caroline, 12 Aug. 1820. They petitioned the Commons condemning the bill of pains and penalties and its instigators, 26 Jan., and for parliamentary reform as a palliative for distress, 9 May 1821.
When Graham’s death on 21 Mar. 1825 produced a vacancy Lord Lowther, who privately regarded ‘the Carlisle people ... [as] a dissatisfied calculating set of voters as any in England’, who ‘will grumble and yet ... will elect anyone that goes there’, failed to persuade his brother-in-law, the judge advocate Sir John Beckett*, to stand; but he oversaw arrangements for Musgrave to vacate at Petersfield, 28 Mar., so foiling an attempt by the nabob Alexander Nowell* of Underley Park, Westmorland, whose notices appeared on 23 Mar., to come in on the corporation interest.
The Blue gentry knew by February 1826 that declining West Indian revenues precluded James’s candidature. With Curwen’s acquiescence and a view to improving his prospects of acquiring a Cumberland seat, Graham accepted a requisition procured by Dobinson on 2 May and directed his estate agent John Yule to subscribe £25 for the manufacturing poor.
We are unexpectedly involved in a contest, the radicals have completely overpowered the civil power. Mr. James has been put in nomination by them and Sir James’s voters are splitting on him. The poll today stands Sir James Graham 119, myself 92 and James 71 ... Not expecting any opposition we had made no country canvass but as the Blues have brought in several country voters I have sent to Whitehaven for the freemen there, judging that Lord Lonsdale would prefer the expense of a contest to my being beat.
Lonsdale mss.
Ill and anxious, Hodgson closed the poll early and summoned the cavalry from Brampton, while Musgrave retreated to his mansion, Eden Hall.
The soldiers were in the first instance justified in firing their muskets ... They continued to fire in a very indiscreet and inconsiderate manner and particularly at private houses, when the necessity for so doing seems to them to have ceased ... [but] the deaths were in other respects accidental.
The Times, 10, 14, 26 June; Manchester Guardian, 24 June 1826.
The home secretary Peel criticized Hodgson’s decision to summon military assistance, 5 June, but thought him justified in doing so on the 9th and approved the 1827 Carlisle police bill, which received royal assent, 14 June. Initially it had bipartisan support, but the corporation opposed it outright once it became clear that it denied them control of the new 18-strong force, which was appointed by the townships and financed from the rates.
Musgrave’s death, 16 July 1827, caught the parties unprepared and at least 18 contenders were considered in the ensuing scramble for candidates. Overtures by Losh, on behalf of the Blues, to the Whigs Henry Howard of Greystoke, John Williams*, who had recently been unseated at Ilchester, and Thomas Denman* all failed.
I cannot comprehend the meaning or reasoning of those Carlisle gentlemen when they talk of a person of local connection and then soliciting and asking a man out of Roxburghshire, 70 miles north of Carlisle, as if there was any difference whether he came north or south. I apprehend that supporting Sir William Scott would be the greatest avowal of weakness and indecision that could be made, as he backed out from the Brougham support on account of the expense it would be, announcing that he was adopted for his £2,000.
Ibid. same to same, 26 July 1827.
He added erroneously that Scott was a Member of Brooks’s.
Curwen’s death on 11 Dec. 1828 heralded Graham’s resignation to stand for Cumberland, which placed the Blue seat at risk.
Lushington divided with the Lowthers against Catholic emancipation in March 1829 when Scott voted for it, and favourable petitions to the Lords from the inhabitants, 7 Apr., countered hostile ones to both Houses from the diocesan clergy, 10, 25 Mar.
A pre-election agreement between Lonsdale, the Broughams and Thanet to preserve the peace of the northern counties heralded a return to joint representation in Carlisle at the general election of 1830, when local opposition to the scheme focused on the choice of Philip Henry Howard of Corby Castle as the Blue nominee in preference to Aglionby, who had offered on 30 June.
that if in the course of the election any impediment to the tranquil carrying of it on and convenient polling should take place by any disorderly conduct of any party, it is my intention to claim the benefit of the Act of 9 Geo. IV, chapter 59 (which I have the honour to submit to you) for dividing the polling place into compartments, where the number of electors exceed 600.
Howard mss 1/21, P.H. Howard to mayor of Carlisle, 29 July 1830 [draft]. This was the ’Act to Regulate the Mode of Taking the Poll at the Election of Members to Serve Parliament for Cities, Boroughs and Ports in England and Wales’ of 15 June 1828.
Aglionby left Carlisle after arranging for correspondence proving the duplicity of the Howards and the Blue attorneys to be printed. His cousin Francis Aglionby of the Nunnery offered to deputize for him, and Lonsdale had to be dissuaded from starting a second Yellow with Lushington, whose support for the East India Company monopoly was severely criticized:
It is his object and that of the company he represents, to keep you from the most extensive market in the world - China - with its population of 300 millions. That market, if opened to your produce, would give you such an increased demand for your goods that we should cease to hear the complaints of the poor weaver. We would once again see happy and smiling faces in our streets, and plenty and content through the land. ... The East India Company have entered into a wicked base conspiracy with the Bank of England ... by acting in concert overawe the ministers, confirm the ... Company’s charter. Let the manufacturers of Carlisle join the freemen and do their share of the duty which every man owes to his country in upsetting this most dangerous conspiracy.
Carlisle Elections, f. 185.
Proposed by John Hodgson of Penton and Gilpin, Lushington was shouted down despite pleas from Howard and his proposers William Halton and John Lowry. Projecting himself as Graham’s political successor, Howard promised to support reform, retrenchment and the abolition of colonial slavery and maintained that he would have made way for Aglionby had he ‘come upon a footing calculated to ensure success’. Aglionby’s nomination by two Yellows, William Randleson and George Ismay, both butchers, was withdrawn at the request of Lonsdale’s attorney William Nicholson Hodgson†, the mayor’s nephew, leaving Howard and Lushington unopposed.
Lushington voted for and Howard against the Wellington ministry when they were brought down on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830. Troops were mobilized that winter in anticipation of disturbances initiated by the weavers, who had been organized into armed divisions by unionists from Preston and remained in contact with William Cobbett† and the Lancashire and Lanarkshire radicals. The rioting was confined to a few arson attacks, of which those charged were acquitted at the April 1831 assizes.
Philip and his father were canvassing all yesterday in the rain, with Mr. James and his attendants; Col. Lushington is really ill and I believe in town; Lord Lowther and Sir A[dolphus John] Dalrymple* not far off. If strong enough to return two Members, he is to be proposed tomorrow and at all events Philip it is thought will be thrown overboard. Terrible rows are expected.
Northumb. RO, Hope-Wallace mss ZHW/2/16.
Middle class backing for Howard had been ‘very considerably strengthened and confirmed’ by his support for the Association, but their exertions did little to allay the scepticism of the Blue hierarchy, and he later informed Graham that to secure their votes he had been obliged to ‘promise some of the freemen to endeavour to obtain for them that "every child of a freeman born, or the issue of any lawful marriage solemnized previously to the passing of the Act" may enjoy the privilege’.
The Members supported the reintroduced and revised reform bills and were taken to task by the Reform Association for failing to obey their directive to vote against the enfranchisement of £10 poor rate payers, 3 Feb. 1832. The Association claimed and feared that, if carried, it would have halved the Carlisle electorate and favoured the ‘aristocracy of wealth’, while excluding the ‘honest and industrious mechanic and the small tradesmen’.
Party in-fighting over the appointment of Fergus Graham of Netherby as postmaster, nominations to the corporation, the withdrawal of government advertisements from the Carlisle Patriot for encouraging the establishment of a local branch of the Birmingham Political Union and support for the ballot and the Maynooth grant had festered since the autumn of 1831, and intensified at the general election of December 1832, when James and Howard, standing as Liberals, defeated the Conservative Sir John Malcolm*.
in the freemen
Number of voters: 695 in 1829
Estimated voters: 900 in 1831
Population: 14561 (1821); 19069 (1831)