Economic and social profile:
Aberdeenshire contained 1,260,800 acres, of which ‘two-thirds were uncultivated’.Dod’s electoral facts, 1832-53, impartially stated, ed. H.J. Hanham (1978 edn.), 1-2. A contemporary observer remarked that the county ‘abounds in fine granite, has numerous sea-ports, and the most extensive woods in Great Britain’.Ibid. The county town, Aberdeen, was Scotland’s third most populous city and a commercial and manufacturing centre, particularly of linen. Other royal burghs included Kintore and Inverurie, while the ports of Peterhead and Fraserburgh were the centre of the local fishery trade. Inland towns included Aboyne, Alford, Ballater, Ellon, Huntly, Meldrum, Pitsligo and Turriff. There had been a great deal of agricultural improvement during the first half of the nineteenth century. For example, the New statistical account of Scotland (1845) noted that a third of the newly cultivated arable land in Dyce parish had been reclaimed through drainage and other techniques in the previous 30 years.New statistical account of Scotland (1845), xii. 130. The main crops included oats, rye, turnips and potatoes. The county was also famed for its sheep and cows, especially Aberdeen Angus cattle.Ibid., 109-10, 126. Farmers usually held land on 19 year leases, but leaseholds were longer on improving farms to give the farmer ‘fair remuneration’ for investing their capital.Ibid., 126, 134.
Electoral history:
After a narrow victory in 1832, the Conservative party consolidated its hold on Aberdeenshire in the 1830s. The party’s control was achieved by superiority on the register and successfully rallying support around agricultural protection and a defence of the established institutions of church and state. The party was also adept at scare-mongering, presenting their sporadic opponents as dangerous radicals even when they were long-established country gentlemen. The defence of the corn laws was a key component of local Conservative identity in the 1840s, as the farmers of Aberdeenshire generally inclined to protectionism. The waning of protectionism allowed Lord Haddo, the Liberal Conservative heir of the prime minister George Hamilton Gordon, 4th earl of Aberdeen, to be returned as a man acceptable to all parties in 1854. After Haddo’s succession to the peerage in 1860, the constituency became a marginal seat, keenly fought over between the two parties. Although the Conservatives initially held the upper hand, the Liberals’ exploitation of local farming grievances, chiefly the game laws and the law of hypothec, helped them to secure a crushing victory at the 1866 by-election. The result proved to be a harbinger of the dominance of Liberalism in the following period.
Aberdeenshire was a county of great landowners, many of whom were Conservative. In the first half of the period, active political leadership was provided to local Conservatism by George Gordon, 5th and last duke of Gordon; Charles Gordon, 5th earl of Aboyne and later 9th marquess of Huntly; James Ochonar Forbes, 17th Lord Forbes; and Alexander Fraser, 17th Lord Saltoun.All of these peers together with the marquess of Abercorn and Viscount Arbuthnott attended party meetings in the 1830s, e.g. Aberdeen Journal, 5 Nov. 1834. Whig or Liberal landowners included the Duffs, earls of Fife, the Burnetts, baronets of Leys, Kincardine, and Sir John Forbes, 7th baronet, of Craigievar. However, Conservative control in the first half of this period was not simply the result of the electoral patronage of mighty landowners. For example, the protectionist and Tory Charles Gordon-Lennox, 5th duke of Richmond, was praised by local Reformers for always maintaining strict neutrality in elections.Aberdeen Journal, 7 Nov. 1838. Donald Horne to the duke of Buccleuch, [June 1847], qu. in ‘Donald Horne’s election surveys, 1834-40’, Papers on Scottish electoral politics, 1832-54, ed. J.I. Brash (1974), 233. In the 1840s protectionism among the farmers benefited the Conservatives, but could also set them against their landlords. The tenants of the Peelite Lord Aberdeen were generally regarded as the staunchest protectionists in the county.Aberdeen Journal, 24 Dec. 1845. Although they were not the largest landowners in the county, as they had provided representatives for the seat since 1820 and Lord Aberdeen was highly regarded, the Hamilton Gordon family assumed an influence out of proportion to their acreage. At the 1861 by-election, the endorsement of the Aberdeen family was keenly sought and disputed between the two parties.
Before 1832 Aberdeenshire had a small electorate of 184 freeholders, allowing it to be controlled with relative ease by the Tory ministry’s Scottish manager Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, in alliance with local magnates such as Alexander Gordon, 4th duke of Gordon, and Lord Aberdeen. Aberdeen’s brother William Gordon had represented the county since 1820 and his opposition to reform did not prevent his re-election in 1831, defeating the Reformer Sir Michael Bruce, 8th baronet, of Scotstown House, and Stenhouse, Stirling.HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 461-3.
The 1832 Scottish Reform Act led to a huge increase in the Aberdeenshire electorate from 184 to 2,450 and at the general election that December Gordon was again challenged by Bruce.Ibid., 463. Gordon could count on the support of much of the local nobility and gentry, and trumpeted his commitment to the ‘protection of the Agricultural Interests’.Aberdeen Journal, 3 Oct. 1832. Bruce declared that victory would convert Aberdeenshire from being a ‘mere nomination burgh’ into a ‘free and independent county’. He benefited from the popularity of reform, and advocated the retrenchment of sinecures, pensions and expenditure.Aberdeen Journal, 12 Dec. 1832. Gordon sought to frighten electors by warning that Bruce was allied with ‘political unionists, demagogues and agitators’ who would ‘pull down our church establishment’ and ‘destroy … your Corn Laws’.Aberdeen Journal, 19 Dec. 1832.
Gordon reprised these themes at the nomination, where he was hissed throughout his speech. Bruce, unwisely perhaps, declared for a fixed duty on corn. The polling was notable for ‘much turbulence and disorder’. A supporter of Gordon had his windows smashed while his brother ‘suffered a painful fracture in one of his limbs’ after being attacked. ‘Stones and brick-bats were in very frequent use at some of the polling stations’, noted one report. Gordon won a closely fought contest by 181 votes. Bruce secured narrow victories in four polling districts, but Gordon’s 160 majority in Ellon made the difference.Aberdeen Journal, 26 Dec. 1832.
Bolstered by an increase of 403 in the electorate after 1832, Gordon was returned unopposed at the general election in 1835.Aberdeen Journal, 7, 14 Jan. 1835. He declared that he would consider ‘any safe and well-considered’ plan for the removal of proved abuses, even though he had described the Reform Act as a ‘most delusive and mischievous measure’ at a dinner a few months previously.Aberdeen Journal, 5 Nov. 1834, 14 Jan. 1835. He repeated his support for agricultural protection, but evaded pledging to vote for the repeal or reduction in malt duty demanded by many farmers.Aberdeen Journal, 14 Jan. 1835.
Having had the luxury of an unopposed return at the 1837 general election for the city, Aberdeen’s Reformers turned their attentions to the county. At late notice they brought forward Sir Thomas Burnett, 8th baronet, of Leys, Kincardine.Aberdeen Journal, 1, 2 Aug. 1837. Unfortunately Burnett proved to be a lacklustre candidate, who confessed that he stood as no other Liberal had agreed to come forward. His address, including endorsements for the ballot and Irish church appropriation, was presented as dangerous radicalism by his opponents.Aberdeen Journal, 2 Aug. 1837. The Conservatives also alleged that he could not be trusted to defend the established church or agricultural protection. Although he won the show of hands at the nomination, Burnett was on the defensive throughout the campaign and was convincingly beaten by Gordon by over 400 votes.Ibid.
The result ended Liberal pretensions for the county for some time to come, especially as the Conservatives made further gains in the registration. For example, in 1838, the party secured 139 new claims while their opponents secured only 58.Aberdeen Journal, 19 Sept. 1838. It was no surprise therefore, that the Conservative agent Donald Horne in his survey of Scottish constituencies for the duke of Buccleuch, concluded that the constituency was a safe seat.‘Donald Horne’s election surveys, 1834-40’, 247. The only danger to Conservative control came from potential internal divisions caused by the split in the established church between Non-Intrusionist or Evangelical critics of patronage and their Moderate opponents.
However, the church issue did not prevent Gordon’s unopposed return at the 1841 general election. He entirely ignored the debate about church patronage, emphasising his hostility to the Whigs’ proposed low fixed duty on corn.Aberdeen Journal, 30 June 1841. Not only had the last contest been decisive but Burnett, the likely challenger, was ‘so unpopular, and Whig principles in the county at such a discount, that the attempt seemed utterly hopeless’.Morning Post, 9 July 1841.
Nevertheless, Conservative control was more fragile than it appeared, as Lord Aberdeen recognised in July 1841:
We had a minor escape in this county from a contest. The Church party [i.e. Non Intrusionists] tried in every quarter to find a candidate, and offered to pay all expenses. They proposed it to Sir John Forbes of Craigievar, a most respectable man, and a decided Whig. He is also as great an enemy of the Church party as any in the county; but they would have supported him in order to turn out my brother. Fortunately, he declined. I say fortunately, for supposing our natural majority to be about 500, if 250 Non Intrusionist Conservatives throughout the county had changed sides, we should have had an awkward figure.Lord Aberdeen to John Hope, 13 July 1841, Add. 43205, ff. 122-3.
Gordon was unable to avoid the church question at the by-election in September 1841 occasioned by his appointment as a lord of the admiralty in Peel’s new Conservative government. Although he was returned unopposed, he was questioned about his views on the issue. He declared vaguely that he wanted the Kirk to be ‘free and independent’ in ‘all matters spiritual’, but refused to make any detailed commitments.Aberdeen Journal, 22 Sept. 1841.
Even so, the church issue, which ultimately led to the Great Disruption, or schism, in the Kirk in May 1843, did not damage the Conservative party as it did in urban constituencies, including Aberdeen. Of far greater salience was the issue of corn laws. Aberdeenshire, in comparison with many Scottish counties, was strongly protectionist.See I.G.C. Hutchison, A political history of Scotland, 1832-1924 (1986), 84-90, on the weak support for protectionism in large parts of rural Scotland. Agricultural improvement was the foundation of ‘national prosperity’ argued one petition from landowners and farmers in 1844. Free trade would discourage the cultivation of poorer soils, prompt land to be thrown out of cultivation and ultimately lead to the ruin of domestic agriculture.Select committee on public petitions (1844), appendix 613. These generic protectionist arguments had particular resonance in Aberdeenshire, where great expense and effort had been expended to improve marginal land. The petition was the result of a public meeting called in March 1844 in response to a requisition signed by 6,000 inhabitants.Aberdeen Journal, 20 Mar. 1844. Local gentlemen and protectionist manufacturers like James Hadden junior, of Aberdeen, denounced the ‘one-sided system of free trade’ and condemned the Anti-Corn Law League as an ‘incendiary movement’.Ibid. The county’s greatest landowner, the duke of Richmond, was also the leader of the national Agricultural Protection Society.
Gordon was returned unopposed at the 1847 general election, but again his position was rather more precarious than it seemed. The Liberal Aberdeen Herald noted that ‘at one time, the farmers felt rather restive under the trimming policy of their gallant member in regard to Free Trade, and there seemed to be a fair chance for a moderate Liberal’. However, ‘heavy grain crops and high prices have put them in good humour again’, smoothing the way for Gordon’s return.Aberdeen Herald, qu. in Elgin Courier, 18 June 1847. At the nomination, which was attended ‘by a large number of farmers’, Gordon explained that he had voted against the repeal of the corn laws as it would have been dishonourable to suddenly abandon his previously stated views. Less comforting to his audience was his statement that the free trade ‘experiment must be fairly tried. Indeed, it appears to me, that the principle involved must still be carried further, in order to do justice to the experiment’.Aberdeen Journal, 11 Aug. 1847. Gordon was again returned unopposed at the 1852 general election, when he declared that ‘it would not be wise or prudent’ to re-open the question of agricultural protection, although he did suggest a readjustment of taxation to relieve distressed farmers.Aberdeen Journal, 14 July 1852.
Gordon’s appointment as commander-in-chief of the naval base at the Nore in August 1854 created a vacancy. Gordon’s resignation address was published at the same time as his nephew George John James Hamilton Gordon, Lord Haddo, son and heir of the prime minister Lord Aberdeen, offered. Rumours that Richmond’s heir, the earl of March, MP for West Sussex, would be put up to oppose Haddo came to nothing. Lord Aberdeen was widely respected and this ensured that ‘moderate men of all parties will at least acquiesce in the election’ of his heir.Morning Chronicle, 11 Aug. 1854. The sickly Haddo was absent from the nomination, with Sir James Dalrymple Horn Elphinstone, 2nd baronet, of Logie Elphinstone, deputising. The baronet declared that Haddo supported free trade, non-sectarian religious education, and was not against parliamentary reform, but opposed the ballot. The Aberdeen advocate Alexander Torrie expressed dissatisfaction that ‘two or three families had arranged that there was to be no contest’ and said that it was unclear whether Haddo was a Whig, a Tory or a Radical. Torrie nominated himself, but as he was not seconded, Haddo was returned unopposed. The Aberdeen Journal remarked that Haddo was probably best viewed as a Liberal Conservative supporter of his father, but added that the ‘old party distinctions have become more nominal than real’.Aberdeen Journal, 23 Aug. 1854.
Haddo was returned unopposed at the 1857 and 1859 general elections. On the former occasion, he behaved ‘very foolishly’ in his father’s opinion, by only travelling up from London to Aberdeenshire a few days before the nomination, at which he defended voting in the majority that defeated Palmerston over Canton.Lord Aberdeen to Arthur Gordon, 24 Mar. 1857, Add. 43226, f. 254; Aberdeen Journal, 8 Apr. 1857. In 1859 Haddo benefited from his staunch defence of the independence of Marischal College, Aberdeen, which was threatened with amalgamation with the rival King’s College. Like many Scottish MPs at this time, Haddo argued that any reform scheme should increase Scottish representation, although he conceded that basing redistribution on population alone would ‘lead to the metropolis [London] swamping the whole of Scotland’.Caledonian Mercury, 5 May 1859.
It was not a coincidence that Haddo’s tenure coincided with a period in which party competition was generally in abeyance. He was acceptable to all parties, being variously described as a Liberal, Conservative and a Liberal Conservative.The Standard, 23 Apr. 1859; Daily News, 28 Apr. 1859; Caledonian Mercury, 26 Apr. 1859; Morning Chronicle, 21 Apr. 1859. Haddo’s succession to the House of Lords as 5th earl of Aberdeen in December 1860 ushered in a new period of party struggle that was much more evenly balanced than the 1830s had been. The Liberals ultimately triumphed by mobilising the grievances of local farmers over the game laws and the law of hypothec.The law of hypothec in Scotland at this time gave landlords a preferential right in their tenants’ property, including livestock. In the event of debts or non-payment of rents landlords could not claim, as creditors, ownership of this property, but could exercise their rights by selling the property and using the proceeds to make good the debts.
First to offer for the vacant seat was William Leslie, of Warthill. Styling himself a Liberal Conservative, Leslie, a former merchant, favoured free trade tempered with reciprocity, a non-interventionist foreign policy, government grants for reformatory and industrial schools and legislation to enforce a strict Sabbath observance.The Standard, 27 Dec. 1860. The Liberals initially brought forward Sir Alexander Bannerman, 9th baronet, of Crimonmogate. The baronet was abroad but this did not spare him from the customary character assassination by Conservatives. Sir James Elphinstone, now MP for Portsmouth, recalled how he had nominated Bannerman for Elgin burghs as a Conservative in 1847. He dismissively added that ‘his name has never appeared as connected with any useful movement’ and ‘his politics are doubtful’.Aberdeen Journal, 2 Jan. 1861.
As it was widely predicted that Bannerman would be ‘decisively beaten’, the Liberals withdrew his candidature and turned their energies towards Arthur Hamilton Gordon, another son of the late earl of Aberdeen, who had previously represented Beverley.Caledonian Mercury, 10 Jan. 1861; Aberdeen Herald, qu. in The Standard, 23 Jan. 1861. The campaign was orchestrated by an Aberdeen advocate called John Ligertwood. A requisition signed by 800 was declined by Gordon in mid-January 1861 after which he left for the continent.Aberdeen Journal, 30 Jan. 1861. Privately Gordon wrote that ‘all one’s friends and acquaintances ... have already promised for Leslie’ and that he had not the means to fund an election contest.Arthur Gordon to George A. Jamieson, 17 Jan. 1861, Add. 49234, f. 152. A friend also noted that acceptance ‘would have involved you in serious misunderstandings with your own nearest relatives’.M.E. Graham to Gordon, 26 Jan. 1861, 26 Jan. 1861, Add. 49234, f. 204. This particularly applied to Gordon’s brother, the new earl, who was generally regarded as having Conservative sympathies, although these had been suppressed while his father was alive.George A. Jamieson to John Ligertwood, 7 Dec. [sic, Jan.] 1861, Add. 49234, ff. 138-9; Banffshire Journal, qu. in Aberdeen Journal, 26 Dec. 1860; Caledonian Mercury, 18 Feb. 1861.
Undeterred by this rebuff, Ligertwood continued the campaign on Gordon’s behalf. He replied to Conservative mudslinging with a good deal of his own, repeatedly questioning Leslie’s apparent endorsement by the Aberdeen family. At public meetings, Ligertwood alleged that the Aberdeen family had not been consulted by Leslie before he announced his candidature. Furthermore, they had been misled by Conservatives who had warned them that ‘there was no hope for any of that family being returned for their native county’. While the family had been grieving for the late earl, Conservatives had been scheming to secure their support by deception. For good measure, Ligertwood emotively added that the Conservatives had even presented the requisition to Leslie on the day of the earl’s burial.Aberdeen Journal, 6 Feb. 1861.
Although these claims were disputed by Conservatives, they dogged Leslie throughout the latter stages of his campaign. On one occasion Leslie and his election manager Cosmo Gordon, of Fyvie, stormed out of a meeting at Tarland ‘amid uproar and loud hissing’ after being questioned about the Aberdeen family.Ibid. Ligertwood later theatrically produced a letter signed by ‘the weightiest and most intelligent men amongst the Aberdeen tenantry’ censuring Cosmo Gordon’s efforts to secure their votes.Aberdeen Journal, 13 Feb. 1861. Furthermore, there is no doubt that Ligertwood damaged Leslie’s claim to have the unanimous endorsement of the Aberdeen family. At one meeting Leslie was obliged to read out a pointed letter from Alexander Gordon, brother of Arthur and the new earl, that although he had permitted the Conservatives to canvass the family’s tenantry, ‘he did not mean it to be inferred that he had any desire for Mr. Leslie’s success’.Aberdeen Journal, 6 Feb. 1861.
Unlike the absent Bannerman and Gordon, Leslie had to endure two months of public meetings across the county, which ‘were not calculated to increase his popularity’.Aberdeen Journal, 20 Feb. 1861. When he was not hounded by the indefatigable Ligertwood, he was invariably asked about his position on the game laws and the law of hypothec. He initially refused to commit himself on hypothec and mounted a forthright defence of the game laws for bringing in ‘an immense sum spent every year by gentlemen who come down to visit Scotland during the shooting season’.Aberdeen Journal, 9 Jan. 1861. However, he later declared he was in favour of modifying the law of hypothec.Aberdeen Journal, 6 Feb. 1861.
Leslie spent much of the nomination attacking the absent Gordon as a ‘destructive’, citing his past support for the ballot in particular. Gordon’s 1856 vote (while MP for Beverley) in favour of the Sunday opening of the British Museum and other public institutions was also presented as an affront to Scottish religious sensibilities. Nevertheless, Gordon won the show of hands, prompting Leslie to demand a poll.Aberdeen Journal, 20 Feb. 1861. During the polling, Conservatives were pelted with ‘rotten eggs, rotten oranges, and snowballs’ in one district and Leslie himself was forced to seek sanctuary in a court house after being attacked by a mob.Morning Chronicle, 19 Feb. 1861.
Leslie won the contest by 186 votes. Given Leslie’s head start and Gordon’s absence, the Aberdeen Herald hailed the result as a ‘glorious defeat’. Ligertwood told Gordon that ‘your presence would have secured your election undoubtedly’, a view shared by the press.Ligertwood to Gordon, 18 Feb. 1861, Add. 49234, f. 218; Caledonian Mercury, 18 Feb. 1861. Although Leslie’s requisition had been signed by 1,135, he only won 851 votes, in an election in which just a third of the electorate voted. His early start and canvass had essentially secured his return, but it seems that many who had pledged to vote for him when he was the only candidate had done so reluctantly and later changed their mind. However, unwilling to break their pledges, they chose to abstain.Caledonian Mercury, 18 Feb. 1861. As the Caledonian Mercury had noted during the campaign, Leslie’s support had ‘been subjected to a large discount since he took the field’.Caledonian Mercury, 7 Feb. 1861. Another reason for the low turnout was that the register probably contained many lapsed qualifications.Aberdeen Journal, 20 Feb. 1861.
In 1864 William Gladstone wrote to Gordon that ‘as I understand it from Brand [the Liberal chief whip] your prospects in Aberdeenshire would be excellent’.William Gladstone to Arthur Gordon, 5 July 1864, in P. Knaplund, ‘Gladstone-Gordon correspondence, 1851-1896: selections from the private correspondence of a British prime minister and a colonial governor’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 51 (1961), 1-116 (at 44). However, Gordon, who had embarked on a career as a colonial administrator, was reluctant to do so.Gordon to Gladstone, 6 July 1864, in ibid. The Liberals therefore had no challenger to Leslie, who stood his ground, at the 1865 general election. However, local farmers aggrieved by the ‘very unwise and unjust’ 1862 Act relating to game, forced Leslie to shift his position on the game laws. He declared that he agreed that rabbits and hares should be exempted and that magistrates should not have jurisdiction in game laws cases, although he added that it would be difficult to secure legislation except on a national basis.Aberdeen Journal, 5 July 1865. Leslie provided a detailed account of his parliamentary conduct at the nomination, when he was returned unopposed. His speech was notable for arguing against a lowering of the franchise, as the present system encouraged people to rise through their ‘own industry and intelligence’ to the ‘privilege’ of the vote.Dundee Courier, 15 July 1865.
Leslie unexpectedly resigned due to ill-health in May 1866. The Conservatives swiftly put up Sir James Elphinstone, who had lost his seat for Portsmouth the previous year. Rumours of a second Conservative candidate in the shape of Mr. Farquharson of Invercauld came to nothing, but a contest became inevitable once William Dingwall Fordyce, of Brucklay, stood on the Liberal interest. Fordyce, whose father had represented Aberdeen 1847-52, declared in favour of the Liberal government’s reform bill, and opposed university religious tests and the endowment of the Catholic seminary at Maynooth, Ireland. He favoured the abolition of the law of hypothec and the modification of the game laws.Caledonian Mercury, 7 May 1866.
Elphinstone also advocated reform, the abolition of religious tests for English universities, denounced the game laws as ‘rotten’ and declared that the law of hypothec ‘might with safety be swept from the statute book’.Dundee Courier, 7 May 1866. As the Aberdeen Journal noted, there was little difference between the two candidates’ professed views.Aberdeen Journal, 9 May 1866. Accordingly, the contest became personal and increasingly rancorous as both sides sought to differentiate themselves to claim an advantage in what was widely predicted to be a close contest. After emphasising his own experience, Elphinstone damned his rival with faint praise as ‘a young man of promising ability’.Dundee Courier, 7 May 1866. Conservative newspapers accused Fordyce, a Free Churchman, of being the nominee of a secret Free Church cabal.Aberdeen Journal, 16 May 1866. For their part, the Liberals presented Elphinstone as the ‘defender of the very grievances which he condemns’, namely the game laws and the law of hypothec.Ibid. Elphinstone later complained that the Aberdeen Herald had circulated 4,500 papers with statements ‘most false and calumnious to me’.Dundee Courier, 19 May 1866.
At the nomination Elphinstone contrasted himself, a ‘poor and tried man’, with the ‘rich’ Fordyce. He had ‘no faith’ in the Liberal reform bill being carried, reiterated his support for the abolition of the game laws and declared that ‘I cannot see why there should not be free trade in malt and money as there is in corn’. He complained of intimidation and protested in particular about the role of the Liberal press, above all the Aberdeen Herald. In all his experience of elections, Elphinstone remarked:
one thing is entirely new to me, and that is to see editors of newspapers accompanying a candidate on his peregrinations, presenting him to the constituency, acting as his sponsor, writing his articles, and admitting into their columns the greatest falsehoods. (Great uproar).
Fordyce responded with a terse speech calling on electors to ‘throw off that yoke’. Alluding to his opponent’s naval career, he added that Elphinstone had ‘hoisted his flag on a sinking ship’ and the ‘old Tory tub will go down forever’.Dundee Courier, 16 May 1866.
Fordyce won the show of hands by a ‘vast majority’ and the poll by over a thousand votes, a margin few had predicted.Ibid. As the Caledonian Mercury pointed out, the result was part of a trend towards Liberalism in many Scottish counties, including Bute, Kincardine and Renfrew, that had long been under Conservative control.Caledonian Mercury, 19 May 1866. Although the result was unexpected, the electorate had almost doubled since the 1837 general election. The 1861 by-election was a misleading portent due to the low turnout and Leslie would probably have been beaten had an opponent been present and introduced earlier. As in 1861, the Liberals exploited dissatisfaction among farmers with the game laws and law of hypothec. Elphinstone complained that his opinions on these issues had been misrepresented, but the Aberdeenshire Conservatives, past masters at such electioneering tactics, had been repaid in their own coin.
The 1866 result was a harbinger of the dominance of Liberalism in Aberdeenshire in the succeeding period. The 1868 Representation of the People (Scotland) Act split Aberdeenshire into eastern and western divisions, which were consequently unaltered by the 1884-5 reforms. With the exception of the Liberal Unionists holding East Aberdeenshire, from 1900-6, both constituencies, as with much of north-eastern Scotland, remained under Liberal control, 1868-1910.McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 2, pt. II, pp. 1-2.
