Warwick

Economic and social profile:

The market and county town of Warwick, situated on the river Avon, contained a silk and worsted mill and an iron foundry, and also produced hats, but it was noted in 1844 that ‘very little trade is carried on beyond what is necessary for the supply of the inhabitants’.S. Lewis, A topographical dictionary of England (1844), iv. 470. See also VCH Warws., viii. 504-14; History, gazetteer and directory of Warwickshire (1850), 460. There were three banking establishments and the market and agriculture remained a major element of the town’s economy.Ibid., 460. Although the town was connected to the Birmingham and Oxford railway in 1847, its transport links with larger Midland towns remained poor, which contributed to its ‘sluggish development’ in the period.D. Paterson, A Victorian election: Warwick 1868 (1982), 7.

Electoral history:

In 1853 Charles Dod wrote that the Tory Henry Richard Greville (1779-1853), 3rd earl of Warwick, possessed much influence at Warwick, ‘but not of a stable or commanding character’.Dod’s electoral facts, from 1832 to 1853, impartially stated (1853), 326. This view was endorsed by Norman Gash a century later, who cited the constituency as an example of ‘an aristocratic pocket borough that in fact was weaker than its reputation’.N. Gash, Politics in the age of Peel (1953), 208. The earl’s brazen campaign of bribery, treating, electoral fraud and intimidation on behalf of his brother at the 1832 election, effectively set limits on his future influence, in Gash’s view, and the representation was shared between the parties until 1852, when two Conservatives were returned, but the balance was restored in 1865. Such a summary should not obscure the contentiousness of the period, particularly in the 1830s, which was marked by a fierce party struggle, that in many respects continued the pre-1832 battle between the ‘Blues’ or independent party and the ‘Orange’ or Castle interest of the earl and local Tories.

The town’s representation had long been shared between the Castle interest and the independent party, which increasingly counted many businessmen and dissenters, especially Unitarians. However, this arrangement distintegrated in the 1820s, as the earl sought to use his position as recorder of the borough to make appointments which strengthened the Orange party’s position in the corporation.P. Styles, ‘Corporation of Warwick, 1600-1835’, Trans. Birm. Arch. Soc., lix (1935) 9-122 (at 108-12). This provoked opposition from the ‘Blues’, who secured the election of their leader John Tomes at the 1826 by-election ahead of the Greville’s candidate.‘Warwick’, HP 1820-1832, viii. 141-2. Thereafter, under the influence of the ‘noble recorder’, the self-electing corporation became more exclusive in its political composition.This is based on the municipal corporations commissioners’ report: PP 1835 (116), xxv. 647-64 (at 651, 661-4). See also Styles, ‘Corporation of Warwick’, 113-16. In 1831, popular support for reform enabled the independent party to oust the earl’s brother, Sir Charles Greville, his place being taken by the Whig Edward Bolton King, who was returned with Tomes.‘Warwick’, HP 1820-32, viii. 145.

The 1832 Reform Act left Warwick’s boundaries unaltered, but enfranchised £10 householders in addition to those existing scot and lot electors who remained. In 1833 the electorate was 1,340 (of whom 680 qualified as scot and lot voters), a figure similar to the unreformed electorate, which was estimated to be between 1,200 to 1,400, with the ‘voterate’, those who actually polled, 1,019.‘Warwick’, HP 1820-32, viii. 140; PP 1866 (259), lvii. 583. However, the electorate had reduced by half to 660 thirty years later, in large part because of a static population, a political compromise which gave little incentive to register new voters, and, especially, the attrition of the scot and lot electors, who had declined to just 67 by 1862.PP 1866 (259), lvii. 583.

The Times was not guilty of hyperbole when it remarked of the 1832 general election that ‘Perhaps in the whole history of election contests the scenes which have lately passed at Warwick can hardly find a parallel’.The Times, 15 Dec. 1832. The earl left little to chance in his attempt to regain the seat for his brother, whose appearance in the town two months prior to the election had surprised many, given that only the local gentry were willing to support him.Ibid. However, the earl’s steward had already attended to the register by fictitiously rating many of the nobleman’s tenants to the poor, many of whom were listed on the final registers.PP 1833 (556), xi. 324; J. Parkes to E. Ellice, sen., 25 Apr. 1833, Brougham MSS, UCL. Greville also had the ‘powerful aid’ of his brother’s £3,000 in a private bank account, which was disbursed by the town clerk, James Tibbitts, who owed his appointment to the noble recorder.The Times, 15 Dec. 1832; PP 1835 (116), xxv. 651, 663. With little attempt at concealment, the money was spent on bribery, treating through ‘houses of entertainment’, and employing a libellous hack to produce placards which were ‘so vulgar and offensive in style, so bitter and rancorous in spirit, and so odious and detestable in personal abuse’ that they put all previous squibs in the shade.The Times, 15 Dec. 1832. Such things were standard fare at elections; more novel was the recruitment of 400 to 800 pugilists, poachers and others (including tenants of the earl), who were paid 7s. 8d. to 9s. per day to break up and intimidate the ‘Blue and Pink’ party who supported John Tomes and Edward Bolton King’s campaign for re-election.The Times, 15 Dec. 1832; PP 1833 (556), xi. 324. Persons and property were attacked, the White Hart Inn was relieved of its liquor supply, and the tumult was only ended by the arrival of a detachment of the Scots Greys from Coventry barracks, but the continued presence of the ‘Orange bludgeon men’ led to the cancellation of the nomination. The thugs were out in force at all the polling places, with polling temporarily suspended at one. Physical reinforcements for the Blues, in the form of political unionists from Coventry and Birmingham, arrived too late to prevent Greville’s election in first place, comfortably ahead of Bolton King, elected in second place, who finished under a hundred votes ahead of Tomes.The Times, 15 Dec. 1832.

The independent party were confident of overturning Greville’s victory, however, as in the words of Joseph Parkes, Radical election agent and native of Warwick, they had ‘distinct indisputable proof of the grossest bribery ever perpetrated’ by the Orange party. As King’s campaign had eschewed such tactics, their challenge would not endanger his return. Parkes presented the voluminous evidence against Greville’s return at a meeting of twelve independent burgesses, including William Collins, Tomes’s son-in-law and joint leader of the ‘Blues’, who agreed to a petition. However, this was merely to be the opening salvo in a larger campaign, as the independent party were eager to exploit the opportunity afforded by their opponents’ ‘barefaced’ misdemeanours to eradicate bribery and decisively weaken the influence of the earl, as ‘we should never catch Lord Warwick in such a noose again’.Joseph Parkes to Edward Ellice, sen., 25 Apr. 1833, Brougham MSS, UCL.

The petition of Collins and Tomes, alleging bribery, treating, illegal registration, and intimidation, not only urged Greville’s unseating, but also that Parliament take action to secure the future ‘freedom of Election’ for the constituency, 20 Feb. 1833.CJ, lxxxviii. 96-7. A committee was appointed, 7 May 1833, and wasted little time in unseating Greville and rejecting the counter-petition against King’s return, 15 May 1833.CJ, lxxxviii. 357, 396; PP 1833 (295), xi. 199. The writ was suspended pending a further inquiry with a view to recommending action to prevent a repeat of the late election, 22 June 1833.CJ, lxxxviii. 512, 632, on writ suspensions see ibid., 421, 492, 536, 565, 591, 649. The second committee offered a fuller account of the election, and the role of the earl and his instrument Tibbitts, and cleared Tomes and King of any wrongdoing, 3 Aug. 1833.CJ, lxxxviii. 522-3, 632, 648-9; PP 1833 (556), xi. 323-5. They recommended adding the growing town of Leamington Priors to Warwick, which it was believed would add 800 £10 householders to the existing electorate, and the chairman, Sir Ronald Ferguson, introduced a bill to this effect, 8 Aug. 1833.PP 1833 (556), xi. 325-6; CJ, lxxxviii. 522-3, 577. Shortly after, the earl and his agents narrowly escaped prosecution when a motion to institute criminal proceedings, 29 Aug. 1833, was interrupted by the prorogation of Parliament.Ibid., 734; PP 1833 (610), iv. 633-4; Hansard, 29 Aug. 1833, vol. 20, cc. 907-10.

The bill was reintroduced the following year, but Ferguson’s hope that the measure would face no opposition was disappointed. In the second reading and committee debates, 26 Feb. 1834, 5 Mar. 1834, Tory critics denied that bribery had been proved, complained that as only twenty or so cases had been identified the remedy was excessive, and voiced the objections of Leamington’s inhabitants to the union.PP 1834 (22), ii. 233-4; CJ, lxxxix. 26, 68, 91; Hansard, 26 Feb. 1834, vol. 21, cc. 836-45; 5 Mar. 1834, vol. 21, cc. 1177-82, 1185.

Having failed to stop the bill passing the Commons, 12 Mar. 1834, its opponents focused on fighting it in the Lords, where they were ultimately successful. The counter-petitioners’ first victory, thanks to Lord Wynford’s motion, 28 Apr. 1834, which was carried in spite of Lord Durham’s objections, was to win the right to give evidence at the bar of the upper House.Hansard, 18 Mar. 1834, vol. 22, cc. 355-9; ibid., 28 Apr. 1834, vol. 23, cc. 103-13. The Commons had denied the bill’s opponents such a platform, but by agreeing to it the Lords effectively disregarded the evidence of Ferguson’s two committees, thereby questioning the legitimacy of their report and remedy, forcing the independent party to make their case all over again and preventing any swift passage. The reformers’ case was also hamstrung by the disappearance of a number of witnesses, but it was the lord chancellor Brougham who killed the bill. Having complained that the inquiry was taking too long and that the Lords needed evidence of bribery, 19 June 1834, he moved successfully that the bill be put off, 5 Aug. 1834, to the disgust of Parkes who witnessed the farcical proceedings.Hansard, 9, 27 May 1834, vol. 23, cc. 778, 1359-61; 17 June 1834, vol. 24, c. 49; 5 Aug. 1834, vol. 25, cc. 938-9; LJ, lxvi. 926. The debate had been due to start at 2pm, but Brougham was sitting as a judge until 3.30pm when the duke of Cumberland sent a cab to collect him. After speaking for 45 minutes, Brougham said that although he favoured the bill, it was unsupported by evidence. He moved that the bill be read in six months time, and despite having no seconder, in a thinly-attended House he declared his motion carried. J. Parkes to Durham, 6 Aug. 1834, Lambton MSS. He complained bitterly that the bill had been ‘very ill treated from first to last’ by the Lords, but received small comfort from the continued suspension of the writ, 7 Aug. 1834, whilst the earl of Warwick belatedly defended himself in the Lords, 12 Aug. 1834.J. Parkes to Sir Denis Le Marchant, 8 Aug. 1834, (copy), Lambton MSS; Hansard, 7, 12 Aug. 1834, vol. 25, cc. 1035-46, 1230-1.

King stood his ground at the 1835 general election, but faced two opponents, Greville, who, despite his protestations, was in coalition with John Halcomb, late Tory MP for Dover, one of the main parliamentary opponents of the Warwick bill.The Times, 31 Dec. 1834, 7 Jan. 1835; Morn. Chro., 6 Jan. 1835. Halcomb is erroneously described as a Liberal in McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 303. Greville offered staunch support for Peel’s new administration, saying that the Whigs had ‘smothered themselves in their own dunghill’, whilst ‘not a syllable was heard’ of Halcomb’s nomination speech, so loud were the jeers.Warwickshire Advertiser, 10 Jan. 1835, qu. in Parliamentary test book for 1835 (1835), 72; Morn. Chro., 7 Jan. 1835. Greville topped the subsequent poll, 86 votes ahead of King, who was returned in second place, with Halcomb bottom.Morn. Chro., 9 Jan. 1835.

Greville’s ailing health led to his resignation, Aug. 1836, and the only surviving son of the former Prime Minister George Canning, Charles John, promptly accepted a requisition to come forward on Conservative principles. However, local Reformers, confident after their victory in the first municipal elections of December 1835, brought forward Henry William Hobhouse, an unsuccessful candidate at Finsbury and Bath in the past, and the brother of the Whig cabinet minister Sir John Cam Hobhouse.The Times, 20 Aug. 1836; P. Salmon, Electoral reform at work: local politics and national parties, 1832-1841 (2002), 232. Both sides were on their best behaviour during the campaign, as the Conservative wirepuller William Mackworth Praed, who was assisting Canning, explained to his chief Bonham: ‘There has been so much trouble in Warwick that a man cannot give away a glass of ale without tremblings and the canvass has been very dry. Many voters consequently hold back and bide their time.’Add. 40617, f. 21, qu. by Gash, Politics in the age of Peel, 125. At the nomination Canning declared himself ‘essentially a Conservative’, but made little reference to his political views other than to express mild criticism of the new poor law, preferring to attack the government, whilst sarcastically alluding to his opponent’s considerable ‘electioneering experience’. In response, Hobhouse argued that the Conservatives had supported the new poor law during its passage through Parliament, and called for electors to reject the party who had opposed the reforms of the last five years.The Times, 23 Aug. 1836. Although Hobhouse won the show of hands, Canning was triumphant by 30 votes, but his opponent pledged to stand again in the event of a vacancy.The Times, 24 Aug. 1836.

Hobhouse’s ‘shabbiness’, however, especially his failure to offer any money towards his expenses, meant that local reformers were unwilling to bring him forward at the by-election occasioned by Canning’s succession to the peerage, 15 Mar. 1837. Instead their candidate was the much more formidable William Collins, a woolstapler, who, with his father-in-law John Tomes, had been one of the leaders of the Blues since the 1820s, and had been elected the first mayor after municipal reform in 1835. His Conservative opponent was John Adams, a counsel on the Midland circuit and formerly chairman of the Middlesex magistracy, who was described by Parkes as ‘very rabid’ at the nomination. Like Canning the previous year, Adams attempted to make political capital out of the new poor law, calling for an inquiry into the Act, but his adversaries pointed out that his proposer, Henry Wise, who owned land to the north of the town, was chairman of the local poor law union.This account of the election is based on Joseph Parkes’ letter to Edward John Stanley, 27 Mar. 1837, MS Kingsland. See also The Times, 20, 21 Mar. 1837. The more temperate Collins promised to uphold the ‘independence of the borough’ and the ‘rights, privileges and liberties of the people’.The Times, 29 Mar. 1837. Although Parkes thought the register favoured the Conservatives, this was perhaps outweighed by Collins’ ‘local influence’, especially his connection to the council and local charities, and he defeated Adams by thirty-six votes.Ibid.; Parkes to Stanley, 27 Mar. 1837, MS Kingsland.

The representation of Warwick by two reformers lasted only till the general election four months later, when they were challenged by Sir Charles Eurwicke Douglas, a Conservative who promised to defend the Church, monarchy and House of Lords. He beat King to second place behind Collins, who had been unwilling to give way to the Whig, not least because it would have made enemies of many of his Radical supporters.The Standard, 6 July 1835; Parkes to Stanley, 24 Sept. 1837, MS Kingsland. Although there were grounds for a petition, Parkes believed that ‘if King was a more hearty man in manner & canvassing he would have got the seat’, contrasting him unfavourably with Douglas who ‘never left his work an hour, & rose at 6 o’clock’ everyday. ‘That is the way to lick your adversary’, he commented approvingly.Parkes to Stanley, 24 Sept. 1837, MS Kingsland.

The struggle since 1832 had been essentially a continuation of the battle between the independent party and the Castle interest, with the coherence of the former largely dependent upon their opposition to the latter, rather than any attachment to national reform principles, and neither side possessed permanent party or electoral structures at this stage, organisation, a fact obscured by the frequency of elections.D. Paterson, ‘Tory political influence in nineteenth-century Warwick’, Warwickshire History, 3 (1977-8), 197-207 (at 202); idem, A Victorian election, 20. As outright victory for either side had proved to be elusive, the conflict abated after the 1837 contest and the incumbents were returned without opposition at the 1841 general election. Although King issued an address, he was warned by his erstwhile supporters that his candidature would be countered by Lord Brooke, the earl of Warwick’s heir, with the return of two Conservatives probable given that the Whig government’s proposed alteration to the corn laws was ‘extremely unpopular’ in the constituency.The Standard, 14 June 1841; Morn. Post, 21, 29 June 1841; qu. in The Times, 21 June 1841. Indeed, ‘the smaller tradesmen and many of the working classes who have votes’ were eager for Brooke to come forward in anyway, but neither he nor Wise, who was also rumoured as a second Conservative candidate, offered, causing the Times to complain that the party’s failure to press home their advantage on the register was ‘really unaccountable’.Northampton Herald, qu. in The Times, 28 June 1841; The Times, 30 June 1841; The Standard, 18 June 1841.

Douglas stood for re-election after his appointment as a commissioner of Greenwich hospital in August 1845. Although his vote in favour of the Maynooth college bill earlier in the year ‘had alienated many former friends’, given that his only likely opponent, King, had the ‘same, if not stronger, opinions’ on the matter, he was returned unchallenged.The Times, 11 Aug. 1845. Even so, he took care not to antagonise his erstwhile supporters any further by professing bland views at the nomination, 13 Aug. 1845, which was an ‘extremely flat’ affair notable for the sullenness of Conservative spectators and, more generally, ‘a total lack of enthusiasm’.The Times, 14 Aug. 1845.

Douglas was conspicuous by his absence from the meeting of Warwickshire Agricultural Protection Society, whose president was the earl, held in the county town 29 December 1845, which was attended by Lord Brooke, recently returned for the southern division, Charles Newdegate, MP for the northern division, and King.Brooke was vice-president: History, gazetteer and directory of Warwickshire, 459. Although a protectionist, as a Whig, King could not help expressing the view that the Conservatives’ acquiescence in Peel’s 1842 revision of the corn law had encouraged their leader to go even further.The Times, 29 Dec. 1845.

Unlike the earl of Warwick, both the incumbents supported the repeal of the corn laws in Parliament in 1846, but surprisingly they faced minimal opposition at the general election the following year as King once again opted to keep his powder dry, and Arthur Mills, an anti-Catholic barrister, another rumoured candidate, did not stand.Morn. Post, 24 June 1847; The Times, 28 June 1847. A greater threat came from the Conservative banker Edward Greaves, but although the Peelite Douglas privately conceded that he could not stand ‘without the support of the Castle’, it seems the earl acquiesced in his re-election, as he told another that: ‘I know that Lord Warwick will give him [Greaves] his “legitimate” support, but I also know that he will not attempt to influence any one not to vote for me’.Sir Charles Douglas Letters, 27 Jan. 1846, 30 June 1847, Warwickshire County Record Office, CR 556/442, qu. by Paterson, ‘Tory political influence’, 199. Italics added. Greaves did not offer, but the incumbents did not avoid a contest as they were challenged by Henry Roberts, a local wine merchant, and representative ‘of the still more democratic party’, but he only received 30 votes in the subsequent poll which saw Collins elected in first place, thirty-six votes ahead of Douglas.Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 29 July 1847; The Times, 29, 30 July 1847.

Douglas and Collins retired at the 1852 general election. The reasons for their replacement by two Conservatives, the banker Greaves and George Repton, late member for the corrupt and disenfranchised St. Albans remain obscure, but it has been suggested that in the absence of other factors, the change can perhaps be attributed to the earl’s influence.Paterson, ‘Tory political influence’, 199-202. Greaves reflected the strong Conservatism of local professionals, especially lawyers and bankers, but it seems that Repton, who had inferior local connections to the defeated Liberal candidate John Mellor, who was the town’s recorder, was much more dependent on the Castle.Ibid.; The Standard, 2 July 1852.

The vagueness of the incumbents’ political opinions, especially their ambiguity towards Palmerston, and the absence of divisive domestic issues, made them an elusive target, and it was left to the town’s only newspaper, the Liberal Warwick Advertiser (established in 1806) to provide much of the opposition in the 1850s, as although Douglas briefly reappeared at the 1857 general election to challenge Repton, who had opposed the Prime Minister’s China policy, he withdrew after the canvass, leaving the incumbents to be returned unopposed.Ibid., 203; idem, A Victorian election, 23-4; History, gazetteer and directory of Warwickshire, 458; Morn. Post, 14, 21 Mar. 1857; The Times, 19 Mar. 1857; Examiner, 21 Mar. 1857. The 1859 general election produced the same outcome as the Liberal Registration Association, formed in 1857, was caught unprepared by the dissolution, and none of their rumoured candidates, including Mellor and Edward Leigh, barrister and brother of Baron Leigh, of Stoneleigh in the county, felt it worthwhile standing.The Times, 6 Apr. 1859; Birmingham Daily Post, 6 Apr. 1859; Paterson, ‘Tory political influence’, 203.

At the 1865 general election, the Conservatives’ slothfulness at the start of the campaign gave their challenger, Arthur Wellesley Peel, youngest son of the former prime minister and a moderate Liberal, a head start.Paterson, A Victorian election, 21-2. At a meeting held in association with the Liberal Registration Association, 17 June 1865, Peel endorsed Baines’s borough reform bill.The Times, 20 June 1865. The nomination ‘elicited an unusual amount of interest in this quiet borough’, and the subsequent poll saw Greaves relegated to third, replaced by Peel, who was elected in second place, behind Repton.The Times, 13 July 1865.

The electorate increased to 1,688 as a result of the 1867 Representation of the People Act. The constituency remained otherwise unaltered after an attempt to reduce it to a single member was resisted, 5 July 1867, and but the amalgamation with Leamington, proposed by the boundary commissioners, was rejected by an 1868 select committee.Hansard, 5 July 1867, vol. 188, cc. 1235-7, 1250; PP 1867-68 [3972], xx. 730-1; 1867-68 (311), viii. 5, 12. In spite of challenges, the Liberal-Conservative balance was preserved with Peel sitting alongside Greaves until 1874, and Repton thereafter, until 1885, when the new single member constituency of Warwick and Leamington was created.Paterson, A Victorian election, 25-51; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 304. After 1886 Peel, (nominally a Liberal Unionist) was unchallenged as the speaker until his ennoblement in 1895, when he was succeeded by a Liberal Unionist. The Liberals captured the seat in 1906, but the constituency reverted to Unionism in January 1910.Ibid., pt. II, 247.