Durham

Economic and social profile

Situated upon and around a central peninsula formed by the River Wear 13 miles from its mouth, and 14 miles south of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the castellated cathedral city and county town of Durham lay on the southern portion of the coal measures which extended from the river Coquet to the Tees.VCH Durham, iii. 1-15. The city’s chief trade, therefore, was coal mining, and its expansion in the second half of the nineteenth century resulted in the proliferation of small colliery villages on the outskirts of the city and considerable immigration of workers into the region.N. McCord and D.J. Rowe, Northumberland and Durham: industry in the nineteenth century (1971), 6. Carpet, paper, rope and woollen manufactures were also represented.P.A.G. Clack, The book of Durham city (1985), 75-87. Working-class voters accounted for 39.3 per cent of Durham city’s electorate by 1865, a fairly high percentage for a constituency at this time.PP 1866 (170), lvii. 48. The borough contained the city’s cathedral community, home of a ‘phenomenally wealthy diocese’, which ensured the established church was strongly represented.T.J. Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms in reformed England: case studies from the North-east, 1832-74 (1975), 16-17; R. Lee, ‘Class, industrialization and the church of England: the case of the Durham diocese in the nineteenth century’, Past and Present, 191 (2006), 166. The county was home to the first passenger traffic by rail on the Stockton-Darlington line in 1828, and the first direct connection from the city to the Durham junction railway opened in 1844, giving it easy access to Newcastle and York. Rail communication with London and other industrial centres, however, severely diminished many of the city’s smaller industries, such as mustard manufacture, brickyards, tanning and grease-making. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales, ii. 639-70; VCH Dur. iii. 51-53.

Electoral history

Before 1832, the representation of Durham, which had returned two members since 1677, was vested in the heads of the Lambton family of Lambton Castle and the Tempests of Wynyard, whose wealth was founded upon their nearby coal mines, although their proprietary control had been interrupted by the election of the ‘independent’ Tory Richard Wharton in 1802, the memory of which became ingrained in local political culture, and was subsequently drawn upon by candidates wishing to emphasise their independence.HP Commons, 1820-32, ii. 363. On the eve of reform, the Tempest interest was headed by Lord Londonderry, who through his marriage to Frances Anne Vane-Tempest had acquired the family’s extensive coal interests. The Lambton interest was led by the Radical Lord Durham, a son-in-law of the Prime Minister Lord Grey and an instrumental figure in the drafting of the reform bill. Londonderry was a staunch opponent of the Reform Act’s seven-mile residence rule for freemen, believing that it was a device inspired by Durham to squeeze urban freeholders resident in the city into the northern division, thus weakening the Conservative vote in the borough.A. Heesom, Durham city and its MPs, 1678-1992 (1992), 29. However, although the considerable body of freemen to whom he offered employment in his harbour town of Seaham now lived outside the seven-mile limit, the new residence boundary included Londonderry’s colliery voters but excluded the Lambton ones.Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 23. Londonderry’s influence therefore remained significant after 1832, but his often dictatorial behaviour towards his own Durham Conservative Association undermined its strength. Moreover, the predominantly Conservative chapter of Durham cathedral, which as landlord and employer enjoyed a significant interest, provided a notable opposition to his pretensions.Ibid., 123. The Liberals also suffered from factionalism in the two decades after reform, ensuring that all but one of the ten contests prior to the 1857 general election were contested, whereupon the return of two distinguished lawyers heralded a period of shared representation. However, although there were no more contested elections until 1868, continuing tensions between Lady Londonderry and the Conservatives surfaced at a number of by-elections, ensuring that local politics were far from uneventful.

At the 1832 general election the Reformer William Chaytor, who had been returned for Durham at the by-election of March 1831 to represent the Sunderland interests of his father, Sir William Chaytor, came forward to defend his seat. He was joined by a second Liberal candidate, William Harland, a local coal owner, who was backed by the ‘Bailey Whigs’, a reference to the townships of North and South Bailey where they mainly resided.Durham Chronicle, 4 May 1832. Both men insisted that they were staunch supporters of the reform of church and state and praised Grey’s ministry, though Harland took particular care to stress that he would ‘not act as a follower of any minister, but as an independent representative of the people’.Newcastle Courant, 15 Dec. 1832. Arthur Hill-Trevor, the only surviving son of viscount Dungannon, who had sat for the borough as Londonderry’s nominee since the 1831 general election, also offered again, but his vigorous opposition to the reform bill had made him the subject of malicious attacks in the local press, and his return was far from assured.Durham Advertiser, 18 May, 15, 22 June 1832. An anxious Londonderry wrote to Chaytor’s father, arguing that as ‘we should do our duties by our properties and our families’, Chaytor and Trevor should both espouse the line that ‘we think Durham fairly and properly represented and wish no change’.Londonderry to Chaytor, 28 July 1832, Papers of Sir William Chaytor (1771-1847): a list with extracts, ed. M.Y. Ashcroft (1993), 175. Chaytor’s father, however, insisted that while ‘property must at all times have its due influence … it cannot nor ought it to go beyond a certain limit’, and refused to stop his son’s supporters splitting upon Harland.Chaytor to Londonderry, 9 July and 25 July 1832, Papers of Sir William Chaytor, 173, 175. After two days of ‘severe polling’, Harland came in first with Chaytor returned in second.Newcastle Courant, 15 Dec. 1832. An analysis of the poll suggests that Trevor’s outspoken opposition to reform had damaged him, with the newly-enfranchised £10 householders, who accounted for 289 of the 806 registered electors, voting by a ratio of two-to-one in favour of Harland and Chaytor.Heesom, Durham city, 24. Moreover the winning candidates received 362 split votes, while Trevor gained 283 plump votes, reflecting the unity of the Reformist ticket.W.W. Bean, The parliamentary representation of the six northern counties of England (1890), 139.

In response to the defeat, Londonderry established the Durham Conservative Association at the beginning of 1833. The object of the organisation, which Londonderry boasted was the first of its kind in the country, was ‘to form a bond of union between individuals of every rank in society, resident in the county professing Conservative principles’.Report of the speeches delivered at the third anniversary of the Durham Conservative Association (1836), 25. It was also resolved that ‘the registration of voters be particularly attended to by the Association, and that the expenses thereof be defrayed out of the general funds’.Ibid., 26. The importance of registration to local party members was made clear when one prominent member declared that ‘I do hope that the day is not far distant when a Conservative will be ashamed to confess that he is not a subscriber to the registration fund’.Ibid., 27. However, although the registration committee was more successful than its Liberal counterpart, the effectiveness of the organisation as a whole was hampered from the outset by Londonderry’s ‘unpopular doctrines of aristocratic nomination’ which brought him into conflict with the association’s members, a tension that was exploited by Liberal candidates wishing to emphasis that they, unlike their opponents, were free from dictation.Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 30-31, 119.

Nevertheless, backed by a superior political organisation, Trevor was returned at the top of the poll at the 1835 general election. The unity of the Liberal campaign had been damaged by, firstly, Chaytor’s reluctance to declare whether, due to ill-health, he intended to stand or not, and secondly, when he finally did retire, the decision of Lord Durham, who had taken over Sir William Chaytor’s interest, to bring forward Thomas Colpitts Granger, a local lawyer and avowed Radical. Durham’s intervention was resented by Harland’s more moderate supporters, the ‘Bailey Whigs’, and reports of ‘jealousies occasioned by the highly culpable conduct of the some of the old Whigs’ appeared in the Radical-supporting Durham Chronicle.Heesom, Durham city, 24; Durham Chronicle, 14 Jan. 1835; Morning Chronicle, 15 Jan. 1835. Although one historian has suggested that Granger’s candidature was prompted by Harland’s ‘conservatism’, the latter’s votes in the Commons suggest there is little evidence for this.Heesom, Durham city, 58-9. Harland was in the minorities for Joseph Hume’s motion for economy in public service, 14 Feb. 1833, for Thomas Attwood’s motions for a committee on distress, 21 Mar. 1833, and for currency reform, 24 Apr. 1833, and for Fowell Buxton’s amendment against the ministerial plan for the shortening of slave apprenticeships, 25 July 1833. The rivalry between the Lambton interest and the ‘Bailey Whigs’ therefore reflected not a principled split but rather a struggle for control of the Reform interest in Durham. A breakdown of the 1835 poll further underlines the weakened unity of the Reformers in Durham. Although Harland and Granger received 278 split votes, the former gained 112 split votes with Trevor, which ensured his return in second place. Granger, who only secured 37 split votes with the Conservative candidate, finished bottom.Bean, Parliamentary representation, 139.

Harland and Granger faced further difficulties at the 1837 general election. The attempts of Melbourne’s ministry to abolish the freeman franchise in its first municipal reform bill united the freeman vote behind Trevor, who was comfortably re-elected. Significantly, an analysis of the poll reveals that the freemen were twice as likely to plump for Trevor than were the £10 householders.P.K. Radice, ‘Identification, interests and influence: voting behaviour in four English counties in the decade after the Great Reform Act’, unpublished PhD thesis, Univ. of Durham (2002) 325-30. Dogged by Liberal internal strife, Harland was returned by just two votes, whereupon Granger petitioned against his return, 23 Nov. 1837, arguing that the former’s agent had compelled voters intending to vote for himself to leave the polling booths, and he therefore had the legal majority. However, the election committee declared that Harland was duly elected, 2 Mar. 1838.Bean, Parliamentary representation, 139. Meanwhile, the registration revision of 1837 had also developed into a three-way contest between the Conservatives, the Whigs and the Radicals, further entrenching Liberal factionalism.P. Salmon, Electoral reform at work: local politics and national parties, 1832-1841 (2002), 62.

Although the 1837 general election had solidified freeman support for the Conservative candidate, their continued allegiance was far from guaranteed. In Durham the freeman franchise had grown from 424 in 1832 to 558 in 1837, and although Londonderry had funded many of these admissions, any presumption of their compliance was ‘liable to incur hostility, and generate further expense’.Salmon, Electoral reform, 205; PP 1831-2 (112), xxxvi. 521; PP 1837-8 (329), xliv. 835. This became apparent at the 1841 general election. Ever since Trevor had succeeded to his father’s title and estates in December 1837, he had been anxious to retire, which gave the local Conservatives, who were increasingly determined ‘no longer to submit to dictation’, an opportunity to bring forward their own candidate.Durham Advertiser, 2 July 1841. With Trevor duly stepping down at the dissolution, they brought forward William Sheppard, a wealthy merchant and Russophile support of David Urquhart. Londonderry, wishing to keep the representation of the borough in the family, brought forward his nephew Captain Robert Fitzroy, a noted hydrographer who had commanded the HMS Beagle. Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 120. The return of two Conservatives seemed a possibility.

However, the gutting by fire of Londonderry’s Wynyard home coupled with the failure of his artificial harbour at Seaham, paralysed his capacity to defend his proprietorial position, and, unable to compete financially with Sheppard, he instructed his colliery voters to plump for Fitzroy until he was safe.Ibid., 120. Once Sheppard discovered this duplicity, he withdrew from the race, ‘without saying a word even to his agents’, leaving the press to report that ‘the reasons for Mr Sheppard’s withdrawal are yet a mystery’.Morning Post, 26 June 1841. However, news of Londonderry’s actions soon leaked, provoking outrage among the independent Conservatives, forcing his agent to spend over £1,500 which was ‘absolutely necessary in order to counteract the strong feeling excited against your lordship and captain Fitzroy amongst the freemen’.Thomas Maynard to Londonderry, 24 June 1841, quoted in Salmon, 205. With Harland having retired at the dissolution, Granger was the only Liberal candidate in the field, and he and Fitzroy were returned unopposed. However, the fallout from the election continued when Fitzroy asserted that Sheppard’s withdrawal had been ‘a disgraceful desertion’ of the Conservative cause and ‘an event unparalleled in the annals of electioneering’, leading to a quarrel between the two men that culminated in Fitzroy striking Sheppard with his umbrella outside the United Service Club in London.H.E.L. Mellersh, FitzRoy of the Beagle (1968), 184-91; W. Sheppard, The conduct of Captain Robert Fitzroy R.N. in reference to the electors of Durham and the laws of honour, exposed by William Sheppard Esquire (1842); R. Fitzroy, Captain Fitzroy’s statement re collision between William Sheppard and the author (1841).

The appointment of Fitzroy to the governorship of New Zealand in April 1843 necessitated a by-election at which Londonderry, despite his unpopularity among the independent Conservative interest, again brought forward Trevor, now styled viscount Dungannon. His opponent was John Bright, the anti-corn law campaigner, who was brought forward by local Liberals just two days before the poll.G.M. Trevelyan, The life of John Bright (1925), 111. Bright immediately attacked Londonderry’s influence, telling the electors that ‘I need not allude to the attempt which is being made to degrade you into the convenient tool of an aristocratic family’.Quoted in Ibid., 111. Unsurprisingly though, the main thrust of his brief campaign was his opposition to ‘that most infamous monopoly which restricted the supply of food to the poor, for the sole purposes of aggrandizing a class’.Newcastle Courant, 7 Apr. 1843. Dungannon, however, said little on the subject of corn law repeal, and instead focused his energies on pressing for a reform of the poor law as it was presently ‘founded on unjust and cruel principles’.Ibid. After a short campaign that gained national prominence, Dungannon won by a majority of 102, and, having paid his election expenses, subsequently wrote to Londonderry, suggesting that ‘surely as I paid every shilling of the last contest, you do not consider me in the same position as I stood before’.Quoted in Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 121. However, on 9 June three electors petitioned against the result on the grounds that Dungannon’s agents had paid ‘head money’ to several hundred electors to vote for him, and he was subsequently unseated, 14 July 1843.Bean, Parliamentary representation, 140; The Times, 13, 14 July 1843.

The second by-election of 1843 brought the decline of the Londonderry interest into sharp relief. With Bright offering again, the Durham Conservative Association, in defiance of Londonderry, brought forward Thomas Purvis, a chancery barrister. A Durham native, Purvis attacked Bright as an outsider, claiming ‘all they knew of him was ... that he came from Rochdale’. Continuing the local theme, he insisted that an influx of foreign corn would lead to ‘all the fields between Durham and Darlington’ being left ‘uncultivated’.The Times, 26 July 1843. Bright, after claiming that Peel’s ministry had ‘deluded and swindled the farmer’, insisted that ‘he was not a party man’ and therefore ‘he came before them to solicit their suffrages on the principles of free trade alone’.Ibid. In another speech, he again stressed his independence, claiming ‘I have nothing to gain by being the tool of any party’.Quoted in Trevelyan, John Bright, 113. Although the campaign focused on the national issue of the corn laws, the result was mainly determined by local politics. Londonderry, who lacked the resources to bring forward his own man, was loathe to submit to what he felt was the local Conservative’s ‘treacherous intrigue against my long-established and legitimate family interest’, and ordered his interest to vote for Bright.Londonderry to Peel, 25 July 1843, BL Add Mss 40531, f. 291 Following Bright’s subsequent victory, Londonderry informed Peel that the result was a mark of his influence, writing that ‘had Purvis been returned the seat was lost to my family and myself forever. Now I have shown my power and nothing can prevent my regaining it’.Londonderry to Peel, 25 July 1843, BL Add Mss 40531, f. 291 However, other factors have to be taken into account. The unwillingness of the Conservatives to spend heavily certainly hampered their effort, and the existence of anti-corn law sentiment among the £10 householders cannot be overlooked.Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 122. Cf. Large, ‘The election of John Bright as member for Durham city in 1843’, Durham Univ. Jnl., 47 (1954), which suggests that Londonderry’s veto was entirely responsible for the result.

The 1847 general election further underlined the extent to which Londonderry’s actions in 1843 had served to weaken, rather than strengthen, his influence. Following reports that Londonderry’s nominee was his nephew Captain David Wood, of the royal artillery and younger brother of Thomas Wood, MP for Middlesex, the Durham Conservative Association passed a resolution declaring that it was their ‘duty to withhold their support from any candidate presenting himself under the influence of the Marquis’.Newcastle Courant, 18 June 1847. It was subsequently reported that ‘upwards of fifty’ Conservative electors had resolved not to vote for him.Standard, 26 July 1847. Significantly, the chapter of Durham cathedral, who numbered over forty, also resisted Londonderry’s influence. Although one historian has suggested that the cathedral community, resident in Cathedral Close, ‘stood like an island of conservatism amid a sea of radical intent’, the poll books show that political opinion among the canons was not only divided but also that their allegiance could shift.Lee, ‘Class, industrialization and the church of England’, 169; cf. Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 123. After overwhelmingly backing Trevor in 1835 and 1837, at the 1847 general election there was a notable level of abstention among the Conservative chapter, meaning that, for the first time in the post-Reform era, a majority of voters in Cathedral Close backed the Liberal candidates.In 1847, there were 17 votes in Cathedral Close, with 11 backing both Liberal candidates: Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 123. The Liberals, therefore, were placed in a strong position at the 1847 general election. With Granger offering again, but Bright having retired to contest Manchester, the moderate Liberals brought forward Henry Spearman, a local landowner who had previously been president of the North Durham Reform Association. It was reported that there was ‘little cordiality’ between Granger and Spearman, and the Radical-supporting Durham Chronicle suggested that the latter was only a Liberal ‘in name’. However, faced with a disunited Conservative opposition, both men were returned.Examiner, 26 June 1847, quoted in Heesom, Durham City and its MPs, 61. Moreover, the 483 shared votes they received indicated a unity in the Liberal vote that been missing at the general elections of 1835 and 1837.Bean, Parliamentary representation, 140.

The Conservatives, having lost both seats for the first time since 1832, buried the hatchet at the 1852 general election, when the local association endorsed Londonderry’s decision to bring forward his youngest son Lord Adolphus Vane.Heesom, Durham city and its MPs, 25. Granger, who was defending his seat for the second time, and William Atherton, a distinguished lawyer and native of Glasgow, offered in the Liberal interest, following Spearman’s retirement at the dissolution to pursue his agricultural interests. Not surprisingly, the issue of Londonderry’s influence took centre stage. The ‘aristocratic perversity’ of Vane standing for the ‘family seat’ was ridiculed by the Liberal press, with one particularly scathing article commentating that ‘what Lord Dolly knows about politics, public affairs or any questions that concern the welfare of the community would puzzle either papa or mama to tell’.Daily News, 6 July 1852. After two days voting, which witnessed violent skirmishes, the poll was closed early on the second day. Granger was returned in first place with Atherton, by a margin of only four votes, defeating Vane. Despite the newfound harmony in the Conservative camp, the Liberal vote remained united, with Granger and Atherton receiving 482 split votes.Bean, Parliamentary representation, 141.

Vane’s agent immediately prepared a petition, impugning the return on the grounds of the prematurely-closed poll and riot, but Granger’s death at the beginning of August prompted him to offer to drop the intended petition against the surviving Atherton if no opposition was offered to Vane for the now vacant seat. The offer having been rejected, a petition was presented against the return of Atherton, 23 Nov. 1852. This was followed by a further petition, 25 Nov. 1852, claiming that as voters had been prevented from voting for Vane, the return of both Granger and Atherton should be declared void in favour of the Conservative candidate. However, both petitions were withdrawn, 26 Nov. 1852, enabling a new writ to be issued for the vacant seat that day.Ibid., 142. Although the necessary by-election took place, a new petition, signed by five electors, was presented to the Commons, 20 Apr. 1853, complaining that the petition of 25 Nov. had been got up by Atherton’s agent, James Coppock, to delay the issuing of the writ and thereby induce the withdrawal of the 23 Nov. petition against Atherton’s return.Ibid. On 10 May a motion to appoint a select committee to enquire into the withdrawal of the petitions was introduced in the Commons which, after an adjournment followed by a lengthy debate, was subsequently passed, 31 May.Hansard, 10 May 1853, vol. 127, cc. 137-48; 31 May 1853, vol. 127, cc. 956-64. The committee reported that Coppock’s petition of 25 Nov. 1852 had indeed been intended to delay the writ, and was therefore ‘palpably illusory, presenting the remarkable anomaly of opponents of a candidate praying he might be declared duly elected’. The committee criticised Coppock for turning the ‘valuable right of petitioning’ into a ‘weapon of electioneering warfare’, but accepted that Atherton ‘was not cognizant’ of his agent’s actions.PP 1852-53 (649), xii. 478-9.

Meanwhile, at the by-election of December 1852, Vane offered again as Londonderry’s nominee, and was opposed by Henry Fenwick, a Liberal and native of county Durham, who had unsuccessfully contested Sunderland at the last general election. The campaign was dominated by the candidates’ competing claims of ‘independence’. At the nomination, Vane, who insisted that he would not vote for the re-imposition of a duty on corn, declared that he was against the Maynooth grant, and therefore ‘opposed to the opinion of the head of his family on this important point’. He then asked ‘Mr Fenwick to show the same independence’.Newcastle Courant, 3 Dec. 1852. In response, Fenwick stated that the charge of being any kind of nominee was the most ‘low and discreditable’. He then invoked the memory of Richard Wharton’s victory over the Wynyard nominee Michael Angelo Taylor in 1802, and asked ‘the electors of the present day if they were not as independent as their fathers; or would they consent to sit once more under the yoke they freed themselves from’.Ibid. The two candidates also clashed over the freeman vote which, because of the steady rise in their number since 1832, remained a sensitive issue.In 1832, there were 424 resident freemen in Durham city. By 1840 this figure had risen to 576 and by the time of the 1852 general election there were 591 freemen electors: PP 1831-2 (112), xxxvi. 521; PP 1844 (11), xxxviii. 432; PP 1852 (8), xlii. 316. After Vane had suggested that Fenwick supported their disenfranchisement, the latter criticised his opponent’s ‘ignorance on the subject’ and insisted that such a proposal was ‘obnoxious’.Newcastle Courant, 3 Dec. 1852. After a short but intensely bitter campaign, Vane topped the poll, though unsurprisingly given Londonderry’s lavish expenditure during the campaign, an elector petitioned against the return on the grounds of bribery, treating and corruption, 20 Dec. 1852.Nossiter, Influence, opinion and political idioms, 36. The election committee subsequently found that Vane, by his agents, was guilty of bribery, and his return was declared void, 9 June 1853.Bean, Parliamentary representation, 143.

At the subsequent by-election of June 1853 the Liberal candidate, Sir Charles Douglas, who in his published address backed the ballot and a large extension of the franchise, declined to personally canvass, while the Conservative John Mowbray, a lawyer who had inherited estates in county Durham through marriage, was reported to be ‘making the most energetic exertions’.Newcastle Courant, 24 June 1853; The Times, 25 June 1853. Compared to the tumultuous contests of the previous year, the campaign was a relatively muted affair, and Mowbray, who enjoyed Londonderry’s support, was comfortably returned.Daily News, 27 June 1853.

Following Londonderry’s death in March 1854, his widow, Frances Anne Vane-Tempest, assumed responsibility for the family’s interest, and remained intensely watchful of Durham’s political affairs until her death in 1865. The first election since her husband’s death was uneventful. At the 1857 general election Mowbray, who enjoyed Lady Londonderry’s full support, renewed his energetic style of campaigning, and Atherton, who did not make a personal canvass, were returned unopposed.Newcastle Courant, 27 Mar. 1857. The by-election of March 1858, however, revealed potential problems between Lady Londonderry and her candidate. Although Mowbray, following his appointment as judge advocate general, was re-elected without opposition, she had initially instructed Mowbray to decline the post as she did not want to risk a contest. Only after Derby’s intervention, and Mowbray’s pleading that to refuse the post would spoil his career, did she acquiesce.J. Mowbray, Seventy years at Westminster (1900), 140-3; Standard, 18 Mar. 1858.

At the 1859 general election, although a second Conservative candidate was reported to be entering the fray, it came to nothing, and Mowbray and Atherton were again elected without a contest. (The latter was again returned unopposed at the by-election of January 1860 necessitated by his appointment as solicitor-general.)Morning Post, 18 Apr. 1859; Morning Chronicle, 21 Apr. 1859; Daily News, 10 Jan. 1860. Following Atherton’s appointment as attorney-general in July 1861, it was reported that ‘a sort of clerical opposition, or an attempted Conservative reaction on the church-rate question is threatened’, but this also failed to materialise.The Times, 4 July 1861. Moreover, Mowbray’s supporters were keen to avoid a contest, leaving Atherton to be returned unopposed at the subsequent by-election.On 4 July 1861, Lord Loughborough, following his visit to Durham city, reported to Disraeli that Mowbray’s supporters ‘threw as much cold water as they could’ on the notion of a contest: Benjamin Disraeli letters: 1860-1864, 153-4.

With Atherton’s health deteriorating in the summer of 1863, the Carlton Club in London pressed Lady Londonderry to bring forward a Conservative candidate for the expected by-election in the hope of capturing both of the city’s seats. In response, Lady Londonderry wrote a series of letters to Disraeli, informing him that ‘I consider it would be the worst policy in the world to provoke a contest’. She went on to say that ‘the attempts to get up a contest ... can only end in complete failure’ and ‘one marvels at the folly and impertinence of this meddling’.Lady Londonderry to Disraeli, 3 Aug., 12 Aug., 16 Aug. 1863, quoted in Benjamin Disraeli letters: 1860-1864 (2009), ed. M.G. Wiebe, M.S. Miller and A.P. Robson, 292. Derby, who had also been informed by Lady Londonderry of the ‘indiscreet zeal’ of the Carlton, subsequently urged Disraeli to ‘discourage any other activity in the city unless Lady Londonderry’s sanction can be obtained’ as she was ‘too important a personage for us to go against her wishes’.Derby to Disraeli, 6 Aug. 1863, quoted in Benjamin Disraeli letters: 1860-1864, 292. The correspondence revealed not only Lady Londonderry’s entrenched desire to avoid an unnecessary contest, which could, in turn, threaten the safety of Mowbray’s seat, but also the continuing importance attached by the parliamentary leadership to her family’s interest, despite the damage caused by the dictatorial behaviour of Lord Londonderry prior to his rapprochement with the Durham Conservative Association in 1852, and, more generally, the relative decline of the family’s financial muscle since the 1840s. In the event, following the death of Atherton in January 1864, the Conservatives did not offer a candidate. John Henderson, a leading carpet manufacturer who had been actively involved in Durham Liberalism since 1832, was selected at a private meeting of the heads of the local Liberal party, and returned without a contest.Newcastle Courant, 5 Feb. 1864. Mirroring the elections of 1857 and 1859, Mowbray and Henderson were returned unopposed at the 1865 general election, and the former faced no opposition at the 1866 by-election following his appointment as judge advocate general.Newcastle Courant, 13 July 1866.

The 1867 Reform Act increased the borough’s electorate to just over 1,750, a figure that had risen to over 2,000 by the time of the 1874 general election, a relatively modest increase compared to Gateshead and Sunderland, the county’s other two boroughs.The 1867 Reform Act increased Gateshead’s electorate five-fold to over 5,500, while Sunderland’s quadrupled to over 11,000. The 1868 general election, the first to be contested in the city for fifteen years, witnessed the return of Henderson alongside his Liberal colleague, John Davison. Thereafter the Liberals dominated parliamentary elections, the only Conservative success prior to 1885 being at the 1871 by-election following Davison’s death. The Redistribution Act of 1885 reduced the representation of Durham city to a single seat, which, prior to the First World War, was mostly held by a Conservative, save for a Liberal interlude between 1892 and 1898. The borough and its electorate are analysed in Thomas Nossiter’s Influence, Opinion and Political Idioms in Reformed England: Case Studies from the North-east, 1832-74, with particular attention given to the nature of Londonderry’s influence. Alan Heesom’s Durham city and its MPs, 1678-1992 (1992) offers a helpful overview of the borough’s parliamentary elections.