The 1820 Parliament
About forty years ago Austin Mitchell analysed voting behaviour in the 1820 Parliament as part of his study of the Whig party in opposition from 1815 to 1830. He conceded that his ‘method of analysis … does not accord with vague contemporary classifications’, but argued that it ‘does accord with voting habits and is reasonably comprehensive’. He devised the categories of ‘government’, ‘government fringe’, ‘opposition’, ‘opposition fringe’ and ‘waverers’, into which the 683 Members who voted in the divisions examined were placed. The results were:
|
Government |
Government fringe |
Waverers |
Opposition fringe |
Opposition |
|
250 |
99 |
114 |
66 |
154 |
This, he wrote, produced ‘a picture of a House with a two-party system modified by the existence of unreliable groups on the fringes of both sides, and by a cushion group between the two, whose voting record indicates no attachment to either party’.
In the 62 ‘double divisions’, 335 Members voted only with government and 193 only with opposition. This compares with figures of 361 and 206 respectively for the 11 divisions examined by Mitchell. Thus 528 Members, or 66 per cent of the 802 who were returned to this Parliament, voted consistently in these divisions. Forty-six Members cast no known vote in the 372 divisions considered here, although a fair number of them did vote on Catholic relief. A strict application of the criteria used by Mitchell produces the following basic analysis of the 756 Members who voted in these divisions:
|
Government |
Government fringe |
Waverers |
Opposition fringe |
Opposition |
|
204 |
113 |
186 |
113 |
140 |
This suggests an even looser party system than that found by Mitchell, if only because the inclusion of an additional 158 divisions in the analysis increases the potential for detecting wayward voting. An adjustment to this basic analysis can be made by discarding Mitchell’s stringent allowance of a deviation of only one per cent for Members who voted consistently in the ‘double’ divisions but cast wayward votes in one or more of the other 310, which inflates the number of ‘waverers’, and substituting ten per cent.
Thirty-five can reasonably be moved from ‘government fringe’ to ‘government’ by virtue of their steady and general support of the Liverpool ministry and the infrequency of their wayward voting, which often occurred on issues of no great significance. These Members include George Canning, foreign secretary from August 1822; James Brogden, chairman of ways and means; Thomas Courtenay, secretary to the board of control; the Grenvillite William Fremantle, a member of the board of control from February 1822; Charles Grant, Irish secretary until December 1821 and vice-president of the board of trade from April 1823; Michael Nolan, a Welsh judge; Sir Francis Ommanney, a navy agent; William Peel, brother of Robert, the home secretary; and William Vesey Fitzgerald, a former junior minister who rejoined the government in July 1826. A further four Members should be transferred from ‘waverers’ to ‘government’: the Grenvillites Charles Williams Wynn and Joseph Phillimore, president and a member respectively of the board of control from February 1822; Charles Wetherell, who, after a burst of independence over the Queen Caroline affair in 1821, was made solicitor-general in January 1824; and Robert Wilmot Horton, colonial under-secretary from December 1821. This takes the ‘government’ total to 243, seven fewer than Mitchell’s figure. Some 70 of them were office or place-holders. At least 43 Members ought to be transferred from ‘opposition fringe’ to ‘opposition’. They may have divided very occasionally with government, but it would be a nonsense not to include in the ranks of committed opposition Members the following: Alexander Baring (voted 51 times against government); Ralph Bernal (over 200 times); Lord William Cavendish Bentinck (43); Sir Francis Blake (78); Sir John Fenton Boughey (56); Henry Bright (161); Thomas Fowell Buxton (52); John Calcraft (151); Charles Calvert (108); Sir Isaac Coffin (60); William Evans (201); Robert Farrand (49); Robert ‘Bum’ Gordon (209); Pascoe Grenfell (67); Hudson Gurney (44); William Haldimand (79); William James (158); William Leader (65); John Lockhart (43); John Maberly (158); William Leader Maberly (160); Stewart Marjoribanks (110); John Martin (206); John Maxwell (67); Samuel Moulton Barrett (133); Sir John Newport (152); Sir Henry Parnell (94); William Powlett (71); George Purefoy Jervoise (83); David Ricardo (over 200 in four sessions); William Rickford (101); Sir Matthew White Ridley (70); Abraham Robarts (153); George Robarts (150); James Scarlett (105); Sir John Sebright (55); John Smith (107); Robert Percy ‘Bobus’ Smith (60); Lord Stanley (61); John Warre (85); William Wolryche Whitmore (69); Sir Robert Wilson (165); and William Wrixon (48). Some others of the ‘opposition fringe’ have been left in that category because their frequency of voting was not high; but they include such stalwart Whigs as George Agar Ellis, Charles Dundas, Archibald Farquharson, John Foster Barham, Henry Labouchere, Charles Kemeys Tynte, William Maule, George and Samuel Smith, Edward Smith Stanley, William Stewart, Richard Wogan Talbot and Walter Wilkins. Thus the revised figure for ‘opposition’ becomes 183. At 164, the ‘waverers’ are far too numerous. (Four have been moved to ‘government’, as noted above.) A further 69 should be transferred to ‘government fringe’ on the strength of the steadiness of their support for the government and the relative infrequency of their deviations. They include William Courtenay (who voted 29 times with government and against only four); Robert Bransby Cooper (28 for, four against); William Gordon (the same); Michael Prendergast (21 for and two against); Frederick Trench (the same); Robert Downie (20 for and five against); Charles Madryll Cheere (20 for and four against); Sir Miles Nightingall (19 for and two against); and Frank Sotheron (19 for and two against). Lord Hotham voted with government 24 times and George Holme Sumner 19 times; but they deviated nine and eight times respectively. This adjustment makes the final ‘government fringe’ total 165. Of the remaining 95 ‘waverers’, 45 have been moved to ‘opposition fringe’ as Members who divided against the government at least twice as often as they voted with it. ‘Opposition fringe’ thus becomes 115 and ‘waverers’ are reduced to a more realistic 50. This is on a par with contemporary estimates of the number of neutral or unattached Members in 1818, which Mitchell’s analysis led him to believe were significantly inaccurate.
The refined analysis of voting behaviour in this Parliament is therefore as follows:
|
Government |
Government fringe |
Waverers |
Opposition fringe |
Opposition |
|
243 |
165 |
50 |
115 |
183 |
The combined total of ‘government’ and ‘government fringe’ is 408, or 59 more than in Mitchell’s analysis. ‘Opposition’ and ‘opposition fringe’ together account for 298, that is 78 more than Mitchell found. ‘Waverers’ are reduced by 64. In percentage terms, the two analyses compare as follows:
|
G |
GF |
W |
OF |
O |
Number voting |
|
|
Mitchell |
37 |
14 |
17 |
10 |
22 |
683 |
|
Here |
32 |
22 |
7 |
15 |
24 |
756 |
Firm allegiance to a party operated among some 56 per cent of Members, while a further 37 per cent were more tenuously attached, though in the majority of cases the extent of their deviation was comparatively slight. The theoretical figure of 408 potential supporters of the Liverpool ministry is almost the same as that of 411 in 1818 suggested by Professor Peter Jupp; but the figure for potential opposition, at 297, is very much greater than the 198 which he found in 1818. However, the hard core of 182 oppositionists identified here is close to that total.
As Mitchell observed, this was a House in which the ministry could rely on a majority in normal circumstances. At the same time, it was one in which, given the right combination of factors, it could occasionally be defeated on a specific issue. In the 372 divisions scrutinized for this survey, ministers were defeated only nine times: on a motion for repeal of the additional malt duty, 21 Mar. 1821 (149-125); Lord Normanby’s proposal to abolish one of the joint-postmasterships, 2 May 1822 (216-201); Sir James Mackintosh’s motion to consider criminal law reform, 4 June 1822 (117-101); the third reading of Henry Grey Bennet’s public house licensing bill, 27 June 1822 (38-21); Sir Francis Burdett’s motion for inquiry into the Irish administration’s prosecution of the Dublin Orange theatre rioters who had threatened the lord lieutenant, 22 Apr. 1823 (219-185); the second reading of the Scottish juries bill, a Whig measure, 20 June 1823 (47-42); the second reading of the St. Olave (Hart Street) tithe bill, which was sponsored likewise, 6 June 1825 (55-36); Lord John Russell’s motion for inquiry into the petition of James Silk Buckingham concerning the freedom of the press in India, 9 May 1826 (43-40); and his resolutions condemning electoral bribery, 26 May 1826 (62-62, but carried by the Speaker’s casting vote as being merely declaratory). Only the first two and Burdett’s success signified much; and the vote on the malt duty was emphatically reversed (242-144) by a government rally against the second reading of the repeal bill, 3 Apr. 1821. This recurrent feature of the period, the reliance on and occasional expedient mustering by ministers of their unthinking lobby fodder, was publicly satirized in verse by the maverick ‘opposition fringe’ Member Edward Davies Davenport in 1823:
Hark! the loud flappings of the lobby door
Announces the lab’rers of the eleventh hour:
Like gulls or cormorants at evening tide,
Some scream out, ‘Question!’, some ‘Divide, Divide!’
Some cry, ‘Hear, hear!’ when all around are mute,
And thus create the nuisance they impute;
While, as the bird in ivy-bush demure,
The Speaker suffers what he cannot cure.
If, as at times will happen, England’s fate,
Or Empire’s freedom, hang on the debate,
Though rhetoric not unworthy ancient Rome
Bring to the unwilling breast conviction home,
Still to his object true, the clamorous brute
Dumbfounds the logic which he can’t refute;
Till once victorious, and well counted out,
The blockheads ask you, ‘What it’s all about?’
 E.D. Davenport, The Golden Age (1823), pp. 9-10.
The antipathy of the vast majority of the government’s ‘fringe’ or general supporters and of many of the ‘waverers’ to the prospect of a Whig ministry made them reluctant to carry their opposition to measures too far and ready to rally to ministers if they cracked the whip. In any case, those who cast wayward votes were only exercising what they considered their right to follow their conscientious judgement on specific issues. This was part of the rhetorical stock-in-trade of ministerialist backbenchers on the hustings and in the House. Constituency pressures also influenced the votes of some Members, especially those for counties and the larger boroughs. These attitudes and the responsiveness of backbenchers, who were not beholden to a party for their seats, to constituency opinion, persisted after 1832, as events during Peel’s second ministry, 1841-6, amply demonstrated.
At the general election of 1820, the Whig opposition, who had performed creditably in resisting the government’s post-Peterloo repressive legislation, probably gained about ten seats overall.
the interest respecting the queen seems to be subsiding quietly, as … everything which is so very foolish must in time. The Whigs blundered the business … Whilst the trial was going on, there was undoubtedly a strong, real, vivid feeling; but after the bill was given up, the feeling that was manufactured was for the most part fictitious, belonging to party and excited by the Whigs themselves. If they had remained quiet and adopted the tone of wishing to tranquillize the country out of doors, I think they would have had a better chance of attacking the ministry within. As it was, they did what they always will do when they make a manifest reach at power. They called forth a very strong expression on the part of the House of Commons that however much they might disapprove of the ministers, they dreaded the opposition still more.
Herts. Archives, Panshanger mss D/Elb F78.
The voting in the divisions of 26 Jan., 6 and 13 Feb. 1821 confirms this:
|
Govt. |
Govt. Fringe |
Waverers |
Oppn. Fringe |
Oppn. |
|
|
Govt. vote |
189 |
101 |
26 |
17 |
|
|
Mixed votes |
6 |
4 |
5 |
||
|
One oppn. vote |
1 |
2 |
10 |
10 |
|
|
Two oppn. votes |
13 |
32 |
|||
|
Three oppn. votes |
2 |
22 |
119 |
||
|
Totals |
189 |
108 |
34 |
67 |
146 |
Thus a third of the ‘opposition fringe’ who voted divided three times against government, but as many sided with them against the censure motion. Eight of the 34 ‘waverers’ who voted cast at least one vote against government, but half of these plus 26 others divided with them on 6 Feb. Only seven of the ‘government fringe’ cast a vote against the ministry, but six of them, plus 101 of the 108 who voted, were in their majority against the censure motion.
The ministry was strengthened at the turn of the year by Robert Peel’s replacement of Lord Sidmouth as home secretary and, more controversially, by the recruitment of the Grenvillites, who offered a theoretical 11 votes in the Commons, at the cost of a dukedom for Buckingham and office for Williams Wynn, Fremantle, Phillimore and William Plunket.
|
Govt. Fringe |
Waverers |
Oppn. Fringe |
Oppn. |
|
|
Salt, 28 Feb. |
11 |
7 |
31 |
118 |
|
Admiralty, 1 Mar. |
20 |
15 |
30 |
114 |
|
Paymaster, 2 May |
12 |
19 |
45 |
143 |
|
Diplomacy, 15 May |
1 |
0 |
21 |
127 |
|
Swiss embassy, 16 May |
0 |
1 |
21 |
114 |
|
Crown 24 June |
0 |
1 |
7 |
102 |
While the number of hostile votes from the opposition and its ‘fringe’ remained high, those from the ‘government fringe’ and the ‘waverers’ became almost non-existent from mid-May 1822.
that Burdett was the only man fit to be the leader [of the party in the Commons] and [asked] whether Burdett would be active and … would take a great place in case the ministers were driven out. He told me that he had reason to believe Lord Grey was not averse to the arrangement and that he knew Lord Holland was not.
Hobhouse sounded Burdett, who said
he would undertake anything that would forward the great cause of reform for which he had been contending all his life; that if the party thought he could serve them he would be at their disposal to lead, to take office or to do anything … understanding always that reform was to be the basis of their whole plan.
Tavistock evidently tried and largely failed to secure sufficient influential support for this fanciful project, which had ended in smoke by mid-June 1822.
The intensity of party conflict diminished markedly in the following four sessions, as more liberal government policies and the lifting of distress took effect. Of the divisions used for this survey, 17 occurred in 1820, 91 in 1821, and 88 in 1822—a total of 196, or an average of 65 per session. There were 66 in 1823, 47 in 1824, 29 in 1825 and 34 in 1826—a total of 176 or an average of 44 per session. There were party clashes on foreign policy and Ireland (including the ex-officio prosecutions of the Dublin Orange rioters, on which the government was beaten by a combination of regular oppositionists and defectors from their own ‘fringe’, 22 Apr. 1823). A minority of 136 (to 184) voted for inquiry into the state of Ireland, 11 May 1824. The government’s bill to suppress the Catholic Association was stoutly but of course unavailingly resisted in February 1825. Parliamentary reform received an airing in 1823, when motions for general reform, 24 Apr., and reform in Scotland, 2 June, were defeated by 280-169 and 152-117 respectively. The issue went into abeyance until April 1826, when Russell’s renewed motion received a respectable 123 votes (against 247). Most Whigs were now firmly in favour of reform. Brougham’s motion condemning the prosecution of the Methodist missionary John Smith for inciting slaves in Demerara to riot, 11 June 1824, attracted ‘government fringe’ and ‘waverer’ support and was beaten by 193-146. There was spirited opposition to the grant for the duke of Cumberland and his son Prince George in 1825, when some ‘government fringe’ Members and ‘waverers’ boosted the opposition minorities. The proposal to separate the offices of president of the board of trade and treasurer of the navy and award each a ministerial salary was only carried by 87-76, 10 Apr. 1826, and was subsequently abandoned.
Observe our friends, in-doors on gala days,
Like bulls in harness bearing different ways;
One eye on Britain’s weal intently fixed,
The other leers at objects somewhat mixed:
Hope-pleasure-wife-small babes-desire of peace—
(In other words, of funded stock’s increase)
Reform-the Tithe-the Debt-(would you refuse
A truly Christian sympathy for Jews?).
When mortals are so puzzled to look straight,
No wonder many shuffle in their gait …
Our Monster chuckles; he may well prevail
O’er forces (who scarce molest him) in detail;
While Hume like Sisyphus pursues his toil,
Scoffed by the recreant owners of the soil,
Or Burdett speaks, we listen in despair
To Truth’s loud thunders howled in empty air;
The House divides, and lo! her sacred ends
Fall half-defeated by—inconstant friends.
Davenport, 9-10.
In 1824 the Irish Member Henry Westenra reported that ‘parties in the House are at so very low an ebb at the moment … that people do not now so much look after making an interest to stick by them always, as they did in the days of Fox and Pitt’.
The 1826 Parliament
After his return for Cambridge University, with Whig support, at the 1826 general election, the pro-Catholic war secretary Lord Palmerston wrote to his brother:
As to the commonplace balance between opposition and government, the election will have little effect upon it. The government are as strong as any government can wish to be, as far as regards those who sit facing them; but in truth the real opposition of the present day sit behind the treasury bench; and it is by the stupid old Tory party, who bawl out the memory and praises of Pitt while they are opposing all the measures and principles which he held most important … that the progress of the government in every improvement which they are attempting is thwarted and impeded. On the Catholic question, on the principles of commerce, on the corn laws, on the settlement of the currency, on the laws regulating the trade in money, on colonial slavery, on the game laws … the government find support from the Whigs and resistance from their self-denominated friends. However, the young squires are more liberal than the old ones, and we must hope that heaven will protect us from our friends, as it has from our enemies.
Bulwer, Palmerston, i. 171-2.
The Catholic question was the major issue in many constituencies at the 1826 general election, and it was reckoned that overall those hostile to relief gained about 13 seats, mostly in open English constituencies. This was borne out when Sir Francis Burdett’s motion of 6 Mar. 1827 to consider Catholic claims was defeated (for the first time since 3 May 1819) by 276-272.
present situation is … most unpleasant. We lose in opinion by supporting the liberal part of the ministry, and when we fight a battle in the elections we find the whole force of government at work to oppose us … I am glad to be out of such a mess. Last session I voted with ministers even when I thought their measures imprudent and ill-timed, because I thought their general views sound and liberal. But I believe the only way is to say boldly what one thinks of their base compromise [on Catholic relief], and support nothing that is not undeniably a wise and well timed measure.
Add. 51677, Russell to Holland, 23 June [1826].
In October 1826 Russell’s uncle Lord William Russell encouraged him to propose his reform scheme as early as possible in the new Parliament, where ‘there are not wanting numbers indisposed to the ministry as it is now constituted, but there is wanting a right tone to the opposition’;
Liverpool’s stroke and the eventual appointment of the pro-Catholic Canning as head of a ministry in coalition with the Whig followers of Lord Lansdowne, who, backed by Holland, had assumed the overall leadership of the party in place of the largely inactive Lord Grey, ushered in a four-session period of confusion and fragmentation in the party political situation in the Commons. The Whig James Macdonald, urging Lansdowne to throw in his lot with Canning in mid-April, reported that Lord Duncannon had told him that ‘the opposition’, before the junction, ‘may be fairly taken at 200’;
the strangest jumble and mixture of parties that ever assembled in one room. There will be: the actual government; the seceders opposed; the seceders supporting government; some late supporters of government who will not vote at all. There will be: Whigs supporting government; Whigs against the government and the Mountain against all government. How to calculate upon the relative numbers of these different bodies is quite impossible at this time.
Lonsdale mss, Lowther to Lonsdale, 23, 24 Apr. 1827.
Canning himself professed confidence of an ‘immense’ government majority in any party trial of strength. At the same time, the ministry had its own internal tensions, including over whipping arrangements.
Wellington, asked by the king to form an administration, restored Peel and several of the anti-Catholic seceders, but also took into his cabinet the Canningite ex-ministers William Huskisson, Lord Palmerston, Charles Grant and Lord Dudley. This was done rather against his own preference and at the insistence of Peel, who saw that an exclusively Protestant government could not stand and wanted some able support in the Commons, which he was to lead as home secretary. He told his wife, ‘I cannot undertake the business … without more assistance than the mere Tory party … would afford me’. When the ministry had been settled he asked the Irish under-secretary William Gregory:
What must have been the inevitable fate of a government composed of [Henry] Goulburn, Sir John Beckett, [Sir Charles] Wetherell, and myself? Supported by very warm friends, no doubt, but no more than warm friends, being prosperous country gentlemen, fox-hunters, most excellent men, who will attend one night, but who will not leave their favourite pursuits to sit up till two or three o’clock fighting questions of detail on which … a government must have a majority. We could not have stood creditably a fortnight.
Peel Letters, 103-7; Add. 40334, f. 197; N. Gash, Mr. Secretary Peel (1985 edn.), 454.
Peel probably did not need to have his attention drawn at the end of January by the Huskissonite Edward Littleton to ‘the most important party’ in the Commons, which consisted of ‘a few young men’, including Lords Eliot and Sandon and John Stuart Wortley, who ‘hang much together, and who though having different party connections [are] all united … against high Tory principles’.
To consider the Commons opposition to the Wellington ministry in the 1828 session, 33 minority lists have been used. Only nine of these divisions occurred in the period 11 Feb.-20 May, that is before the resignation of the Huskissonites; the remainder took place between 5 June and 14 July, with the bulk of them between 16 June and 4 July. Government majority lists have been found for three: on chancery delays, 24 Apr.; the ordnance estimates, 4 July, when the muster was 204 (second only to that of 258 on the East Retford question, 2 June); and the customs bill, 14 July. A total of 217 Members (33 per cent of the House) cast only opposition votes in one or more of these divisions; but only 64, the usual Whig and radical suspects, divided at least seven times. A further 47 cast between four and six hostile votes. These too were Whigs and radicals, with the exception of the anti-Catholic Tory Sir Richard Vyvyan. The remaining 106 included at least 50 Whigs, with the addition of a number of anti-Catholic Tories, some independent Members and the Huskissonites Charles Grant, Jermyn, Lascelles, Liddell, Loch and Warrender. The core of reasonably active Whigs therefore numbered about 111, with a further 50 or so in the wings.
In July 1828 the Whigs Sir James Graham and Smith Stanley hankered after the formation of ‘a party in the House of Commons upon some broad and intelligible principle, without any reference to leaders in the House of Lords or without any direct compact with’ the unpredictable Brougham.
England is fast sinking in the scale of nations under the administration of the duke … His conduct in permitting the British empire to be distracted … and verging towards a civil war, from a base fear of the basest of factions, the English Tory aristocracy, must damn him to all posterity. A liberal party surely must be formed, I care not under whom, to prevent … (and it must be a bold-spirited, uncompromising party) … our further degradation abroad, and our dissolution at home.
Duke Univ. Lib. Fazakerley mss, Macdonald to Fazakerley, 10 Nov. 1828.
The leading Whigs corresponded and talked as the year turned and reached an agreement in principle to ‘fight the Catholic question resolutely as a party’, as Lansdowne put it. There were, however, disagreements over tactics, and it remained unclear who would take the lead.
The government’s pragmatic concession of Catholic emancipation in February 1829 took the wind out of the Whigs’ sails. It also made the party situation in the Commons even more fluid and unpredictable than it had been since April 1827 and had consequences which ultimately helped to wreck the administration. In his early February calculations of the probable attitude of all current Members, Joseph Planta, the bungling patronage secretary to the treasury, calculated that on routine issues the government could draw on a theoretical maximum support of about 414, while the ‘regular opposition’ and their fringe sympathizers numbered about 219 at most.
anxious to prevent Lord Grey’s party from rejoining the Whigs because it would make a most formidable opposition in case any of our old friends should continue to stand aloof, because Lord Grey and his friends behaved well towards us when we went out, because … the taking of one or two of them would be sufficient to effect our object and … because I feel strongly that the violent and bitter Tories would be kept better in order if it were made evident that we had not to depend solely upon them.
Add. 40340, f. 213.
Wellington did take in the Whigs Lord Rosslyn (with Grey’s lukewarm consent) in May and Scarlett (as attorney-general) in June 1829, as part of his policy of picking off individual oppositionists as opportunities offered.
The following analysis of opposition voting patterns in the Commons after the passage of Catholic emancipation is based on 11 minority division lists, 1 May-5 June 1829. They include two on the East Retford question, 5 May (after which Palmerston commented, prematurely, that ‘parties are returning to their ancient demarcations’)
In the autumn of 1829 Vyvyan, who harboured fanciful hopes of replacing the Wellington ministry with a coalition administration dominated by the Ultras, calculated that the Commons contained 35 ‘Tories strongly opposed’ to the duke’s ministry: Astley, Attwood, Edmund and John Bastard, Matthew Bell, Blandford, William Dickinson, William Duncombe, Lord Encombe, Richard Fountayne Wilson, Fyler, Clinton Fynes Clinton, Sir William Heathcote, Arthur Holdsworth, Sir Robert Inglis, Henry King, Knatchbull, Henry Maxwell, Nathaniel Peach, William Peachey, Rickford, Gustavus Rochfort, Sir George and George Pitt Rose, Michael Sadler, Sotheron, Trant, Lord Tullamore, Vyvyan, Waldo Sibthorp, George Watson Taylor, John Wells, Wetherell, Henry Willoughby and James Wilson. He believed, too, that there were many potential recruits among the large number of Members whose views on a putative coalition were unknown to him.
There appear to be four distinct parties preparing for Parliament. First, government. Second, a direct and entire opposition led by Lord Palmerston … with Charles Grant and the ex-liberals, etc. … [with] a large support from our friends, who have only made the condition that Huskisson is not to lead … and on this point they willingly give up their leader Lord Lansdowne. The third party are what they call the Watchers, under … Althorp … and to this I fear Brougham proposes to attach himself. The fourth, the discontented and still more bitter old Tories, who will make no peace with Peel and are probably the most formidable, backed as they are by the distress and loud complaints from every part of the country.
Grey mss, Ellice to Grey, 18 Jan. [1830].
The potential vulnerability of the government (which Wellington had tried to strengthen further by making James Abercromby chief baron of the Scottish exchequer court and recruiting to junior office the Huskissonites Frankland Lewis and Stuart Wortley) was revealed on the address, 4 Feb. 1830, when Knatchbull’s amendment deploring the reference in the king’s speech to distress as local and calling for general measures of relief was defeated by 158-105, with the aid of the votes of about two dozen Whigs and radicals: Charles Barclay, Sir Francis Blake, Thomas Fowell Buxton, Sheldon Cradock, Lord Patrick Crichton Stuart, Alexander Dawson, John Easthope, Maurice Fitzgerald, Hobhouse, Lords Hotham and Howick, Hume, John Savile Lumley, William Marshall, Monck, Sir Henry Parnell, George Philips, Edward Protheroe, Charles Rumbold, Paulet St. John Mildmay, William Smith, Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, Taylor, Warburton, William Wolryche Whitmore and Edward Wynne Pendarves.
I know the looks of the House of Commons. The Ultra Tories will never … give us votes … The Canning party will only support us when they feel they have been previously committed to our line of conduct. The Whigs are behaving most shabbily … With compliments in their mouths they will try to destroy us because they see they are not to be taken in as a body. Our own friends have many of them committed themselves against us upon the subject of some of the taxes; and if we are obdurate I firmly believe that with three hostile parties we should have behind us nearly empty benches.
Add. 40340, f. 220.
The Huskissonites had decided by this time to adopt ‘not a position of opposition but of observation’, so that, as Denison put it, they could ‘obtain a recognized character of independence and fairness in the House’.
For all this, government musters did improve significantly during the first few weeks of the session, but a move towards greater cohesion by the Whigs exposed them to the threat of a powerful combined attack from early March. According to Fortescue, a ‘notion among us Whigs of organizing ourselves into a party, to act under the joint leadership of Althorp and Brougham’, had foundered;
The potential threat to the government was revealed on 26 Mar. 1830, when a Whig amendment to abolish the sinecure pensions of the sons of the cabinet ministers Lords Bathurst and Melville was carried by 139-121. They were also beaten by 115-97 on the Huskissonite Robert Grant’s motion for leave to introduce a Jewish emancipation bill, 5 Apr., but got up numbers to kill the measure by 63 votes on 17 May. Mackintosh’s motion to abolish the death penalty for most forgery offences was carried against the ministry by 13 votes, 7 June. As the Whig opposition increased in strength and unity in May and June, the government, whose weakness in debate, where Peel and Goulburn received little useful support from their official colleagues, did not help matters, saw its majorities on a range of routine issues diminish alarmingly. The 300 muster which Billy Holmes, the beleaguered whip, assured the cabinet minister Lord Ellenborough he could get ‘on any great question’ was a theoretical rather than realistic figure; and Goulburn told Peel during his absence from the House on account of his father’s death that ‘the state of the king’s health and the prospect of an early dissolution’ were encouraging ‘the country gentlemen who usually support us’ to curry favour with constituents by questioning or opposing government expenditure.
Excluding those on Jewish emancipation, six divisions have yielded lists of ministerial voters: the majorities against the transfer of East Retford’s seats to Birmingham, 11 Feb. (126), Blandford’s reform plan, 18 Feb. (160) and Russell’s motion for the enfranchisement of Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, 23 Feb. (188); for the grant for South American missions, 7 June (118), and in defence of the judges’ salaries proposed in the administration of justice bill, 7 July (37); and the minority against abolition of the death penalty for forgery, 7 June (138). A total of 338 Members (51 per cent of the House) voted in at least one of these divisions. Of these, 120 Tories had opposed Catholic emancipation, including 24 of those listed as Ultras by Vyvyan in October 1829. Seventy-seven of the opponents of emancipation who were still in the House did not vote with ministers in any of these divisions. Only 162 Members, of whom at least 37 were official men, cast exclusively ministerial votes: they included 46 who had opposed emancipation, among them two of Vyvyan’s Ultras (Fountayne Wilson and Sotheron) and four office-holders (George Bankes, Sir John Beckett, Sir Alexander Hope and Lord Lowther) who had voted against emancipation. The number of Members who voted with the government in at least three of the six divisions, some of whom also cast isolated hostile votes, was 131; a quarter were office-holders. Forty-four had opposed emancipation, including six of Vyvyan’s Ultras: Astley, the Bastards, Peachey, Sotheron and James Wilson. Analysis of the opposition to the ministry in this session is based on lists from 67 divisions. Of the Ultras identified by Vyvyan, 17 were in regular opposition: Attwood, Bell, Blandford, Dickinson, Duncombe, Encombe, Fyler, Heathcote, Inglis, Knatchbull, Rickford, Sadler, Trant, Vyvyan, Wetherell, Wells and Waldo Sibthorp. Of these, Bell, Duncombe, Encombe, Heathcote, Inglis, Knatchbull, Rickford, Sadler, Vyvyan, Wetherell and Waldo Sibthorp voted with government on at least one occasion. Fynes Clinton cast four hostile votes and Sir George Rose one. Quintin Dick, though not classified as an Ultra by Vyvyan, had voted against emancipation and divided ten times against the government. Eleven Ultras gave mixed votes but did not oppose ministers on a regular basis: Astley, the Bastards, King, Maxwell, Peach, Peachey, Rochfort, George Pitt Rose, Willoughby and Wilson. As previously noted, Fountayne Wilson (one vote) and Sotheron (four) divided only with the government. Holdsworth, Tullamore and Watson Taylor did not vote in any of the divisions under consideration.
Ministers have no secure majority, for whenever the old opposition and the Ultras can agree on any subject, they must be left in a minority. The duke of Wellington has certainly done more for the country than any former minister, but it is not enough to meet the necessities of the times; the country begins to be tired of his despotism … The gratitude the old opposition has felt for the carrying the Catholic bill has more than once saved the administration; but this is fast wearing out, and their only safeguard now is the fear of their successors.
Heron, Notes, 183-4.
The 1830 Parliament
The general election necessitated by the death of George IV did not clarify the political situation. The ministry emerged from it with no more reliable Commons adherents than before and with its prestige and authority seriously damaged by embarrassing defeats and poor returns in open constituencies, the failure of its attempt to turn out leading Huskissonites and a widespread revolt against aristocratic control in the counties by lesser gentry and small farmers. The demand for parliamentary reform was voiced in many constituencies, obliging numerous candidates to pledge themselves to support it, with varying degrees of sincerity. Although the electoral impact of news of the French revolution was minimal, it had some effect subsequently, while the Brussels uprising at the end of August, autumn unrest and strikes in industrial Lancashire, where the trade union movement had gained strength, and the outbreak of rural ‘Swing’ disorder from the end of October enhanced the view of many of the governing class that it would be more dangerous to resist than to concede a measure of reform.
The death of Huskisson was followed by approaches to his followers by both Lord Grey, as leader of the revived Whig opposition, and the duke of Wellington. Palmerston and Lord Melbourne (as William Lamb now was) responded encouragingly to Grey’s feeler, but Wellington’s attempt to recruit Palmerston, with Lord Clive acting as intermediary, dragged on for five weeks and ended in failure. The Whigs attempted in late October to co-ordinate their strategy for the forthcoming session, but with Russell temporarily out of the House following his defeat at Bedford and the impetuous Brougham, flushed with his success in Yorkshire, claiming the lead on reform, it was not straightforward. However, Wellington made their task much easier with his declaration in the Lords, 2 Nov. 1830, against any measure of parliamentary reform. Whatever his motives, the effect was to convince many moderate men that his government was moribund and that reform was almost inevitable. John Stuart Wortley, a junior member of the government, confided to the cabinet minister Lord Ellenborough his belief that the duke’s declaration had done for them, as it had ‘made it impossible for any to join them, and upon the question of reform it is doubtful if we should have numbers enough’.
The universal opinion is that they must go out. The duke is execrated by the mob … most unpopular with the monied men in the City … and almost abandoned by his own party, who openly say (even his subalterns, Ashley, Wortley, etc.) that he ought to give it up, and make way for Lord Grey.
A. Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party (1927), p. 288.
After discussion, the cabinet decided to resist Brougham’s motion with a direct negative.
It is no longer the cry of the turbulent and disaffected. The most sober and peaceable classes are now sharing fully in anxiety for something of the kind … Those who have had much intercourse with their constituents are quite astounded at the change … Granville [Ryder, his brother] and I are both much embarrassed. Perhaps he is rather more of a reformer than I am, but more anxious than I am that the carrying of the question should not be the destruction of the ministry. I believe we shall vote for … [reform], though reluctantly, but thinking the current is too strong to be permanently resisted, and that early concession is better and more effective than late.
Harrowby mss.
On 11 Nov. 1830 the House divided 150-24 against Daniel O’Connell’s motion for repeal of the Irish Subletting Act. The minority was composed of 19 Irish Members, plus Sir Henry Bunbury, Thomas Denman, Joseph Hume and Lord Francis Osborne, all listed as ‘foes’ by Planta; Philip Howard ( ‘bad doubtfuls’); and John Hodgson and James Johnston ( ‘good doubtfuls’). Of the Irish contingent, only four (James Grattan, Jephson, Lambert and O’Connell) had been reckoned hostile by Mahony (all deemed to be ‘foes’ by Planta), while seven had been listed as ‘neutrals’ (Lord Brabazon, Alexander Dawson, Lord Killeen, William Macnamara, the O’Conor Don, Richard O’Ferrall and Thomas Wyse). Planta had more accurately rated six of these as ‘foes’ and Killeen as an ‘enemy’ among the ‘doubtful doubtfuls’. Mahony had counted eight as supporters of the government: William Browne, Sir John Burke, Richard Fitzgibbon, Ralph Howard, Nicholas Leader, Standish O’Grady, Edward Ruthven and William Smith O’Brien. Planta had listed only Browne and Smith O’Brien as ‘friends’, Leader and Ruthven as ‘foes’, Fitzgibbon, Howard and O’Grady as ‘bad doubtfuls’, and Burke as one of the ‘doubtful doubtfuls’. On 12 Nov. 41 Members voted in the minority (against a government muster of 138) for Parnell’s motion for a reduction of the duty on wheat imported to the West Indies. Thirty of these were Planta’s ‘foes’. The remainder consisted of the Huskissonites Charles Grant, Palmerston and Smith; William Evans and Charles Williams Wynn of the ‘bad doubtfuls’ (both endorsed ‘opposition’); two ‘doubtful doubtfuls’ (Killeen and Marryat, who had been reckoned ‘surely a friend’); John Weyland of the ‘good doubtfuls; Neil Malcolm of the ‘moderate Ultras’, and two ‘friends’, Montague Chapman and William Douglas.
Brougham’s reform motion never came before the House, for on 15 Nov. 1830 Parnell moved for inquiry into the civil list, with a view to making greater reductions than those proposed by the government. To the surprise of Wellington and most of his colleagues, the motion for inquiry was carried by 233-204. Grey’s son Lord Howick thought the speech in support of it by the influential veteran Tory backbencher Henry Bankes ‘did a great deal more for us than any other’.
I believe many of those who voted against the government were sincerely voting for it when they found they were in a majority which they did not in the least expect and had only intended … a bit of populism in voting against government on a finance question.
NAS GD157/2411/18/1.
Charles Russell, the new Member for Reading, who was criticized by some of his constituents for his vote in the ministerial minority, reckoned that ‘even the opposition … raised but little clamour about the amount of the civil list’, and was ‘positive’ that ‘the effect of the division … was not foreseen, and that if it had been, many who voted in the majority would have supported the ministers’. He, however, had regarded it as a question not of ‘economy’ but of ‘whether the duke of Wellington or Lord Grey should be premier’.
so reluctant … was I to give a vote against the party with which I had hitherto acted, … I hesitated to the last moment; and did not … go out into the lobby until I saw Sir Thomas Acland do so, of whose honesty and independence I had conceived the very highest opinion.
Memoirs of the Chief Incidents in the Public Life of Sir George Staunton (1856), pp. 110-11, 115.
Sandon, who also voted against the ministry, welcomed their resignation because ‘nothing is so bad as a government that does not make itself respected in times such as these’.
The actual breakdown of the voting of all county Members was as follows:
|
Against government |
With government |
|
|
England |
49 |
15 |
|
Wales |
2 |
4 |
|
Scotland |
4 |
19 |
|
Ireland |
29 |
11 |
Thus the English county Members who voted divided 77 to 23 per cent against the government, and the Irish did so by 72 to 28 per cent. Of the English county Members listed as ‘friends’ by Planta in September, six voted against the government: Astley (Wiltshire), Walter Burrell (Sussex), Robert Palmer (Berkshire), William Stuart (Bedfordshire), Charles Tyrell (Suffolk) and Sir John Tyrell (Essex). Planta had queried the allegiance of Astley and Tyrell of Essex. Seven of the ‘friends’ did not vote: Lord Chandos (Buckinghamshire), Charles Chaplin (Lincolnshire), Henry Lowther (Westmorland), Sir John Lowther (Cumberland), Henry Lygon (Worcestershire), Lord Robert Manners (Leicestershire) and Charles Morgan (Monmouthshire). The 15 county Member ‘friends’ who rallied to the ministry were Matthew Bell (Northumberland), William Cartwright (Northamptonshire), Sir John Cotterell (Herefordshire), Dugdale Dugdale (Warwickshire), Wilbraham Egerton (Cheshire), John Fleming (Hampshire), Sir Rowland Hill (Shropshire), Lord Lowther (Westmorland), Francis Mundy (Derbyshire), Norreys (Oxfordshire), Lord William Powlett (Durham), Lords Granville and Robert Somerset (Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire), Frank Sotheron (Nottinghamshire) and Lord Strathavon (Huntingdonshire). While only two of the Members for large boroughs who had been classed as friends voted in the majority, namely Schonswar (Kingston-upon-Hull) and Henry Willoughby (Newark), and 16 divided with government, nine were absent. Overall, the ministerial minority was made up of 179 ‘friends’; ten ‘good doubtfuls’ (of whom Planta had reckoned all but Robert King to be ‘friends’); six ‘doubtful doubtfuls’, of whom Marryat and Tunno had been considered friendly; one of the ‘bad doubtfuls’ (James Barlow Hoy), six ‘moderate Ultras’ (Ormsby Gore, Palk, Pollen, Samuel Grove Price, Sir George Henry Rose and Evelyn Shirley, with Palk and Pollen having been described as ‘sincere’ friends), and two ‘violent Ultras’, Sir Roger Gresley and Arthur Hill Trevor. The hostile majority was composed of 139 ‘foes’; 11 ‘doubtful doubtfuls’, of whom Sir John Burke had been reckoned ‘government’ by Mahony; 15 ‘bad doubtfuls’ (including the ‘violent Ultra’ Attwood), of whom James Browne, Richard Fitzgibbon and Ralph Howard had been listed as ‘government’ by Mahony, though Planta had expected Fitzgibbon to ‘oppose’; eight Huskissonites (the Grants, Littleton, Palmerston, Ryder, Sandon, Smith and Warrender); 15 ‘moderate Ultras’ (Bateson, Holme Sumner, Kerrison, Anthony and Thomas Lefroy, Legh, George Legh Keck, Lord John George Lennox, Neil Malcolm, Lords Mandeville, Newark and Tullamore, Rochfort, Henry Willoughby and John Wilson Patten; Bateson had been reckoned ‘government’ by Mahony, Holme Sumner, Legh and Willoughby endorsed ‘friend’ by Planta); 16 ‘violent Ultras’ (Lewis Buck, Quintin Dick, Arthur and William Duncombe, Lord Encombe, Thomas Fyler, Clinton Fynes Clinton, Sir William Heathcote, Lloyd Kenyon, Henry King, Sir Edward Knatchbull, Henry Maxwell, Michael Sadler, Lord Stormont, Sir Richard Vyvyan and Charles Waldo Sibthorp; Maxwell had been listed as ‘government’ by Mahony); and, crucially, no fewer than 20 Members who had been listed as ‘friends’. These were Acheson, Astley, Edward Bainbridge, James Bradshaw, William Browne, Walter Burrell, William Douglas, Thomas Grimston Bucknall Estcourt, Edward Thomas Foley, George Harris, John Lee, Lyne Stephens, Robert Palmer, Richard Price, William Stuart, George Tudor, Charles and Sir John Tyrell, Lord Valentia and Glynn Welby. Nine of these men were county Members. Thus of Planta’s 309 ‘friends’ (excluding the Speaker), 179 (58 per cent) divided with government and 20 (six per cent) against, while 110 (36 per cent) were absent. Of those who voted, 90 per cent went with government and ten against. Of the 145 Tory opponents of Catholic emancipation who were re-elected in 1830, 34 voted against and 54 with government on the civil list.
Lord Grey formed his aristocratic and nepotistic coalition (but essentially Whig) ministry and set Russell, Duncannon, Sir James Graham and Lord Durham to work on drawing up proposals for reform, in conjunction with himself and Althorp, chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House. On other issues the new government soon ran into trouble in the Commons. Their economical reforms disappointed those who had expected substantial reductions in expenditure, for which there was little scope, and Althorp’s disastrous first budget of February 1831 had to be substantially modified. His proposed tax on transfers of real and funded property caused outrage in the City, but his subsequent decision to drop it annoyed the country gentlemen. His alteration of the coal duties and proposal to tax raw cotton were also highly contentious. The only division list to survive from this period is that of the minority of seven radicals who voted to reduce the army by 10,000 men on 21 Feb. 1831. They were Charles Buller, Hume, Henry Hunt (sensationally returned for Preston in December 1830), the O’Gorman Mahon, Daniel O’Connell, Warburton and John Wood. To these can be added nine Members who had voted in both the minorities of 11 and 12 Nov. 1830: Bunbury, Alexander Dawson, Jephson, Killeen, James Lambert, Leader, Macnamara, O’Ferrall, and Wyse. All but Buller, Bunbury, Hume, Hunt, Warburton and Wood were Irish Members. Meanwhile, some of the former ministers, notably Ellenborough, Arbuthnot, Sir Henry Hardinge, Planta, Holmes and John Herries, had quickly rallied to organize the Tories in opposition, and by the start of the 1831 session they had set up Planta’s Charles Street house as a headquarters, with Edward Fitzgerald as a paid secretary. However, reunification was hampered by the mutual antipathy of Peel, temperamentally unsuited to lead a party, and the Ultras, who were themselves divided on reform.
This issue and speculation as to the government’s intentions, which were largely kept secret, dominated politics when Parliament reconvened. The reaction of a packed House when Russell revealed the boldness and scope of the ministerial proposals on 1 Mar. 1831 was one of ‘astonishment’. As Francis Thornhill Baring, a junior minister, put it, ‘the House had the appearance of a drunken man reeling under the blow’.
reform, a much more extensive and better one than I think was expected by anybody. It has no doubt great defects, but if it is carried (as it must be eventually) all the rest must follow. It has of course horrified a great proportion of the House and I have no expectation that they can carry the measure in its present shape through the present Parliament; but I hope they will not permit it to be frittered away, and if they remain firm it must be carried at last.
A week later he reported that the ‘prospect of the bill’s passing the second reading improves’, and a week after that that he was delighted at ‘how the reform bill goes on prosperously’.
the excitement here is extreme, nothing but the bill is talked about and no one gives a fair opinion. Those who are independent tell you their wishes when you ask their opinions and the county Members who are in fear of dissolution will not speak out. I believe there are about 100 persons in that situation, wishing but afraid to vote against the bill, and their uncertainty makes each party claim the victory.
Cornw. RO FS/3/1092/19.
The Tory Cotterell believed that the bill had been allowed to be brought in unopposed ‘to show that it is so radical that it ought not to pass’ and in ‘full expectation of it being thrown out … on the second reading. Parties run very high’.
I voted in the majority, and, if any one turned the balance more than another, I did, for up to the moment of the division itself I was in hopes that some person, in whom I could place confidence and who might have weight in the House, would pledge himself to bring forward a substantial but moderate measure of reform, and, if such had been the case, it would have decided me in voting, without hesitation, against the bill. As it was, in spite of my own feelings and prejudices, I could not make up my mind to do what was tantamount to saying, ‘I will have no reform’. And I consider that I am still as unpledged to the details of the bill as I was this time yesterday.
St. Deiniol’s Lib. Glynne-Gladstone mss 197, T. to J. Gladstone, 21, 23 Mar. 1831.
John Morison, Member for Banffshire, was, according to his constituent John Macpherson Grant, ‘actually in the House … but went home … on the pretence of age [74] and indifferent health’; but Macpherson Grant suspected ‘the real cause’ to have been ‘a fear of offending by his vote whichever way it was given’. Morison had been under pressure from Colonel Francis Grant, Tory Member for Elginshire and an important electoral prop in Banffshire, to vote against the bill, but was tortured by ‘the knowledge that … many of his constituents were favourable to it’.
County Members divided 109 (61 per cent) to 69 (39 per cent) in favour of the bill. The voting of county Members from the four countries was as follows:
|
For |
Against |
|
|
England |
53 (66%) |
27 (34%) |
|
Wales |
7 (58%) |
5 (42%) |
|
Scotland |
10 (38%) |
16 (62%) |
|
Ireland |
39 (65%) |
21 (35%) |
The English Members as a whole were (like the House) equally divided, while the Irish favoured the bill by 60 to 40 per cent, and the Welsh by 58 to 42 per cent. The Scottish Members were hostile by 67 to 33 per cent. Of the Members who had divided with the Wellington ministry on the civil list, 156 voted against the second reading of the reform bill: 140 ‘friends’; one each of the ‘bad doubtfuls’ (Barlow Hoy) and ‘violent Ultras’ (Gresley); three ‘doubtful doubtfuls’; five ‘good doubtfuls’, and six ‘moderate Ultras’ (Ormsby Gore, Palk, Pollen, Price, Rose and Shirley). Twenty-eight of the supporters of Wellington’s government in November 1830 divided for the second reading of the reform bill: they were the 20 ‘friends’, Agnew, Hugh Baillie, Calcraft, Sir Arthur Chichester, Sheldon Cradock, Dugdale, Lord Arthur Hill, John Hope Johnstone, Sir Thomas Byam Martin, Mark Milbank, Francis Mundy, James O’Hara, William Powell, Michael Prendergast, Charles Russell, Strathavon, William Thompson, George Granville Venables Vernon, John Walpole and Thomas Wood; the ‘good doubtfuls’, John Boyle, Bruce, Robert King, Phillpotts and Powlett; and the ‘doubtful doubtfuls’, Daniel Callaghan, James Loch and Marryat. Their motives, as far as they can be ascertained, were mixed. Bruce, as noted above, acted at the behest of his patron Cleveland, as did Cradock, Milbank and Powlett. Chichester also followed his patron’s lead. Agnew, Dugdale, Marryat, Mundy, Russell, Strathavon and Wood were in favour of some reform but wished to see the ministerial scheme significantly modified. Calcraft, Callaghan, Hill, Hope Johnstone, Loch, O’Hara, Phillpotts, Prendergast and Venables Vernon seem to have acted from conviction, but, like others in this group of Members, they may also have had an eye on their seats if a dissolution came. Martin voted for the bill in order to keep his office as comptroller of the navy, while Walpole did so as private secretary to the foreign secretary Palmerston. Thompson’s vote was opportunistic and insincere, intended to placate the London livery. However, as one historian of the Reform Act has written, no two Members ‘had the same political experience’ or were ‘subject to the same pressures’.
It was clear that ministers had no hope of getting the measure through the existing Commons undamaged, and Grey knew that he had to be prepared to seek a dissolution as soon as the committee stage began. In an attempt to meet the Ultra Isaac Gascoyne’s planned motion for an instruction to the committee that each part of the kingdom should retain its existing proportionate share in the representation, the cabinet halved the proposed reduction in seats by reprieving 31 and increasing the membership to 627. Other detailed modifications were made and announced to the House, 18 Apr. The opposition had meanwhile united behind a refined version of Gascoyne’s proposal in the form of an amendment to the motion for going into committee of the whole House, to the effect that there should be no reduction in the number of Members for England and Wales. After two nights’ debate the amendment was carried by 299-291, 19 Apr. 1831.
County Members divided 94 (55 per cent) to 78 (45 per cent) against the wrecking amendment. For the four countries, the figures were as follows:
|
With government |
Against government |
|
|
England |
45 (58%) |
33 (42%) |
|
Wales |
3 (27%) |
8 (73%) |
|
Scotland |
11 (39%) |
17 (61%) |
|
Ireland |
35 (64%) |
20 (36%) |
All those in the ministerial minority had divided for the second reading of the reform bill except for 16 who had not voted on that occasion, when five of them (William Chaytor, Stephen Lushington, William Mayhew, Maurice O’Connell and William Ogilvy) had not been Members, and nine who had voted against the second reading. These were Bateson, Henry Bruen, Lord Hugh Cholmondeley, Cressett Pelham, Alexander Duff, Euston, John Henry Knox, Lord Seymour and Warrender. All those who voted for the wrecking amendment had divided against the second reading except 12 who had not voted on that occasion (two of them not having been Members at that time) and 15 who had divided for the second reading. These were Acland, Buck, John Fane, Gladstone, William Handley, Legh Keck, Sir Charles Morgan, Mundy, Robert Palmer, Powlett, Staunton, the two Williams Wynns, Wilson Patten and Thomas Wood. Buck had been listed as one of the ‘violent Ultras’, Legh Keck and Wilson Patten as ‘moderate Ultras’. It has been suggested that these 15 Members represented the small number to which ‘independents’ in the Commons had shrunk by 1831; but this seems to be rather a fanciful notion. In any case, the nine who voted against the second reading but for Gascoyne’s amendment surely ought to be added to the tally.
The 1831 Parliament
The 1831 general election gave the Grey ministry a substantial majority, more than enough to ensure the passage of the reform bills through the Commons, though not necessarily without alteration to details. The second reading of the reintroduced English bill, which differed in only a few particulars from the amended first one, was carried on 6 July 1831 by a majority of 136 (367-231). Thus in crude terms, the supporters of the principle of reform had increased by 65 and its opponents had been reduced by 70 since 22 Mar. Of the 116 Members without previous parliamentary experience who were returned at the general election, 81 (70 per cent) voted for the bill on 6 July, and only 32 (28) against it. This compares with 57 per cent of the whole House for and 37 per cent against the bill. The new English Members divided 70 per cent for and 27 per cent against; the new Scottish 73 per cent to 27 per cent; and the new Irish 65 per cent to 35 per cent. The two new Welsh Members both divided for the measure. The size of this majority probably encouraged some reformers to be less reticent in promoting or supporting changes to the details of the measure than they might have been if the margin had been tighter. During the 40-day committee stage which began on 13 July and ended on 7 Sept., there was inevitably a degree of indiscipline among supporters of the measure, but by and large the pro-reform majority held together well. The only defeat which the government suffered in committee occurred on 18 Aug., when Lord Chandos’s amendment to enfranchise £50 tenants-at-will in the counties was carried against them by 232-148. There was also an early fiasco on the disfranchisement of Saltash, 26 July, when the leader of the House Lord Althorp, replying to an opposition proposal to transfer it from schedule A to B, conceded that there was a good case for this but did so in such an indistinct manner that when a division was forced the House voted 231-150 to effect the change, with six ministers and a number of their usual supporters in the minority. On 14 Sept., at the report stage, a minority of 64 voted for the total disfranchisement of Aldborough. Althorp quickly recovered from his Saltash blunder and did more than any other minister to steer the measure through, despite its numerous flaws and vulnerable points, relying on his unrivalled detailed knowledge of the bill and a fair-minded evenness of temper that belied his inner torment. He was helped by the continuing disunity of the Tory opposition, who were handicapped by Peel’s grudge against the Ultras and refusal to join in the obstructive resistance to the measure which was conducted by zealous but less able men such as John Croker, John Cressett Pelham, Sir Edward Sugden and Sir Charles Wetherell. The report stage, during which ministers gave Wales two more Members and added Ashton and Stroud to schedule D, occupied three nights. There was a premature division on the third reading, 19 Sept., when Sir James Scarlett, who was supposed to open the debate for opposition, was too slow in rising, which allowed the Speaker to put the question and the House to divide 113-58. When the division was taken on the motion that the bill should pass, 21 Sept., the numbers were 345-236 in its favour, a drop in the majority of 27 from the second reading.
The following analysis of voting on reform is based on lists from 65 divisions between 6 July 1831 and 2 July 1832. These comprise 34 on the reintroduced English reform bill, 6 July-21 Sept. 1831; 20 on the revised English bill, 17 Dec. 1831-23 Mar. 1832; two on the first Scottish bill, 23 Sept. and 4 Oct. 1831; two on the final Scottish bill, 1 and 15 June 1832; five on the final Irish bill, 25 May-2 July 1832, and two on the boundaries bill, 22 June 1832. Full lists of majorities and minorities survive for only 15 of these divisions.
A total of 133 Members (19 per cent of the 715 who sat in this Parliament) voted undeviatingly for the reform bills. Of these, 26 were office-holders. A further 95 Members cast one wayward vote on the details of the reform and boundaries bills. Forty-four of them inadvertently did so in the confusion over the disfranchisement of Saltash, among them Sir Thomas Denman, the attorney-general, George Lamb, the home office under-secretary, William Maberly, surveyor-general of the ordnance, and George Ponsonby, a lord of the treasury. Thirteen voted in the minority of 64 for the disfranchisement of Aldborough and ten for the Chandos amendment. Two deviant votes were cast by 71 Members: 34 of these men were in the minority on Saltash, including Lord Nugent, a lord of the treasury, and Sir Henry Parnell, the war secretary; 27 supported the Chandos amendment; and 11 voted to disfranchise Aldborough. Charles Tennyson, a junior minister until February 1832, cast his two wayward votes on the boundaries bill. All these Members except Sir Charles Coote and Sir Robert Alexander Ferguson, who voted sparingly, otherwise divided steadily for the principle and details of the reform bills. Three wayward votes were given on details by 43 Members, who otherwise were steady supporters of reform, with the exception of Joseph Cripps, who cast just three votes for the principle, and Lord Sandon, who gave only four reform votes after his return for Liverpool in October 1831, though these included the second and third readings of the revised English bill. Twenty-seven of these Members were caught in the minority on Saltash. Fifteen were in the majority for the Chandos amendment, 14 voted to disfranchise Aldborough and 13 opposed the division of counties. Seven, namely Walter Blackney, James Wentworth Buller, Thomas Duncombe, Wynn Ellis, William Ewart, Edward Strutt and Sir Hedworth Williamson, were in the minority of 32 advanced reformers against the retention of the Chandos clause in the revised bill. A total of 69 Members cast four or more wayward votes on the details of the reform bills. Of these, 57 were otherwise steady in support, while the other dozen all cast at least 11 pro-reform votes, including in no fewer than three of the four divisions on the principle of the two English bills. The men who cast the most wayward votes were Henry Hunt (13, but also 22 votes for the bills); Henry Adeane (12 and 15); Sir Andrew Agnew (11 and 15); Thomas Davies (11 and 20); Sir Charles Burrell (ten and 11); and Sir Henry Willoughby (ten and 21). One (Rigby Wason) gave nine wayward votes. Eight were cast by Robert Cutlar Fergusson, John Hodgson, William Hughes Hughes, Thomas Paget and John Wilks; and seven by John James Hope Johnstone, Lord Milton, Daniel O’Connell and Edward Ruthven. Of the remaining 52, 15 cast six wayward votes, 19 cast five and 19 gave four. Thus of 411 Members (59 per cent of those who sat in this Parliament) who voted without equivocation for the principle and many of the details of the reform bills, 50 (12 per cent) cast votes against the ministerial line in ten per cent or more of the 51 divisions on the details of the measures. Most of these men voted for attempts to moderate the bills, but a dozen were motivated by a desire to make them go further than ministers intended: these were William Addams Williams, William Blamire, Joseph Dixon, Fergusson, Thomas Gisborne, Joseph Hume, Hunt, O’Connell, Paget, Richard Sheil and Thomas Wyse. Seven of the 50 were Irish Members who included in their wayward votes support for amendments to the Irish reform bill in June and July 1832.
A total of 216 Members voted consistently against reform. A further 37 voted against the principle and details of the bills, but divided once on the ministerial side. Of these, six did so in one of the adjournment motions of 12 July 1831. Eleven others divided against a radical proposal to limit the duration of borough polls, 15 Feb. 1832, and seven voted for the division of counties. Of the remainder, Sir Robert Inglis was credited with a vote for the principle of schedule A; Thomas Frankland Lewis voted for the second reading of the reintroduced English reform bill so that it might be amended in committee, but opposed it thereafter; Peel’s brother Edmund paired for the third reading of the revised bill; and John Stuart Wortley voted for the second reading of the first Scottish bill. Fourteen usual opponents of reform cast two votes with the government. Nine of them did so in one of the adjournment divisions. Therefore the maximum size of the steady anti-reform contingent in the House can be reckoned at 267 (37 per cent of the Members who sat in this Parliament).
Nine Members are difficult to classify by their votes on reform. Davies Gilbert accepted the need for some change, but voted against the second reading of the reintroduced English bill and with government on three other occasions. He made a number of speeches in support of his attempts to modify the measure. James Halse divided for the second reading and the enfranchisement of Gateshead, but thereafter was hostile or indifferent to reform. John Henry Knox voted for the second reading and for some details, but he opposed the passage of the bill, the enfranchisement of Tower Hamlets and the third reading of the revised bill. Sir Thomas Byam Martin, the comptroller of the navy, voted for the second reading and passage of the reintroduced bill, but after his dismissal in October 1831 for failing to vote for the motion of confidence in the ministry on the 10th, he voted twice against the English bill and twice against the Irish. Sir George Staunton, a genuine independent, cast no known votes on the principle of the bills, and otherwise voted mostly against details of the measures. He privately listed and accounted for 19 of his votes between March and August 1831.
The bulk of the House was therefore clearly divided on reform, with a favourable hard core of 228 who cast no wayward votes or only one, an additional phalanx of 114 who deviated twice or three times, and a disparate group of 69 who gave four or more wayward votes but were otherwise steady supporters of the principle and many of the details (a total of 411). Ranged against them were 267 opponents of reform, of whom 216 divided consistently against it and 37 voted once with the government. The voting behaviour of all these Members in divisions on 11 significant party clashes has been analysed. Two of these divisions were on motions of confidence, namely Lord Ebrington’s on 10 Oct. 1831, following the defeat of the reform bill in the Lords, and his motion for an address asking the king to appoint only a ministry committed to carrying undiluted reform, 10 May 1832, when the formation of a Conservative reform administration seemed possible. The others were on the contentious issues of alleged ministerial interference in the Dublin general election, 23 Aug. 1831 (two divisions); the government’s payment of the interest on the Russian-Dutch loan without the sanction of Parliament (four divisions, 26 Jan., 12, 16, 20 July 1832); relations with Portugal, 9 Feb. 1832; the navy civil departments bill, 6 Apr. 1832; and the Irish registry of deeds bill, 9 Apr. 1832. Lists of both majority and minority survive only for the second Dublin division and the Russian-Dutch loan divisions of 26 Jan. and 12 July. The other eight list only those who divided with government. The October 1831 confidence motion was carried by 329-198 and that of May 1832 by 288-208. Ministers had a narrow squeak on the Russian-Dutch loan in January, with a majority of only 24 (238-214), obtained largely by Lord Palmerston’s bold ‘rallying speech’;
Of the 411 Members who voted for reform, 14 did not vote in these divisions. A total of 353 (86 per cent, or 89 per cent of those who voted) divided only on the government side, while 44 cast at least one hostile or wayward vote. Of the 133 Members who voted consistently for reform, 122 (92 per cent, or 98 per cent of those who actually voted) divided only with government in these divisions. Nine did not vote, and two cast one vote against government: Charles Russell and George Sinclair defected on the Russian-Dutch loan in January 1832, but were in the ministerial majorities on both confidence motions. Eighty-six of the men who gave one wayward vote on reform divided only with government in these divisions. This was 91 per cent, or 93 per cent of those who actually voted, as three cast no known vote. Six voted against government on the Russian-Dutch loan, but were otherwise steady supporters: they were Herbert Curteis, John Jones, John Lee Lee, Charles Norton, William Powell, and William Thompson. Of the 71 Members who gave two wayward votes on reform, one did not vote in these divisions. Sixty-one divided only on the government side ((86 per cent, or 87 per cent of those who voted). Six voted once against ministers, on the Russian-Dutch loan in January 1832, but were otherwise reliable: James Baillie, Richard Godson, Lord Newark, John Ramsbottom, Sir Edward Scott and Robert Stanhope. Sir Charles Coote strayed on the Russian-Dutch loan, but cast no other vote in these divisions. Samuel Bayntun voted against the loan in January and on 12 July 1832, but gave six votes with ministers. Of the 43 Members who voted three times against government on reform, 34 (79 per cent) divided steadily with them in these divisions. Four voted against on the Russian-Dutch loan in January 1832, but otherwise voted with government: Edward Bainbridge, James Buller, James Lambert and Robert Throckmorton. Henry Burton Peters and William Copeland defected on the loan, 12 July 1832, but voted five times and twice with government, respectively. Cripps, William Mayhew and George Richard Robinson voted against the loan in January and on 12 July 1832; Cripps cast one vote with ministers, Mayhew five and Robinson two. Of the 69 Members who recorded at least four wayward votes on reform, one did not vote in these divisions. Forty-nine (71 per cent, or 72 per cent of those who voted) divided only with government. Nineteen cast votes against government in these divisions. Twelve did so only on the Russian-Dutch loan in January 1832: Agnew, Lord George Cavendish Bentinck, Cutlar Fergusson, Sir Berkeley Guise, Hope Johnstone, Hume, William Gore Langton, the Irish Members Frederick Mullins, Daniel O’Connell and Ruthven, and Richard Watson and Edward Webb. All voted at least twice with ministers. William Denison and Thomas Greene strayed on the loan, 12 July 1832, but voted four and three times with government respectively. Sir John Astley and William Rickford divided against the loan in January and on 12 July, but cast four and five government votes respectively. Lewis Buck and Frederick Polhill, both Tories at heart, did likewise, but cast no other votes. Hunt voted against the loan in January 1832, but divided with ministers on relations with Portugal.
Of the 267 anti-reformers, 34 cast no votes in these party divisions. Those who divided only against government numbered 226 (85 per cent, or 97 per cent of those who recorded a vote). Of the 215 Members who voted consistently against reform, 31 did not vote in these divisions, while 180 (84 per cent, or 98 per cent of those who actually voted) divided only against government. Four voted with government in these divisions. Henry Bingham Baring did so on the Dublin election censure motion, but was against them twice on the Russian-Dutch loan. Sir Charles Forbes voted with government in the Dublin bribery division and the loan, 20 July 1832, but against them on the Dublin censure motion and the loan, 26 Jan, 12 July 1832. Lord Forbes was in the ministerial majority against the Dublin censure motion and Robert Frankland in that on the loan, 12 July 1832; neither cast any other recorded votes in these divisions. Two of the 38 anti-reformers who voted once with government on the issue did not vote in these divisions. Thirty-three (87 per cent, or 92 per cent of those who voted) divided only against ministers. Three gave votes with them: Lord Apsley on the Dublin censure motion, but against them on the loan, 12 July 1832; Quintin Dick on Portugal, but twice against them on the loan; and Edmund Peel on the address to the king, 10 May, but against on the loan, 12 July 1832. One of the 14 anti-reformers who cast two votes with government on the issue did not vote in these divisions, and the remainder divided only with government. The nine Members whose voting on reform makes them hard to classify voted as follows in these party divisions: Gilbert and Staunton only with government; Knox, Martin, the Williams Wynns and Wood only with opposition; Halse with government on Dublin bribery, but against on the Russian-Dutch loan, 12 July 1832; and Warrender with ministers on the Dublin censure motion and Portugal, but against on the loan, 12 July 1832.
This analysis reveals a high degree of partisan voting behaviour by both the supporters and opponents of reform on issues of confidence and party conflict. However, when voting in another 53 divisions on a variety of issues is considered, the picture becomes more complicated. Opposition minority lists only have survived for 45 of these divisions. There are majority lists for three,
I was greatly annoyed to hear last night … ‘that you were much displeased at many of my votes’ and that it was a breach of honour and faith towards you to vote against the government. Now my inclination is to support the present government, and had I not been disposed to do so, questions during the reform bill and the ‘Russian loan’ would have afforded me ample grounds to go against them. On the … [slavery] question I own I voted according to the best of my judgement, and this is the only vote I think you can find fault with.
W. Suss. RO, Goodwood mss 1459, f. 541.
In another example, Horatio Ross, staunch reform Member for Aberdeen Burghs, was so incensed by the malt drawback bill that he spoke angrily against it and said that his ‘confidence’ in ministers was ‘very much shaken’, 30 Mar. 1832. Yet he rallied to them on the navy civil departments bill, 6 Apr. None of this apparently excited comment, but his absence from the division on the motion for an address asking the king to appoint only a government which would carry undiluted reform, 10 May 1832, prompted Hume (his predecessor in the seat, who, when voting with administration on the Russian-Dutch loan in July 1832, conceded that it was a ‘wrong’ measure, but frankly admitted that he would vote that black was white in order to keep the reform ministry in place),
Of the Members who voted only with government in confidence and party divisions, but who cast at least one wayward vote on details of the reform bills, 174 voted against ministers in at least one of the miscellaneous divisions. If a deviation of no more than ten per cent in the total of 104 divisions is allowed, 120 Members strayed in eight divisions or fewer. These men, plus Andrew Johnston, should be considered as ‘ministerial fringe’, or perhaps as general supporters of the Grey ministry who to varying degrees indulged their right to exercise independent judgement on specific issues. Forty-three of the Members who voted only with government in the confidence and party divisions cast 11 or more wayward votes on reform and/or miscellaneous issues. In descending order of deviation they were: Charles Walker (Wexford), 28 wayward votes, including four on reform; Sheil (county Louth; 25/5); Paget (Leicestershire; 24/8); Wyse (county Tipperary; 24/5); Dixon (Glasgow Burghs; 22/6); Leader (Kilkenny; 22/4); Maurice O’Connell (county Clare; 20/3); O’Ferrall (county Kildare; 20/3); William James (Carlisle; 19/5); Blackney (county Carlow; 18/3); Warburton (Bridport; 18/5); William Macnamara (county Clare; 17/1); Wilks (Boston; 17/8); James Grattan (county Wicklow; 16/5); John Hodgson (Newcastle-upon-Tyne; 16/8); Charles Jephson (Mallow; 16/5); Henry Lambert (county Wexford; 16/2); Daniel Callaghan (Cork; 15/3); Sir John Doyle (county Carlow; 15/2); Ralph Thicknesse (Wigan; 15/5); Adeane (Cambridgeshire; 14/12); Henry Grattan (county Meath; 14/4); Sir Richard Musgrave (county Waterford; 14/4); Robert Power (county Waterford; 14/3); Blamire (Cumberland; 13/6); Henry Lytton Bulwer (Coventry; 13/3); Sir John Burke (county Galway; 13/2); Davies (Worcester; 13/11); George De Lacy Evans (Rye; 13/4); William Gillon (Linlithgow Burghs; 13/2); Hughes Hughes (Oxford; 13/8); Denis O’Connor (county Roscommon; 13/3); Lord Killeen (county Meath; 12/1); Sir Francis Vincent (St. Albans; 12/6); Matthew Wood (London; 12/2); John Bodkin (Galway; 11/30); Ewart (Liverpool; 11/3); Arthur French (county Roscommon; 11/2); Strutt (Derby; 11/3); John Tomes (Warwick; 11/6); Thomas Wallace (Drogheda; 11/2); Sir Henry Willoughby (Yarmouth I.o.W.; 11/10); and John Wood (Preston; 11/2). Over half (22) were Irish Members, whose wayward voting took place largely on tithes and other Irish issues rather than on reform. Only eight of them cast four or more votes against details of the reform bills. Chapman and Torrens should be added to this category. A further 11 Members who voted only with government in the confidence and party divisions cast enough wayward votes in the other 104 to make them marginal to these less reliable supporters of the ministry. They were Henry Reynolds Moreton (Gloucestershire), who gave ten wayward votes, including 5 on reform; and ten Members who strayed nine times: John Briscoe (Surrey; 2 deviant votes on reform); Wynn Ellis (Leicester; 3); Thomas Gisborne (Stafford; 5); ‘Bum’ Gordon (Cricklade; 2); Kedgwin Hoskins (Herefordshire; 5); Charles March Phillipps (Leicestershire; 6); Lord Milton (Northamptonshire; 7); Thomas Rider (Kent; 6); Edward Sanford (Somerset; 4); and Rigby Wason (Ipswich; 4). All except Milton, a Whig grandee with a head full of crotchets, were of a radical disposition. There were 41 Members who, though supporters of the principle of reform, cross-voted in one or more of the confidence and party divisions, and also cast wayward votes in those on the details of the reform bill and/or those on miscellaneous issues. Of these, 12 deviated in more than ten per cent of divisions. They were Hunt (Preston), who gave 44 wayward votes, including 13 on reform; his fellow radical Hume (Middlesex; 37/6); the Irish Members Ruthven (Downpatrick; 30/7), Daniel O’Connell (county Kerry; 22/7), Mullins (county Kerry; 19/5), and James Lambert (county Galway; 15/3); Agnew (Wigtownshire; 15/10); Bainbridge (Taunton; 12/3); Lord George Cavendish Bentinck (King’s Lynn; 12/7); Rickford (Aylesbury; 12/6); and Richard Watson (Canterbury; 10/5). These 97 Members can be broadly considered as the government’s less reliable supporters, including the more truculent Irish Members and the English radical ‘economists’.
Of the opponents of reform and of the ministry in confidence and party divisions, 76 voted only against government in the divisions on miscellaneous issues. To these can be added the 93 who gave no known votes in these divisions, making a total of 169 hard-core oppositionists. A further 41 voted consistently against the government on reform and/or confidence and party issues, but divided with them in at least one of the miscellaneous divisions. Thirty-three did so in one division, five in two and three in three. They include the Conservative stalwarts Sir Robert Peel, Sir George Clerk, Sir Thomas Fremantle, Henry Goulburn, Billy Holmes, Charles Ross and Lord Granville Somerset. Seventeen of them divided with government against the vestry reform bill, 23 Jan. 1832, and ten did so against the production of information on military punishments, 16 Feb. 1832. Nine, all Irish Members, were in majorities against amendments to the Irish tithes bill, and six Irish Members voted against legal provision for relief of the Irish poor, 19 June 1832. Thirty-one of these men recorded opposition votes in at least one of the other divisions on miscellaneous issues. There were 17 Members who cast one (11) or two (six ) votes with government in the reform divisions, but opposed them consistently in confidence and party and miscellaneous divisions. They include Sir Henry Hardinge and William Peel. A further 15 men who voted once (12) or twice (three) with government on reform, but against them in confidence and party divisions, cast no known votes in the miscellaneous divisions. Fourteen Members who voted once (ten) or twice (four) with government on reform, but consistently against them in confidence and party divisions, voted with them in one of the miscellaneous divisions. Seven did so on the vestry bill, four on military punishments, two on Irish tithes, and one on the Irish poor. All but two cast votes against government in the miscellaneous divisions. To these 256 oppositionists should be added Lord Apsley, Quintin Dick, Halse, Edmund Peel, the two Williams Wynns and Thomas Wood.
Therefore, taking an overall view of voting behaviour in the 1831 Parliament, the steady or almost always reliable supporters of the Grey ministry can be put at 194. Their ‘fringe’ or general supporters, who would rally to them in a choice between them and their Tory opponents, numbered 121, giving a total of 315. Some 97 men, who included 29 Irish Members and most of the English and Scottish radicals, were less to be depended on, although by and large they deviated little on reform and even less so in confidence and party divisions. The Tory or Conservative opposition strength was about 262.
you must have an infusion of younger, more active, and intelligent men, who will take an interest in what is going on in the House, make themselves acquainted with the newcomers and lay themselves out to conciliate and satisfy them. There is not a single soul except Duncannon who ever speaks to or takes the least notice of any of our most zealous and steady supporters.
Grey mss, Ellice to Grey, 30 June [1832].
Grey’s son-in-law Charles Wood duly replaced Ellice as patronage secretary in August 1832. At the close of the year he produced an interesting analysis of the new House: 137 ‘Tories’—‘opposition’; 22 ‘Waverers’—‘Sandon, Geo. Bentinck, Bethel and the like who are not always to be depended upon although three-quarters will always vote with us’; 303 ‘Steady Supporters’—‘including all those members of the govt., Ellice, and those whose opinions are perhaps more liberal than those of the compound cabinet’; 123 ‘Supporters’—‘of different shades from Ebrington to Warburton—men agreeing mostly with Althorp in opinion, and who voted steadily with us under the bond of the reform bill—but upon whom we cannot depend now so entirely to sacrifice their own opinion’; 34 ‘English and Scotch Radicals’—‘Hume and Co.’; 38 ‘Irish Repealers’.
Conclusion
In December 1823, Sir John Nicholl, Tory Member for Great Bedwyn, told Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (later Member for Glamorgan), who had just graduated from Oxford:
The old distinctions of Whig and Tory, so far as principles are concerned, no longer exist. Divine right, passive obedience and non-resistance are doctrines quite extinct. We are all old Whigs. Political parties are now divided rather into men and measures than any great differences by principles, except perhaps a few ultras and radicals, and you may recollect my stating to you …. that you would do wisely to abstain very cautiously from committing yourself to any party or set of men, until you had a full opportunity by considerable experience of forming a deliberate judgement which set of measures generally pursued or recommended by contending parties were upon the whole most conducive to the real interests of the country. For if once you became a party man, you were no longer quite as independent, and perfect independence should in no degree be sacrificed but on most mature consideration guiding the judgement.
Merthyr Mawr mss L/205/7.
At the dinner to celebrate his return for Stafford at the 1820 general election, George Chetwynd declared:
It was almost grown into a maxim, that a Member who does not attach himself to one of two great parties that divide the House of Commons, can be of no use there … [He] had a very different idea of his duties. He was not indebted for his situation to any nobleman, or to the influence of any other individual.
Staffs. Advertiser, 8 Apr. 1820.
At a Norfolk agricultural meeting, 12 Jan. 1822, the 3rd Baron Suffield, who as Edward Harbord, Member for Shaftesbury, had voted steadily against the Liverpool ministry in the 1820 and 1821 sessions, claimed that despite this (and membership of Brooks’s Club, the Whig pantheon), he ‘did not belong to any party … By party in this instance he meant faction, understanding faction to be founded on men, party on principle’.