CARTWRIGHT, William Ralph (1771-1847), of Aynho, Northants

One of only five remaining members elected to the 1796 parliament, Cartwright was ‘a Conservative of the old school’.1Examiner, 9 Jan. 1847. He had represented Northamptonshire for almost half a century by the time failing health – he had been ‘gouty since 1820’ – forced his retirement in February 1846.2N. Cooper, Aynho: A Northamptonshire Village (1984), 216. Although he spoke rarely in the Commons after 1832, Cartwright remained a consistent backbench advocate of the agricultural interest and his local activity demonstrated an acute awareness of the need for new forms of organisation in the reformed electoral system.

Cartwright had been returned on a vacancy for Northamptonshire in 1797, which his grandfather and great-grandfather had represented almost continually between 1695 and 1768. He was accurate in his recollection to Peel in 1841 that during the early years of his parliamentary career he had been one of Pitt’s ‘greatest admirers and firmest adherents’ – a position he publicly re-affirmed as a long-standing vice president of the triennial Pitt Club dinner.3BL Add. 40491, f. 353, W. R. Cartwright to R. Peel, 12 Oct. 1841; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 411-413; Standard, 18 May 1841. Although he had occasionally taken an independent line on local issues prior to 1832, Cartwright had provided loyal support to successive tory administrations and voted for Catholic relief in 1829 despite having spoken against it on the hustings in 1826.4HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 592-5. In 1831 Cartwright had opposed the reform bill and was defeated following an expensive contest, the closeness of which attested to his personal electoral strength in the south of the county where his Aynho property was situated.5D. C. Moore, The Politics of Deference (1976), 110; A. Brundage, ‘The Landed Interest and the New Poor Law: A Reappraisal of the Revolution in Government’, EHR, 87 (1972), 36. When the Grey ministry published their boundary bill in February 1832 he wasted little time in establishing a canvass of the proposed southern division of Northamptonshire, and close attention to the registration process ensured that he was returned unopposed alongside Viscount Althorp in December 1832.6Northants. RO, Gotch mss GK 347, Milton to Gotch, 14 May 1832; Northants. RO, Cartwright mss C (A) 8204, E. J. Burton to Cartwright, 16 June 1833; 8205, E. J. Burton to W. Grant, 20 June 1833; Northampton Mercury, 8 Dec. 1832; Salmon, Electoral Reform at Work (2002), 59. At the nomination, Cartwright set the tone for the remainder of his parliamentary career by expressing his unequivocal support for the corn laws, in response to Althorp’s suggestion that they might require moderate revision.7Northampton Mercury, 22 Dec. 1832.

Cartwright rarely spoke in parliament after 1832, which he attributed to his health not being ‘equal to the late hours and long speeches … now the fashion of the House of Commons’.8Northampton Mercury, 8 Oct. 1836. His limited parliamentary activity reflected a personal interest in the local administration of taxation and poor relief, and a commitment to the corn laws and the relief of agricultural distress. He was silent during the 1833 session but was a member of the select committee on Irish vagrants and presented two petitions against the Sale of Beer Act, 19 Apr., 12 Jun.9PP 1833 (394), xvi. 324. One of his few recorded divisions that year was in the minority against the Irish church temporalities bill, 11 Mar. As an indicator of his aversion for late night sittings, he was absent from the subsequent early morning division on the second reading of the Irish coercion bill. He was most active during 1834, when he spoke three times, attended divisions and presented petitions reflective of his Conservative pro-agricultural position, and was a member of the select committee on county rates.10PP 1834 (542), xiv. 2, 52. Notably, he spoke in favour of an inquiry on agricultural distress (which he divided in the minority for), 21 Feb., in favour of appropriating surplus revenue to reduce the burden that distress had placed on county rates, 25 April, and in favour of the clause in the poor law amendment bill that gave power to the commissioners to raise money to promote emigration – a position he qualified with reference to his own experience supporting the emigration of 100 members of his parish to Canada, which he reported had diminished poor rates and increased employment in his locality, 16 June 1834.

He played a role in the countrywide establishment of local agricultural associations that accompanied the rural distress of 1833–1836, and the nature of his involvement in the movement suggests that he was well aware of its potential electoral benefits.11T. Crosby, English Farmers and the Politics of Protection, 1815-52 (1977), 81-113. He proposed the formation of the Banbury Agricultural Association – whose aim was to promote the interests of ‘the agriculturists of Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire’ – at its inaugural meeting in November 1834. He also accepted the position of permanent chairman of the Northamptonshire Association for the Protection of Agriculture in absentia, at the association’s first annual meeting in January 1835.12Leamington Spa Courier, 1 Nov. 1834. This local activity undoubtedly helped to ensure his uncontested re-election in January 1835, when he re-affirmed his Conservative, protectionist stance, and declared himself a ‘disciple of Robert Peel’ on the hustings.13Northampton Mercury, 17 Jan. 1835. Poor health seems to have restricted his parliamentary activity that year, and he missed every major division of Peel’s short administration. He was well enough to speak at the second annual meeting of the Banbury Agricultural Association in November 1835, when he criticised the marquis of Chandos and Thomas Attwood, who had recently proposed currency reform as a panacea for continued agricultural distress. Cartwright confessed to having no clear remedy himself, but was happy to give a rabble-rousing speech that blamed the English depression on Irish farmers, who were not required to pay duties when exporting corn to the mainland.14Evening Chronicle, 20 Nov. 1835; Northampton Mercury, 21 Nov. 1835, 5 Dec. 1835; C. O’Grada, Ireland: A New Economic History (1995), 120.

Cartwright’s engagement at Westminster increased briefly during 1836 and 1837, however he remained silent on public legislation and his attendance of divisions was still below average. He tended to vote with Peel’s opposition, and started to pay particular attention to railway bills – himself introducing failed private legislation for a South Midland Railway between Leicester and Northampton.15Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser, 23 Mar. 1837. As well as sitting on the 1837 select committee on highway rates, he was a member of the 1837 select committee on the poor laws.16PP 1837 (131), xvii. 15; PP 1837 (457), xx. 343. Cartwright had been supportive of the new poor law, and divided against a motion to discuss the addition of manufacturing representatives to the committee that he was a member of, 6 Mar. As Brundage has noted, Cartwright had been one of a number of active Northamptonshire land owners who had influenced the commissioners’ design of poor law unions in late 1835. This had resulted in the creation of the Brackley Union, based around the thirty parishes better known to locals as ‘Cartwright’s Corner’. Cartwright’s son became the active chairman of this union.17Brundage incorrectly states that Cartwright’s brother was the chairman, Brundage, ‘Landed Interest’, 46; G. Howells, ‘On Account of their Disreputable Characters’: Parish-Assisted Emigration from rural England, 1834-1860, History, 88 (2003), 587-605; Cooper, Aynho, 204-215.

Cartwright’s health deteriorated again towards the end of 1837, and his fragile condition was confirmed during his third consecutive uncontested election, when ‘his appearance indicated … extreme weakness and ill health’ and he was too unwell to be chaired.18Northampton Mercury, 8 Oct. 1836, 29 July 1837. In October 1837 he also cited poor health as the reason for his resignation as chairman of the Northamptonshire quarter sessions.19Northampton Mercury, 28 Oct. 1837. Although he remained silent in the Commons after 1837, Cartwright voted infrequently, but consistently in opposition to the Whig ministry, including against ministers in the confidence vote of 4 June 1841. He also presented petitions in 1840 for the extension of the Church of England and against the grant to Maynooth College. In July 1841 he was returned top of the poll in South Northamptonshire’s first contested election of the reformed period. At the nomination he spoke strongly in favour of the maintenance of the corn laws and accurately predicted that his appearance on the hustings would be his last.20Northampton Mercury, 10 July 1841. In the knowledge of his poor health, and debts that he had accrued from the redevelopment of his Aynho estate and wayward speculation on the stock market, Cartwright requested a peerage from Peel following the 1841 election, and offered three of his sons as a potential replacement as MP.21BL Add. 40491, ff.352-7, W. R. Cartwright to R. Peel, 12 Oct. 1841; J. McDermott, ‘The Cartwright Papers’, unpublished paper presented to Aynho History Society, 27 Jan. 2010 http://www.aynho.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2010-01-History-Society-Meeting-No-25.pdf [accessed 22 Feb. 2016]. Peel never acceded to this request. Following this, Cartwright maintained his silence and below average activity in the Commons until his retirement in February 1846. He divided consistently with the government, apart from when he rebelled against the whip to support levying rates on all livestock imported from foreign countries, 23 May 1842, and to delay discussion of the British watch and clock making bill, 31 Mar. 1843. He did not attend any of the 1845 divisions over the Maynooth college bill, although he did present a number of petitions against the grant to Maynooth, 3 Apr. 1845.

Cartwright’s failing health finally prompted his retirement in acrimonious circumstances in February 1846. With the knowledge of Peel’s impending intention to repeal the corn laws, Cartwright informed his constituents that he was not fit enough to provide the level of representation that they required during what he termed ‘a crisis seldom surpassed in the history of this country’.22Northampton Mercury, 3 Feb. 1846. Although he confirmed his continued opposition to repeal in a letter to his constituents, the Northamptonshire Agricultural Protection Society interpreted his resignation as a refusal to accede to their separate demand that he pledge to lobby against repeal.23Northampton Mercury, 14 Feb. 1846, 21 Feb 1846. This insinuation prompted Cartwright’s resignation from the society. It later transpired that Cartwright had decided to resign before the society had requested his pledge, and that he had proposed to his fellow sitting MP Charles Knightley that the earl of Euston, who was amenable to protection, should be his replacement.24Northampton Mercury, 28 Feb. 1846; HP Commons, 1832-68, ‘Fitzroy, William Henry, earl of Euston (II)’. Euston was unable to accept, but the protectionist Richard Vyse successfully proposed himself as Cartwright’s replacement with the support of Knightley and the Northamptonshire Agricultural Protection Society. Whilst it seems unlikely that he would have voted with Peel over repeal, it must be acknowledged that resignation saved Cartwright the ignominy of dividing against a tory administration on a major bill for the first time in his forty-nine year parliamentary career.

Cartwright died within a year of his retirement on 4 Jan. 1847. His two marriages had produced eight sons and five daughters, twelve of whom outlived him. His heir, Thomas (1794-1850), minister-plenipotentiary at Stockholm, predicted accurately that at his death Cartwright would still be in debt as a result of the lavish refurbishment of his Aynho estate, which had commenced in 1795.25Cooper, Aynho, 216-21. His estate had insufficient funds to pay his bequests and his will was resworn at £9,485.26PROB 11/2055/394; IR26/1766/429; HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 595. Cartwright’s second son from his second marriage, Henry, represented Northamptonshire South between 1859 and 1868. Cartwright’s grandson, Frederick, replaced him and sat for the county until his death in 1881. Both maintained Cartwright’s conservatism. Two of Cartwright’s grandsons (one of whom was William Cornwallis, Liberal MP for Oxfordshire, 1868-1885) tried, but failed to resurrect the family’s long standing representation of the county in 1886 and 1892. Cartwright was buried in the family vault in St Michael’s church, Aynho. The family papers and correspondence are held by the Northamptonshire Record Office.27Northants. RO, Cartwright mss.