BAGGE, William (1810-1880), of Stradsett Hall, Downham Market, Norf. and 28 Belgrave Square, London

Bagge was an ‘affable, unostentatious country gentleman’, whose family, originally Swedish, had held land in Norfolk from 1560.1Norfolk Chronicle quoted in John Bull, 20 Apr. 1867, 272; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion, 1838, 77. They were linked particularly with the area around King’s Lynn, where family members frequently served as mayor after 1775, including Bagge’s father, Thomas Philip, in 1805 and 1815.2Bagge’s great-uncle, William Bagge, was mayor in 1775 and 1785; his grandfather, Thomas Bagge, in 1778, 1787, 1796 and 1804; his uncle, William Bagge, in 1819 and 1829: Norfolk Lists from the Reformation to the Present Time, Comprising Lists of Lord Lieutenants, Baronets, High Sheriffs and Members of Parliament of the County of Norfolk (Norwich, 1837), 103-5. Although Bagge came to be associated chiefly with the landed interest, his family’s wealth and standing had been established on the businesses of shipping and brewing.3F. Wood, ‘Fuelling the Local Economy: The Fenland Coal Trade, 1760-1850’, in K. Bruland and P. O’Brien (eds.), From Family Firms to Corporate Capitalism: Essays in Business and Industrial History in Honour of Peter Mathias (1998), 199-212; P. Richards, King’s Lynn (Chichester, 1990), 29-36, 65-69. The Bagges also had banking interests: Wood, ‘Fuelling the Local Economy’, 208, and J. Rosselli, ‘An Indian governor in the Norfolk marshland: Lord William Bentinck as improver, 1809-27’, Agricultural History Review, 19 (1971), 56. A Bagge brewery was in existence in King’s Lynn from 1643.4Wood, ‘Fuelling the Local Economy’, 208. A merchant house was founded later by Bagge’s great-grandfather, John, primarily for supplying coal to local industry.5Ibid., 209. However, it was the marriage in 1768 of Bagge’s grandfather, Thomas, to the daughter of Thomas Case, a highly influential local attorney and land agent, which cemented the family’s social and commercial standing, and subsequently led to their inheritance of the Stradsett Hall estate.6Wood, ‘Fuelling the Local Economy’, 208; Richards, King’s Lynn, 29-36, 67. Information on Case from Norfolk Record Office, http://nrocat.norfolk.gov.uk. Stradsett Hall is approximately three miles north-east of Downham Market. By the early 1770s, the Bagge merchant house was established as a powerful, independent body with its own substantial fleet, employed principally in the coastal shipping of coal from the north-east and the Greenland whaling trade, and capitalizing upon the expanding navigable river network.7Wood, ‘Fuelling the Local Economy’, 209; Richards, King’s Lynn, 35-36. In 1819 Bagge’s father and uncle were amongst the self-styled ‘principal merchants, owners and masters of ships and vessels of… King’s Lynn’, and were leading figures in its closed corporation.8PP 1834 (590) xii. 537; HP Commons, 1820-32, ii. 727-8. Bagge’s younger brothers, Richard (his twin) and Edward, maintained the family’s brewing interests in King’s Lynn, further expanding their chain of public houses in the 1840s.9F. White, History, gazetteer, and directory of Norfolk, and the city and county of the City of Norwich (Norwich, 1836), 428-35; Richards, Kings Lynn, 38. A witness informed the 1852-53 select committee on licensed public houses that ‘these 100 [public] houses [in King’s Lynn] are, most of them, the property of Bagge and Co.’: PP 1852-53 (855) xxxvii. 136. See also L. Richard and A. Turton (eds.), The Brewing Industry, A Guide to Historical Records (Manchester, 1990), 53. Bagge devoted himself to the management of the Stradsett estate, which he had inherited in 1827. (In 1873 he owned 3,769 acres, providing a gross annual rent of £6,285.18s.10PP 1874 (c.1097) lxxii. Pt. I. 873.)

Bagge first attempted to enter parliament in 1835, when he sought election for West Norfolk calling for ‘a just commutation of tithes’.11The Times, 15 Jan. 1835. His Conservative stance marked a filial departure: the local Whig magnate Lord Coke remarked pointedly that ‘his [Bagge’s] father was a Whig, and one of his firmest supporters, during… the half-century that he had represented the county’.12Ipswich Journal, 17 Jan. 1835. Bagge later attributed his initial failure to the ‘underhand’ dealings of the two successful Whig candidates.13The Times, 2 June 1835; Ipswich Journal, 28 Feb. 1835. However, see Ipswich Journal, 17 Jan. 1835, which reported that the two Whig candidates likewise accusing Bagge of illicit electioneering. With people ‘accustomed’ to look upon West Norfolk as ‘little more than a close Whig borough’, Bagge’s victory in 1837, when he topped the poll, was described in his obituary as one ‘remembered in Norfolk to the present day’.14The Times, 15 Jan. 1835, 13 Feb. 1880. Bagge’s emphasis upon the importance of local Conservative associations to his victory illustrates a significant theme of the party’s post-1832 resurgence.15The Times, 17 Oct. 1837, 23 Nov. 1838. At a local Conservative dinner in November 1836, Bagge had announced his determination ‘to maintain inviolate the constitutional principles and independence of the King, the Lords, and the Commons, and the integrity of the Protestant church of England and Ireland’.16The Times, 17 Nov. 1836. In his 1837 election address, he condemned the Whig administrations’ ‘heavy blows at Protestantism’, driven, as he saw it, by ‘the real hand of the present Government, the POPISH IRISH DEMAGOGUE’ [Daniel O’Connell].17Joint election statement of Bagge and his fellow Conservative candidate Mr W. L. W. Chute, The Poll for Two Knights of the Shire for the Western Division of the County of Norfolk, (Norwich, 1837), vi-vii.

Bagge’s voting pattern was generally in keeping with these Conservative views, and he was one of only 39 to vote against the second reading of the Irish municipal corporations bill, 8 Mar. 1839, a measure seen by many as endangering Protestantism in Ireland. His opposition to Lord John Russell’s perceived anti-Anglican elementary education bill, June 1839, and his division of the House a year later against the supply of £9,800 to Maynooth, underlined similar religious concerns.18Hansard, 20 June 1839, vol. 48, cc. 681-87; 24 June 1839, vol. 48, cc. 793-98; 12 June 1840, vol. 54, cc. 1163-66: Bagge was a teller in a minority of thirty-two. Bagge made few contributions to parliamentary debate, but was exercised by issues of electoral reform. In June 1839 he opposed measures aimed at halting the disfranchisement of voters who moved residence following registration, arguing that such proposals ‘meant to destroy the £10 clause in the Reform Bill’.19Hansard, 27 June 1839, vol. 48, c. 992. The bill passed the Commons but was thrown out by the House of Lords. It was an issue to which he returned, threatening a division against Milner Gibson’s motion, 26 May 1842. On 1 June 1842, he opposed the disfranchisement of Sudbury, a hotbed of corruption, on the basis that ‘proof of bribery against the electors was no ground for the disenfranchisement of all’. Later, in March 1848, following the removal of the previous member for corruption, he moved unsuccessfully for a new writ for Harwich, when some in the Commons argued that it too deserved to be disfranchised.20Hansard, 14 Mar. 1848, vol. 97, cc. 595ff.; 15 Mar. 1848, vol. 97, c. 609. On 19 Mar. 1867 in a debate regarding the continued presence of one Mr Churchward on a Commission of Peace despite his having been found guilty of corrupt election practices, Bagge named several other MPs who he claimed were acting in a similar fashion. The Times believed that Bagge’s speech ‘sufficiently showed the tactics to be adopted’ to ‘screen’ Mr. Churchward from further attack, Hansard, 19 Mar. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 126-28; The Times, 21 Mar. 1867. Bagge served on three election petition committees between 1837 and 1868.21Roxburghshire: PP 1837-38 (152-I) xii. 230; Belfast: PP 1842 (548) v. 69; Kingston-upon-Hull: PP 1852-53 (209) xiv. 3.

Bagge was returned unopposed in the Conservative triumph of 1841. However, his relationship with the Peel ministry, particularly on commercial and religious matters, proved fractious. On 23 May 1842, he voted against the government for the proposal that the duty on imported cattle be levied by weight.22Hansard, 23 May 1842, vol. 63, cc. 671-75. Miles’s amendment was seen as being more beneficial to British farmers in comparison to the government’s plan to impose a duty levied by head. More significantly, having supported Miles’s successful sugar duties amendment, 14 June 1844, against the government’s proposal, Bagge was one of only four Conservatives to reverse his vote three days later, after Peel threatened resignation.23Hansard, 14 June 1844, vol. 75, cc. 967-72; 17 June 1844, vol. 75, cc. 1082-86. Lloyd’s Weekly declared it ‘one of the most extraordinary “crosses”… ever got up on the parliamentary course’.24Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper, 23 June 1844. In May 1844, The Times portrayed Bagge as the model representative of a defined bloc in the Conservative party, ‘all patriotic, and props of the agricultural interest’.25The Times, 16 May 1844. It is unsurprising, therefore, to find him in the ranks opposing corn law repeal, 15 May 1846, having that January avowed to his local Agricultural Protection Society that it ‘would be a long time before he again became…an “habitual follower”…of Sir Robert Peel’.26The Times, 8 Jan. 1846. Bagge’s opposition to the Dissenters’ chapel bill, 28 June 1844, and the Maynooth endowment of 1845 displayed a corresponding antipathy to Peel’s religious measures. His frequent votes on licensing legislation, and service on the select committee on the Middle Level drainage and navigation bill in 1844, indicate a consistent concern for, and informed interest in, issues pertinent to his family’s and his constituency’s affairs.27Hansard, 21 Nov. 1837, vol. 39, cc. 120-22 (innkeepers’ liability bill); 27 June 1839, vol. 48, cc. 988-92 (sale of beer bill); 1 June 1842, vol. 63, cc.1104-5 (public houses bill); PP 1844 (446) xiv. 375ff. He also served on the select committee on the Westminster bridge bill: PP 1852-53 (622) xxxix. 468-70.

At both the 1847 and 1852 elections Bagge headed the poll. In Parliament, his Protestant and Protectionist identities were reaffirmed by his opposition to the removal of Jewish disabilities and his stand with only 52 others in censuring free trade, 26 Nov. 1852. His support for the repeal of the malt tax, 8 May 1851, was a critical cause for both farming and brewing, to which he returned repeatedly in later years.28For Bagge’s later interest in the malt tax, see Hansard, 9 May 1854, vol. 133, cc. 49-52; 17 Apr. 1866, vol. 182, cc. 1573-76; The Times, 8 Feb. 1866, 26 July 1866. Opposition to Joseph Hume’s ‘Little Charter’, 6 July 1848, 28 Feb. 1850, the extension of the Irish franchise, 10 May 1850, and Locke King’s franchise equalization motion, 2 Apr. 1851, reflected Bagge’s averred hostility to ‘all organic changes’.29The Poll for Two Knights, x. Hume’s ‘Little Charter’ included a ratepayer franchise, the secret ballot and triennial parliaments.

Having rarely attended in the 1856 session – he was present for just 13 out of 198 divisions – in March 1857 Bagge announced his parliamentary retirement, and at the dissolution duly stepped down, and was replaced by a Liberal.30The Times, 20 Mar. 1857; J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 13. In 1853 he had attended 58 out of 257 divisions: Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853. In 1859, despite expressing a willingness to return, Bagge deemed it ‘inexpedient to disturb the peace of the county’.31The Times, 18 Apr. 1859. The sudden ill-health of the Conservative candidate, Mr. Bentinck, in June 1865, however, tempted Bagge to return and ‘back up his young friend Mr. De Grey’; both were elected, with Bagge topping the poll.32The Examiner, 1 July 1865; The Times, 25 July 1865. In a reversal of earlier sentiment, he supported the government throughout their reform bill manoeuvres, stressing to a Norwich Working Men’s Conservative Association meeting that ‘nothing could stand still in this world’ and that he had no fears regarding the extension of the borough franchise.33John Bull, 27 Apr. 1867, 294; Daily News, 27 Apr. 1867. In a private letter of May 1866, he had recommended lowering the county occupation franchise, believing that it would help overwhelm Dissent in rural towns, and by April 1867, shortly after receiving a baronetcy from the Derby ministry, he was declaring publicly that he ‘saw no reason why the principle of household suffrage should not be applied to the counties as well’.34M. Cowling, 1867, Disraeli, Gladstone and Revolution, The Passing of the second Reform Bill (Cambridge, 1967), 50, 381n.2; John Bull, 27 Apr. 1867, 294. Bagge divided against the university tests (Oxford) bill, 21 Mar. 1866, and inquired about cattle plague precautions, 30 May 1867. He was returned unopposed in 1868 and 1874, and died in harness in February 1880.

Bagge’s trusteeship of the Downham Market savings bank, his involvement with the Lynn and Dereham and Lynn and Ely railway companies, together with his patronage of the construction of seaside houses in Great Yarmouth and his presence and provision of prizes at the Norfolk Agricultural exhibition, attest to the ‘kindly interest’ he took in ‘local institutions’ and affairs.35PP 1852 (521) xxviii. 842; PP 1857-58 (55) l. 481; PP 1845 (577) xlvii. 34; Ipswich Journal, 10 Oct. 1840. Many of the Yarmouth seaside houses were, it is reported, to be ‘peculiarly adapted for the reception of Invalids’; Ipswich Journal, 13 Feb. 1872; Norfolk Chronicle quoted in John Bull, 20 Apr. 1867, 272. See also The Times, 28 Jan. 1861, where Bagge organised opposition to the proposed route of the Mid-Eastern and Great North Junction railway, which would bypass west Norfolk. The erection of a roofed memorial in Bagge’s honour in Swaffham, in August 1883, replete with bust, drinking fountain and marble seats, financed through funds ‘raised by public subscription’, was testament to his local popularity.36Ipswich Journal, 6 Jan. 1883, 14 Aug. 1883. The memorial was struck by lightning in 1940 and subsequently demolished. Bagge enjoyed the pursuits of the country gentleman, shooting with the Prince of Wales at Stradsett and participating in a legislative shooting match, July 1867.37The Times, 24 Jan. 1866, 5 July 1867. He had been a keen cricketer in his youth, and in 1853 owned the cricket ground at King’s Lynn, where his brother, Richard, served as Lord Stanley’s election agent when he represented the borough.38Norfolk Chronicle quoted in John Bull, 20 Apr. 1867, 272; Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 13 Oct. 1834; The Morning Chronicle, 13 July 1850; The Times, 19 Mar. 1853; J. R. Vincent (ed.), Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative Party: the political journals of Lord Stanley 1849-69 (Hassocks, 1978), 3; Cowling, 1867, 50. Bagge’s cricket record can be found at http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/36/36259/36 259.html., where he is listed as having played for Norfolk and Marylebone Cricket Club. He was a member of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society and Fellow of the Geological Society of London.39The Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, The Antiquities of the County of Norfolk, 6 (1864), vii; The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 26 (1870), 479. Bagge was succeeded as second baronet by his son, William Henry Ernest, who died shortly after in 1881, when Bagge’s second son, Alfred Thomas, a retired naval officer, became the third baronet.40PP 1860 (314) xlii. 247; The Times, 1 Apr. 1893.