The county town and Tayside port of Perth, whose population (burgh only) rose from 19,068 in 1821 to 20,016 in 1831, served an important agricultural and textile manufacturing district and was known for its salmon fishing, distilleries, ginghams, shawls and muslins. The council of 26 was dominated by its 14 guildry men, whose collective votes under the so-called ‘beautiful order’ required them to comply with the wishes of their majority, so giving them an automatic majority over the 12 trades councillors. All were resident in the town or suburbs in 1822 and 21 had ‘places of business within the royalty’. There were seven incorporated trades and a guildry grouped according to four ‘sciences’ (dyers, maltmen, merchants and surgeons), which in 1832 had 560 members and property worth an estimated £28,000. The municipal corporations commissioners attributed the burgh’s £41,462 debt to ‘expenditure in the formation of public works’ and found no evidence of corporate mismanagement.
out of leets made by themselves, the council chose five merchant and three trades’ councillors. The old and new council made leets for magistrates, copies of which were given to the trades, and the election of magistrates was made by the old and new council, and nine deacons of the trades.
Ibid. (1823), xv. 699; (1835), xxix. 332; Dundee in 1793 and 1833 (1999 edn.), 79.
Campaigns for burgh and electoral reform were also under way in Cupar and Perth, orchestrated in the liberal Dundee, Perth & Cupar Advertiser.
At the dissolution in 1820, the radical George Kinloch† of Kinloch, who with the Advertiser’s editor Robert Rintoul had striven since 1815 to reform the corporation and harbour management in Dundee, was abroad, ‘outlawed’ (until pardoned in 1822) for sedition after absconding to evade trial for presiding at a radical meeting in the wake of Peterloo. Dundee’s incorporated trades were locked in an ‘internecine’ battle, which lasted until 1826, over whether voting under the 1818 sett was by delegate or individual members.
Perth established a committee to assist destitute weavers, 17 Apr., and the Commons received petitions, 30 May, 16 June 1820, from the councils and several trades of Dundee, Forfar and Perth for continuance of the linen bounties, which the Dundee-based Forfarshire chamber of commerce had been founded in April 1819 to oppose.
The deliberations and reports of the 1818-22 select committees on Scottish burgh reform aroused great interest. Petitions for ‘a more liberal and constitutional system’, abolition of self-election and a role in ‘controlling the management of common property’ were referred to them from Perth’s wrights’ incorporation, 13 June, tailors, fleshers and shoemakers, 23 June and merchant burgesses and guildry, 18 May 1821.
The process of securing essential legislation for the Tay salmon fisheries was complicated by the conflicting preferences of the ‘sea and estuary’ men of St. Andrews and Dundee and the freshwater fishermen of Perth. A bill, carried in the Lords in 1823 by the duke of Atholl and entrusted in the Commons to Lindsay, was abandoned after the Forfarshire chamber of commerce and the provost, magistrates and incorporation of merchants of Dundee petitioned against it. Petitions against the 1824 bill were received from St. Andrews and Dundee, 8, 17 Mar., 8 Apr., but the Perthshire Courier reassured its readers that its defeat in committee (11-7) ‘in no degree affects the question at issue between the upper and lower heritors’. The guild merchants of Dundee’s petition opposing ‘unnecessary restraints on the most improved methods of fishing’ was referred for consideration to the 1824 select committee on salmon fisheries, 3 May 1824. On 19 May 1825 the Commons received petitions against the abortive 1825 Tay salmon bill from the council and inhabitants of Cupar and the merchants, manufacturers, calico printers, cotton spinners, bleachers and millers of Perth.
Local resistance to paying the increased stamp duty on linen in 1821, when petitions and a non-payment programme were adopted, had been organized by the Dundee entrepreneur Edward Baxter. Assisted by the Member for Dysart Burghs, Sir Ronald Craufurd Ferguson, Baxter also encouraged the merchants, manufacturers, spinners and bleachers of Dundee, Cupar, Perth, St. Andrews and Forfar to lobby the board of trade and petition against the abolition of bounties under the 1823 Scottish Linen Manufacture Act, which the corporation of Forfar, where the stamp masters held sway, petitioned the Lords in favour of, 18 July 1823.
The 1823 municipal elections in Dundee ended in uproar following the election by 57-51 of the corporation nominee J.B. Baxter of Ives (the future prothonotary) as town clerk, ‘an office trifling in emolument’, but ‘of great political consequence to the corporation’ on account of the local legislation planned, after his opponent Saunders insisted that he had outpolled him by 54-53.
The Fife Banking Company of Cupar, in which the provost George Aitken was a partner, was a rare Scottish casualty of the 1825-6 crisis, and alterations to the Scottish banking system proposed by government in its wake were strongly resisted.
The council of Perth pre-empted the other four by meeting on 19 May to adopt Lindsay as their candidate and publicizing their ‘unanimous decision’.
seem to be afraid that the late Member would have slipped out of their fingers, by the haste with which they intimated their intention of re-electing him ... Lindsay has, indeed, proved himself a valuable representative to this district of burghs by his uncommon attention to everything affecting their local interests; and being deputy chairman to the India Company for next year, we may rely does not detract from the slightest degree from his merits in the eyes of a Scotch burgh.
Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 1 June; Perthshire Courier, 8 June 1826.
At the delegates’ elections the glovers’ incorporation of Perth, the sole opponents of Stewart’s appointment as commissioner, 11 June, lodged a formal objection and wrote directly to Lindsay urging him to back the trades.
A Fife laird sat in the chair to entertain the strangers and the delegate from Dundee did not, we are told, hurt his feelings by producing the resolutions of the council on the corn laws. This was a mawkish business altogether.
The Advertiser also criticized Provost Brown for attending the election alone, when the provost of Perth had taken ‘two of the ‘trades’ side of his council with him’.
The 1826 Michaelmas trades and council elections were contested throughout the district, and the re-election of the financially embarrassed Aitken as provost of Cupar, where the reformers were planning disfranchisement proceedings, aroused particular comment.
The concession of Catholic emancipation by Wellington’s ministry in 1829 elicited a mixed response even in Dundee, where pro-Catholic resolutions had been readily adopted by the guildry in October 1828, and the magistrates and council sent favourable addresses to the home secretary Peel and the king, 5 Mar., 7 Apr. 1829.
Lindsay’s continued commitment to the East India Company did not deter petitioning against its trading monopoly in 1830. A general meeting of Perth’s merchants, manufacturers and inhabitants, 9 Mar., requisitioned by ‘Young, Ross, Richardson and Company, and Sandeman and Company’ and their associates and chaired by Provost Stewart, forwarded petitions against renewing the Company’s charter and for ‘throwing open the China trade’ for presentation by Campbell of Blythswood and Kinnoull.
The reformers had made little headway in recent municipal elections, notably in Dundee, where in 1827 and 1828 the council successfully opposed the election of the spirit dealer and former police commissioner Alexander Kay as dean of guild, claiming that as he was a life-burgess and not a burgess for posterity, he was ineligible.
Lindsay had all but abandoned the constituency, but his failure to suggest a successor encouraged speculation that he sought re-election, which was not allayed until his retirement through ill health was announced in the second week of July.
However much disposed the town council of Forfar may be to vote for him [Ogilvy] as their representative, they will no doubt be guided by the decision of the Perth town council, who in consequence of the disfranchisement of Dundee, and Cupar and St. Andrews declaring in favour of ... Melville, can turn the scale in his favour, although Forfar be the returning burgh ... Melville, we understand, has a considerable party in Perth; but we suspect that the ruling junta there will be disposed to dictate to the Forfarians the election of ... [Stuart] Wortley under a threat of nullifying their vote, by pledging themselves to ... Melville.
Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 22 July 1830.
The Fife Herald of the same day puffed the prospects of Melville, who
has the unanimous votes of ... [Cupar] and is secure of St. Andrews; while at Perth, of 26 votes, 13 had declared in his favour on Tuesday (12 of the trades and one guild councillor); among the remaining moiety, three had not declared, and of these some, if not all, were supposed to lean to the side of Melville ... [Stuart] Wortley had ten votes (of the 26) in Perth; and in Forfar his progress is contested by ... Ogilvy, who thinks he can calculate on that burgh.
Fife Herald, 22 July 1830.
Hostile reports circulated that Stuart Wortley, who was said to have precedence over Ogilvy as the ministerial candidate, was ‘out of his latitude at Perth’.
At the delegate’s election in St. Andrews, 31 July, Melville retained the backing of the guild councillors, but the trades’ councillors had defected to Stuart Wortley and Ogilvy. Identical protests were entered against nine of the latter and ‘after six hours of deliberations’ the provost William Haig of Seggie ‘gave himself the casting vote’ over the nominee of the smiths’ trade, Cathcart Dempster.
All the burghs sent petitions for the abolition of slavery to the 1830 Parliament,
Wellington was burnt in effigy in Perth following his ministry’s defeat on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830, and the appointment of Lord Grey’s ministry prompted a flurry of reform meetings and petitions proposing remedies for ‘defective Scottish burgh representation’. In Dundee, where Kinloch, a harbour commissioner under the 1830 Act, had immediately staked his claim to become ‘the first Member for a future independent constituency’ and encouraged the establishment of a political union, and in Forfar, where a reform committee was established, 26 Nov., divisions were primarily over the inclusion in petitions of the radicals’ demands for the ballot, annual parliaments and universal suffrage.
I was permitted to take rather a lead, and I began with calling their attention to the strongest evidence of bribery, the case presented, that of a man named Fairweather, whose vote being struck off, would have given S. Wortley the majority. We read over all the evidence, and determined that though the presumption was strong, yet that it did not amount to proof. We divided 7-3. Next came a question whether tender, or offering, a bribe, the same not being accepted, constituted bribery and we determined not 6-4. Lastly we read the evidence of the treating at Cupar, and as champagne, turtle and claret appeared to have been given in profusion, we decided that it was treating. The effect of our decision was to nullify the whole election and send them down to try it all again.
Ormathwaite mss FG1/5, pp. 143, 144 (11 Dec. 1830).
Stuart Wortley tested the ground, but his anticipated opposition to the ministry and dubious eligibility had prompted invitations from Perth and Dundee to the new lord advocate Francis Jeffrey, who agreed to stand. Airlie decided against hazarding Donald Ogilvy, lest he be deemed disqualified, and offered their brother William, a shy ex-army captain, whose political inexperience was derided by Jeffrey’s friends but lent credence to his signed declaration to the corporation of Forfar that he was a committed supporter of reform, retrenchment and lower taxes.
The whole I am afraid depends upon Cupar. The advocate will have Perth and St. Andrews. The town council of Cupar [are] for the O[gilvie]s, but the people for the advocate. Dundee was disfranchised but both the former town council and the people are so strongly for the advocate that they have agreed to give up all their lawsuits in order, if possible, to bring the advocate in.
Jeffrey’s canvass was boosted by a well-attended reform meeting at St. Andrews, 18 Dec., which incorporated a resolution of support for the ministry in its petition for Scottish burgh and parliamentary reform and formally requested the council to vote for Jeffrey. By the 25th similar petitions, most of which were forwarded to John Campbell II (who had come in for Stafford) and presented to the Commons, 3-8 Feb., 14 Mar. 1831, had been adopted at meetings of householders, inhabitants, trades and guildries in Cupar, Forfar, Perth and Dundee. The attendant declarations of support for Jeffrey and requests to their councils to back him were promptly published.
I go with the advocate to his election at Forfar. Ogilvy will have Forfar and a commission from Cupar to which there are some objections. The advocate will have Perth, St. Andrews and a commission from Dundee. If the clerk sustains the commission from Dundee the advocate will have the return. The question with regard to Dundee stands more favourably than it did before as the judgment of the court of session has been appealed.
Cockburn Letters, 287; Stair mss.
Provost Bell voted for Jeffrey at Forfar, 13 Jan. 1831, as directed by the council of Dundee, 27 Dec. 1830. Jeffrey countered Ogilvy’s protest against it by entering another against the Cupar vote and was returned amid ‘outrageous’ mob violence, which his friends complained that Provost Smith ‘made no attempt to check’.
enraged by disappointment, are propagating silly though disagreeable stories; of which believe nothing. Their charges are
1. Taking a vote from Dundee; - clearly (valeat quantum) his legal right.
2. His incarcerating an adverse debtor; - not done by, or through, or for him; but purely by a true creditor who (justly) thought the seizure of his debtor at that moment was more likely to produce payment.
3. His ‘intimidation’; - a word, or thing - I don’t know the meaning of, as applied to this election.
4. His threats, etc. - to Shaw, a Cupar recreant; - not used by him, but most justly by Ivory whom Shaw betrayed.
5. His sending for the military at the Forfar election; - not sent for till the election was over, nor by him, nor till the lord lieutenant and the provost declared that they could not be answerable otherwise for the peace which had been shamefully and by encouragement, broken.
Cockburn Letters, 289, 290.
William Ogilvy’s petition against accepting the Dundee vote was delayed in transit by a blizzard and was unavailable for presentation on 3 Feb. (the first day of the session) as required by the regulations of the House. An interim petition from Airlie’s agent Thomas Carnaby, explaining the delay, was presented, 8 Feb. Even so, citing the refusal in similar circumstances of the 1781 Seaford election petition, Jeffrey’s colleagues, with the secretary at war and procedural expert Charles Williams Wynn as their spokesman, vainly persevered with an attempt to block the receipt of Ogilvy’s petition when it was brought up on the 10th.
It was remarkable and might have been very unfortunate that none of the law people either in Edinburgh or here (London) knew that the forms of the House required petitions to be presented on the first day of the session after a recess. Indeed, had it not been for the great exertion made by Carnaby to get on and to the fact of his travelling by the mail coach there can be no doubt the petition would have been thrown out. Most fortunately this has been avoided and the great sensation in the House on the occasion proves that the attempt having failed will bring opinion more to the side of the petition than before.
NAS GD16/34/387/8/3.
Pending its consideration, Ogilvy petitioned the Lords, 3 Mar., for admission as a respondent in appeal proceedings renewed by the magistrates of Dundee against the burgh’s disfranchisement, which he maintained had been a ploy to assist Stuart Wortley and Jeffrey. His plea was rejected, 8 Mar., but similar appeals by the merchant and former dean of guild John Mackenzie Lindsay and Provost John Balfour were granted, 14 Mar. 1831.
The Scottish reform bill introduced by Jeffrey, 9 Mar. 1831, proposed a £10 burgh franchise and incorporated Kennedy’s suggestion that Dundee, ‘a town eminently entitled to consideration’, should receive the ‘Member released by the disfranchisement of the East Fife burghs’, so reducing the Perth Burghs to four, ‘all of them being places of some note’.
Donald Ogilvy and Stuart Wortley started but desisted for want of support at the ensuing general election, and Jeffrey’s return was pronounced ‘safe’ directly St. Andrews declared for him, 28 Apr. 1831.
The Commons received a petition from the shoemakers of Perth in the name of their deacon John Graham endorsing the ministerial reform bills, 30 June 1831. Petitions from the political unionists and others in Dundee and Cupar were, as their presenter Hume anticipated, refused on account of their strong language, 14 Aug.
Dundee’s buyers, merchants and factors petitioned against permitting the use of molasses in distilling, 27 July, and the ship owners adopted one for relief from fees charged on quarantined vessels, 11 Aug., which its presenter Jeffrey cast a rogue vote against, 6 Sept. 1831.
St. Andrews (1820), Cupar (1826), Fifeshire; Forfar (1830); Perth (1831); Dundee, Forfarshire (not the returning burgh in this period)