The industrializing county of Derbyshire, with its mixture of market towns and manufacturing concerns, was supposed to have over 3,000 (or, according to one source, 3,600) freeholders, but this figure was merely notional as there had been no contests since 1768. Politically, it was dominated by the Whig magnate the 6th duke of Devonshire of Chatsworth, the lord lieutenant, whose family had held one seat continuously from 1734. Apart from the former Member, the 2nd Baron Scarsdale of Kedleston Hall, the 3rd Baron Vernon of Sudbury Hall and the Irish peer the 19th earl of Ormonde of Kilkenny Castle, the principal families were those of Edward Coke† of Longford, whose son Thomas William Coke was Member for Derby, Sir George Crewe† of Calke Abbey, whose paternal grandfather Sir Henry Harpur had represented the county in the 1760s, Edward Miller Mundy of Shipley Hall, who had first been elected in 1784, and his kinsman Francis Mundy of Markeaton Hall. But, as the reformer Thomas Oldfield observed, there were ‘many who have equal claims’.
There was a contest of sorts at the general election of 1820, when Dr. Peter Crompton, a former activist in the Derby Political Society of the 1780s and the defeated candidate in the borough by-election in 1796, proposed Samuel Shore of Meersbrook as a third man. Crompton, now regarded as an eccentric controversialist, denounced the Devonshire ascendancy and proposed to restore the county’s independence by forcing a poll, but Shore, a bedridden octogenarian, sent word that he was no party to this mischief. Cavendish and Mundy were elected after a token two-day contest, each of them praising the sheriff, Francis Mundy, for having dealt appropriately with Crompton.
In December 1820, after those of Scarsdale and Vernon had been the first names on a requisition for a county meeting to approve a loyal address to George IV, James Abercromby* of Stubbing Court, the second-ranking Whig who acted as Devonshire’s auditor and adviser, commented that ‘the sheriff is behaving well and prudently, but I am doubtful whether those foolish Tories, with Sir George Crewe at their head, will not occasion some difficulty and confusion’. Emboldened by Abercromby, who urged him to at least make his appearance with the support of the ‘popular party’, since there was a ‘party struggle for power at your expense’ in the county, Devonshire overcame his habitual reticence to attend the meeting in Derby, 8 Jan. 1821. To Crewe’s motion for an address to George IV, he successfully moved an amendment condemning the Liverpool administration’s conduct towards Queen Caroline and carried it in the face of furious opposition from the Tories.
Derbyshire petitions complaining of agricultural distress were presented by Edward Miller Mundy, 20 Feb., and James Ingram Lockhart, 26 Apr.; one from the county and borough for revision of the criminal laws was brought up, 3 June 1822.
Neither Cavendish, who favoured Catholic relief, nor Mundy, who voted against it, apparently supported the short-lived Canning ministry, during which Devonshire served as lord chamberlain, and both were very inactive during the following sessions. In early 1829 Mundy supported local anti-Catholic activity, including in Derby, where the True Blue Club met under the chairmanship of the late Edward Miller Mundy’s son and namesake; hostile petitions were forthcoming from such places as Ashbourne and Chesterfield.
Derbyshire, after all, is only a seat in Parliament, though certainly the representation of a county is, I admit, an honourable appendage to a noble family there resident, but this may be maintained at too high a price if it is to be supposed that there must always be Cavendishes specially presented and prepared for the purpose. If the time were to come when no Cavendish should represent it, I could contemplate that ... without disgust, and I am sure it would be better than that the pigheaded county is always to consider itself entitled to the flower of the family ... If the representation is conferred handsomely and willingly it ought to be accepted and cultivated; if not, it should be tipped into the Trent without a sigh.
Chatsworth mss.
The leading Tory justices of the peace met in December 1829 to draw up a memorial complaining of the prevailing agricultural distress, which was forwarded to the duke of Wellington, the prime minister, by Edward Sacheverell Chandos Pole of Radborne, 1 Feb. 1830.
Joseph’s nephew Edward Strutt, Member for Derby, informed his sister Frances, 9 Mar. 1831, that Francis Mundy was undecided on the Grey ministry’s reform bill and that Strutt had written to William Jeffrey Lockett, Devonshire’s agent, ‘for the purpose of giving him a hint that it will be desirable to assist Mr. M. in making up his mind’.
thought that we should get the start in our requisition, as a meeting would be most certainly called by the other party, and that many who were now desirous of reform would in the event of a county election incline to a county Member who had given his sanction to the reform question.
FitzHerbert mss 8848; Squire of Calke Abbey ed. C. Kitching, 73.
The reappointed lord chamberlain Devonshire, who was said by Strutt to be ‘delighted by the state of affairs in Derbyshire’, attended the county meeting, 22 Mar., when he joined the Ultra requisitionists, notably Crewe, in supporting the reform bill.
In the spring of 1831 Lockett advised Devonshire, with a certain amount of apprehension, since the inevitable collapse of the compromise would leave the Cavendishes open to the charge of dictation, that Mundy ‘will certainly be opposed and rejected and from what I can see already it will not be an easy matter to prevent the Whigs from setting up a second candidate’. He also assured the duke that nine tenths of the freeholders favoured reform.
Today I was sitting in my room when Waterpark was announced. As soon as he had shut the door he said, ‘George, we want you to go down to Derbyshire. We hear that Gisborne is going to stand and we don’t like him. He is not a reputable person, and in case Mundy resigns and no Tory (who will support the bill) should offer himself, we must have you’. I said a contest for such a short Parliament is a very serious thing and I should be loath to put my father to the expense of a contested election.
He was persuaded by Waterpark that a poll was unlikely and made clear to his father that he had no money, but he accepted the offer and believed that, even if he withdrew, he would at least be establishing an interest for another opportunity. Despite these assurances, Cavendish’s campaign was kept separate from the new candidate’s and Devonshire later had to mollify Lord Vernon, who thought his son would be a fitting representative, by explaining that ‘my rule of not interfering in the choice of the second Member for the county prevented my acting as I would have wished’.
One newspaper subsequently derided Venables Vernon’s naive boast of independence, since he had clearly been returned under the Devonshire dispensation. The reluctance of his election committee to meet all his expenses, though they had money in hand to cover the cost, and not least their attempt at dictation over his responsibilities as county Member, was indicative of the Strutts’ ambition to control the second seat in tandem with Devonshire. The disingenuousness of the Whigs was soon apparent and Venables Vernon confided to his father that
I am sure that there is some underhand play about my election which I cannot fathom. Everyone seems to be of the opinion that the Tories are organizing a strenuous opposition for the next time, and ... I never will consent to be made the tool of a faction ... Crewe ... gave me some hints which have set me thinking and I have seen at other times various things which lead me to suppose that either the Strutt party and those at Derby wish to make the respectability of my family’s character and ‘my pleasing manners’ a cloak for their own purposes (in short that I am to be the puppet of which they are to move the strings) or there is some secret understanding with the duke of Devonshire.
Vernon of Sudbury mss, Venables Vernon to Vernon, 10, 12 May; Derby Mercury, 18 May 1831; Hogarth, 76.
In June 1831 Crewe, Gisborne and Gresley all issued addresses promising to offer at the next opportunity, while it was reported that Cavendish and Waterpark would also be in the running, and the following month an Association for Promoting the Purity of Elections was established in Buxton.
Now I need not point out to you the importance of unanimity in the main object we have in view, of ousting the radical faction from the commanding position they were enabled to carry, and take up (as they hope, for good) which of right, as I may say, belongs to the Tories in the county, and that they achieved through the dissensions of our party.
Meynell, who lamented that his friends were divided into what he called the ‘Tory radical reformers’ and the consistent opponents of the reform bill, favoured Gresley, but noted that Arkwright’s candidacy would force him out of the race.
Devonshire had been content to persevere with his increasingly inactive uncle, but was irritated to learn that, without consulting him, Grey had given Lord George Cavendish one of the coronation peerages in September 1831. Although Abercromby believed that Waterpark, rather than Henry or Charles Cavendish*, would be a better long-term prospect for Derbyshire, which Ralph Sneyd termed ‘Devonshire’s rotten borough’, the duke was pleased to bring forward Lord Cavendish (as Lord George’s heir William was now styled), but not without voicing bitter complaints that his grandfather’s age meant that Cavendish’s occupation of the county seat would be curtailed.
The proposed north-south division of the county into two two Member constituencies preoccupied sympathizers of both parties in exhaustive drawing room electioneering from the summer of 1831. Devonshire, keen to return a second member of the family, reserved a safe seat in the North for Lord Cavendish, leaving Waterpark to sit for the South. However, this plan required the support of Lord Vernon, whose son, after much wavering, eventually decided to offer independently for the Southern division, where the Whigs were vulnerable because of the enfranchisement (by the Chandos amendment) of the Tory £50 tenants-at-will, even though this would anger Devonshire by scuppering Waterpark’s chances there and letting Gisborne take the second seat in the North.
Estimated voters: over 3000