Sandwich

In the words of the 1831 boundary commissioners, Sandwich, situated on the River Stour on the east Kent coast, was ‘a dull, deserted town, with little prospect of improving its decayed condition’; and George Agar Ellis*, a visitor in 1832, described it as ‘a deserted looking town in a swamp’.PP (1831-2), xxxix. 15-16; Northants. RO, Agar Ellis diary, 24 July [1832]. The harbour had long ago silted up, and by the end of the eighteenth century catered only for a limited coastal trade.Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1823-4), 411; H.C. Bentwich, Hist. Sandwich, 47- 48. Sandwich was overshadowed during the French wars by the port and naval centre of Deal, about five miles to the south-east, which benefited from the sheltered anchorage of the Downs and had a busy admiralty dockyard. The return of peace ushered in a period of decline for Deal, which by 1831 was ‘dirty and disagreeable’. The local boatmen were hit by unemployment and more effective measures against smuggling; and the town only retained a vestige of prosperity through exploitation of its assets as a resort, though it was always the poor relation of Margate and Ramsgate.J. Whyman, ‘Dover and Deal in 19th Cent.’, Arch. Cantiana, lxxxiv (1969), 123, 126, 128, 129, 133-4; J. Laker, Hist. Deal, 340; B. Collins, Discovering Deal, 25, 32. Just over a mile south west of Deal lay Walmer, a former fishing hamlet expanded by residential development and the presence of a marine barracks. Walmer Castle was the official residence of the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, a post held in this period by the Tory premiers Lord Liverpool until his death in December 1828 and the duke of Wellington from early the following year. The corporation of Sandwich consisted of a mayor, 12 jurats and 24 common councillors. Only about a third of the freemen were residents of the town: before the 1830 general election, for example, 330 of about 940 lived there; and there were significant pockets of out-voters in London (147), Deal (76), Ramsgate (69) and Margate (66). Between 1820 and 1831 there were 345 admissions to the freedom, largely by dint of birth, marriage or apprenticeship.PP (1831-2), xxxix. 18; (1835), xxiv. 383, 395; Cent. Kent. Stud. Sandwich borough recs. Sa/RF38; ROf 5. Government, normally acting through the admiralty, commanded considerable influence, but had controlled only one seat since 1790. The other went to a powerful independent interest, though the two were not necessarily mutually antagonistic. There was an element of venality, but it was not preponderant. Wellington mss WP1/949/20; HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 473-5.

After the general election of 1818 Sir George Warrender, a lord of the admiralty, returned on the government interest, had ‘no doubt’ that, with due attention to patronage, ‘on a future occasion two Members can be carried’.NLS mss 1041, f. 119. By the time of the dissolution in 1820 his colleague Joseph Marryat, a wealthy London West India merchant and ship owner, who had occupied the independent seat since 1812, was regarded with extreme suspicion in ministerial circles.Add. 38282, ff. 89-95. Yet there was no question of his being dislodged; and after his unopposed return with Warrender it was the latter who had cause to complain publicly of ‘the attempts of a few persons, of no consequence among you, to embarrass my re-election, and to disturb the general harmony’.Kentish Chron. 8, 11, 25 Feb., 3, 10, 14 Mar. 1820. Reports in May 1821 that the Sandwich customs establishment had been recommended for removal to Ramsgate prompted the common assembly to urge both Members to resist any such transfer, ‘that the Old Town may not be deprived of the almost only thing left worth notice’. Both made representations to the treasury, but it was Marryat who exerted himself to trace the story to its source and to help ensure that nothing came of the recommendation.Sandwich borough recs. Sa/C2, corporation letterbk. The following year he managed to persuade his colleagues on the foreign trade select committee not to report in favour of abolition of the annual payment of £200 to Sandwich by the trustees of Ramsgate harbour to defray the cost of removing silt deposited in the haven by the effects on tides of Ramsgate pier.PP (1822), vi. 441-4. Farmers, tanners, curriers, shoemakers and others of Sandwich and its vicinity petitioned the Commons for repeal of the leather tax, 13 May 1822.CJ, lxxvii. 254. Inhabitants of Sandwich petitioned for repeal of the coal duties and the abolition of slavery, 16 Mar. 1824.Ibid. lxxix. 102, 167.

Marryat died in January 1824, but the circumstances of his replacement are not entirely clear. Liverpool wrote to his confidant John Charles Herries*:

His successor should be a monied man. I know well the people of Sandwich. They are a shabby set, and I should be sorry to get into any concern with them except by recommending a person who would incur the necessary expenses.

He thought that John Atkins*, a London alderman with an estate near Sevenoaks, would ‘do very well, if a better man cannot be found’.Add. 57367, f. 31. In the event there came forward Henry Bonham, a former Member for Leominster, who had East Indian commercial interests. It appears that Marryat’s eldest son declined an invitation to stand on this occasion and that Bonham’s candidature, whether recommended by government or not, was acceptable to the independents, with ‘both Reds and Blues’ (the only use of such terminology which has been found in this period) ‘cordially co-operating in the choice’, as the Kentish Chronicle put it. At the election Bonham boasted of his ‘perfect independence’ and declared his readiness to ‘support ministers on pure Whig principles’ when he judged it right to do so; but he proved to be a docile and silent supporter of government.Kentish Chron. 27, 30 Jan., 13, 17 Feb.; Kent Herald, 22, 29 Jan., 12 Feb. 1824. Soon after his return the common assembly resolved to revive the project of linking Sandwich by canal to Canterbury and to the sea, with a new harbour to be built near Sandown. Bonham introduced a bill, 3 May 1824, but it made no further progress that session. It was brought in again, 11 Feb. 1825, and became law, to great local rejoicing, in June that year. Yet capital and enterprise were not forthcoming, and the scheme was never executed.Bentwich, 48; Collins, 23; D. Gardner, Historic Haven, 324; Sandwich borough recs. Sa/AC9/886, 888, 889, 905-10; CJ, lxxix. 285, 289, 295, 308, 310; lxxx. 30, 402, 464, 586.

When a dissolution was expected in September 1825 it was reported that Sandwich would be contested, though one commentator discounted this possibility, alleging that ‘the bargain having been made some time since ... there is to be no grumbling’. Marryat’s son confirmed that he would stand, while Warrender, who had moved to the Indian board in 1822, was expected to retire. Kent Herald, 22, 29 Sept.; Kentish Chron. 30 Sept. 1825. So he did at the dissolution in 1826, ostensibly on account of poor health (though it did not prevent him coming in for Westbury), and Bonham transferred to Rye. Marryat promised to promote the canal and harbour scheme and to pursue his father’s independent line. Speculation about the likely government candidate named John Wilson Croker*, secretary to the admiralty, and Henry Dundas*, eldest son of Lord Melville, the first lord.Kent Herald, 18 May; Kentish Gazette, 19 May; Kentish Chron. 19 May 1826. A public meeting of freemen, 22 May, resolved to support Admiral Sir Edward Owen, an active naval officer and a resident of Deal, who had also backed the harbour project. He provisionally accepted their invitation, but privately told Melville that ‘my circumstances are such as would have deterred me from offering myself unless from such a general call as may justify the hope of success without incurring expense’ and offered to step aside for Dundas if required. Melville confirmed that his son had intended to stand, if only ‘to keep out any objectionable candidate’, but gave Owen his full blessing.Kentish Chron. 23, 26 May, 2 June; Kentish Gazette, 26, 30 May, 2 June; Kent Herald, 1 June 1826; Keele Univ. Lib. North mss N111/1-5. The election passed off quietly, and was celebrated with ‘a very grand cavalcade’ of both parties in another display of unity.Kent Herald, 8, 15 June; Kentish Chron. 6, 9, 13 June; Kentish Gazette, 6, 13 June; The Times, 8 June 1826.

Owners and occupiers of land at Sandwich and Stonar petitioned both Houses against interference with the corn laws in February 1827.LJ, lix. 94; CJ, lxxxii. 239. Sandwich maltsters petitioned the Commons for repeal of the 1827 Malt Act, 25 Feb. 1828.CJ, lxxxiii. 100. There was no disturbance on Owen’s re-election after his appointment as surveyor-general of the ordnance in May 1827 or when he became a lord of the admiralty in March 1828, although Croker fussed about the fact that the Gazette made it appear that the election had preceded the appointment.Sandwich borough recs. Sa/ZP1, meeting, 20 Apr.; Kentish Chron. 2, 15 May 1827; Kent Herald, 13,20 Mar.; Add. 41320, f. 13; London Gazette, 18 Mar. 1828. When the admiralty was reconstituted under Melville in September 1828 Owen resigned, supposedly because it would ‘not be convenient to him at present to go to a new election’. He was made commander-in-chief in India, and Croker thought that ‘if the cards are well played’, Admiral Sir Henry Hotham, his replacement at the admiralty, might also succeed him at Sandwich. ‘At all events’, Croker went on, ‘we ought to take care to have a friend there; the constituency is rather anti-Catholic, and an election costs about £1,000’.Wellington Despatches, v. 19, 20, 65-66; Wellington mss WP1/954/12. Owen did not vacate until early March 1829; and in the meantime his seat was mentioned as a possible refuge for the ministers Vesey Fitzgerald, ousted from Clare by O’Connell, or Peel, in trouble at Oxford University after his conversion to Catholic emancipation. (The latter suggestion, according to Peel’s brother, came from a member of Sandwich corporation.) Arbuthnot Corresp. 116; Add. 40398, f. 138. Government decided to send down Sir Henry Fane, a soldier and favourite of Wellington (his sister Mrs. Harriet Arbuthnot was the duke’s celebrated confidante), whose appointment as surveyor-general of the ordnance was so timed as to avoid the necessity of a second election. Fane was publicly challenged by the Rev. William Wodsworth, rector of St. Peter’s and a member of the corporation, to declare his hostility to Catholic emancipation. He claimed that when Fane had canvassed him, accompanied by William Holmes*, the government whip, he had said that his personal opinions on this issue were ‘of no consequence’ because the relief bill would be through the House before he was returned. Wodsworth also denounced the surreptitious manner of his introduction to the borough and urged the electors to follow the example set in Owen’s case ‘of inviting and electing candidates from the town hall, by the assembly of the freemen at large’. One William Sayer replied with an attack on ‘the cant of Brunswick bigots and anti-Catholic parsons’, while Fane publicly denied that he had dissembled his views, insisting that he had made it clear to Wodsworth that he would have voted with government.Wellington mss WP1/1007/14; Kentish Gazette, 17, 20 Mar.; Kent Herald, 19 Mar.; Sandwich borough recs. Sa/ZP2, public letters from Wodsworth, 13 Mar., Sayer, 20 Mar. 1829. At his nomination in common assembly, 23 Mar., he declared his pragmatic support for emancipation, and his views were subsequently endorsed by William Pettman, a jurat. It had been rumoured that Fane would be opposed by the egregious London alderman Sir William Curtis*; but in the event Wodsworth nominated Samuel Grove Price, a young barrister with a reputation for scholarship and uncompromising Tory views, who appeared at the last minute.Kent Herald, 26 Mar.; Kentish Gazette, 24, 27, 31 Mar.; Sandwich borough recs. Sa/ZP2, public letter from Pettman, 28 Mar.1829. Too late seriously to threaten Fane’s return, he withdrew after two days’ polling, but announced his intention of standing on the next vacancy.Kent Herald, 2 Apr.; Kentish Gazette, 3, 7 Apr. 1829; Sandwich borough recs. Sa/AC10/11-13. Wodsworth later secured his admission to the freedom, despite some objections. His candidature was endorsed at a meeting of the London freemen, 24 Apr. 1829, when he castigated Peel and Wellington, and resolutions were carried to set up a permanent club for the London voters of Tory views.Sandwich borough recs. Sa/AC10/13, 14, 29; Kentish Gazette, 28 Apr.; Kent Herald, 30 Apr.1829.

Later in the year Wellington promised if possible to attend to requests from Fane on behalf of supporters at Sandwich, though he was ‘not certain that I can do anything for them’.Wellington mss WP1/1035/53; 1048/39. On the king’s death in June 1830 Marryat and Price declared themselves: the former as an ‘independent’ and supporter of retrenchment; the latter as an unrepentant opponent of emancipation and an advocate of enhanced protection for commerce and agriculture. Fane immediately told his ministerial colleagues that he was not prepared to face the cost of a contest, and he was accommodated at Hastings. His replacement on the government interest was Admiral Sir Henry Blackwood, commander at the Nore, who professed great confidence after his canvass. Price accused him of threatening some of his own pledged supporters with removal from their places.Kentish Gazette, 2, 6, 9, 13, 16, 20, 23 July; The Times, 8, 13 July 1830; Wellington mss WP1/1123/24. Only Marryat was present at the common assembly, 26 July, when all three men were nominated and the election fixed for the 31st. The same day, however, Blackwood announced from London that he was backing down. Price made a spectacular entry to Sandwich, 28 July 1830, and he and Marryat walked over. For the first time in living memory the borough had returned two Members independent of the government of the day.The Times, 27 July; Kentish Gazette, 27, 30 July, 3, 10 Aug. 1830.

Marryat voted against the ministry on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830, but Price, for all his bluster, sided with them. By the Grey ministry’s first reform bill, Sandwich was scheduled to lose one Member. Despite this, and the threatened disfranchisement of all but resident freemen for their lives, there was strong support for the measure in the town and in Deal.Kent Herald, 17 Feb., 10, 17 Mar. 1831. Marryat voted for, and Price against the second reading, 22 Mar. 1831. Three days later, when Hodges, the county Member, presented a pro-reform petition from the Isle of Thanet (which included Margate and Ramsgate), Marryat stated that unless the proposed disfranchisement of freemen was modified in committee, he would oppose the bill. Price condemned it outright, complained (apparently misunderstanding the effects of the loss of one seat) that half his constituents would be disfranchised immediately and calculated that very soon the electorate would fall from 935 to 150. On 8 Apr. he called a common assembly at Sandwich to explain and justify his conduct: according to a favourable report, he was given a vote of thanks, with only one dissentient; while his detractors alleged that he ‘had but a thin audience’, with only one member of the corporation present. He claimed to have obtained ‘the warmest approbation’ of his conduct from the Deal freemen, but his enemies said that he was ‘very coolly received’ at Canterbury and Ramsgate. Petitions for and against the bill were got up at Sandwich; the latter, according to the pro-reform press, was concocted in secrecy and signed by only 30 electors. Neither seems to have reached the Commons.Ibid. 31 Mar., 7, 14, 21 Apr.; Kentish Gazette, 15, 19 Apr. 1831. Marryat divided with government against Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr., while Price voted for it and on 21 Apr. delivered in the House a rabid diatribe against the bill and the dissolution. The next day the Rev. George Gleig, a former soldier who had served under Wellington and was now perpetual curate of Ash, near Sandwich, responded to the request of some of the leading anti-reformers that he urge the duke to send down a second man to stand with Price:

There is a strong party in the borough prepared to support any candidate holding the principles which you maintain. Mr. Price, I am assured, stands upon good ground, and hence if those assurances are to be relied upon, a little promptitude may secure two constitutional men for this quarter. I am further assured that could such a man be found among the directors of the East India Company, or anybody connected with the shipping interest, his return would be certain ... The friends of order in Sandwich are naturally desirous that this affair should be conducted with the greatest possible secrecy. Their agent is accordingly to call here for information, so that no suspicion of the arrangement may get abroad ... No man need offer who is not prepared to spend £2,000 or £2,500; nor, I am afraid, will any man be certain of his seat, who does not possess the means of rewarding his poor constituents for their support. A man connected with India, and influential in Leadenhall Street, is sure of success ... The candidate must be prepared to deal in general assertions respecting reform. He will not be called upon to particularize, beyond asserting that he will consent to no plan which shall have a tendency to take away from the privileges of the freemen of Sandwich.

Davis, the Tory Member for Bristol, also pressed Wellington to assist Price as best he could.Wellington mss, Gleig to Wellington, 22 Apr. 1831; WP1/1182/11. Sir James Graham, first lord of the admiralty, sent the naval officer Sir Thomas Troubridge to Sandwich by mail coach, having ‘made such an arrangement for him with ... Marryat ... who stands again, that I entertain no doubt of his success’.Sir James Graham mss (IHR microfilm XR 80), bdle. 5, Graham to Grey [ c.22 Apr. 1831]. Price, aware of this intervention, wrote urgently to his patron, the 2nd marquess of Salisbury, 23 Apr.:

If a second anti-reformer be sent down by the duke of Wellington’s friends, his election is hopeless, and my defeat certain. If you wish to defeat me, send down another anti-reformer. My success I consider quite certain, if I am left undisturbed. If Holmes will write to Mr. Valentine Hoile and Mr. [Daniel] Hodgson [jurats], it will be a great addition to my strength. As far as can be done constitutionally, the wish of the duke will be a tower of strength. They wished, at least some, to have Holmes for Member. This is between ourselves. The reformers are moving heaven and earth against me. My speech [of 21 Apr.] has driven them frantic ... The feeling of the lower classes is admirable; nothing can defeat me but a second anti-reformer. He has not the smallest chance, but it will sever from me a considerable body, who are now disposed to vote for me, although there is some little heart-burning from the late contest, when they opposed me. They would seize the opportunity of voting for a new man, an anti-reformer, and therefore deprive me of a portion of my strength. Do put this to the duke of Wellington, in person. An injudicious man has advised a second candidate on anti-reform principles. Again I repeat, it will create disunion among the anti-reformers. If I thought there was a shadow of chance for a second man, I would run every risk, but I am sure there is none.Hatfield House mss 2M/Gen.

No second anti-reformer appeared. While Marryat declared himself ‘on principle a friend to reform’, he repeated his objections to the disfranchisement of freemen; but Troubridge endorsed the bill without reservations. When Price tried to canvass Deal, 27 Apr., he was attacked and besieged in an inn by an angry mob. His minders were manhandled and he was forced to flee from the town. According to the pro-reform press, ‘the tide of popular fury was indescribable’; but Price’s supporters dismissed the incident as a drunken riot fomented by ‘the cries of an assembly of dirty children, and the screams and gesticulations of a few women’.Kentish Gazette, 26, 29 Apr.; Kentish Chron. 26 Apr.; Kent Herald, 28 Apr.; The Times, 29 Apr. 1831. Price lagged behind Troubridge in third place by 20 on the first day and 56 on the second, and he gave up 100 in arrears after a few hours polling on the third. He subsequently attributed his defeat to ‘popular clamour’, ‘popular violence’ and, above all, the blatant exertion of government influence on behalf of his opponents, who had been in ‘virtual coalition’. At the same time, he did acknowledge that ‘popular excitement’ in favour of reform had played a part.Kentish Gazette, 3, 6 May; Kentish Chron. 3, 10 May; Kent Herald, 5, 12 May; The Times, 4, 5 May 1831; Laker, 372; Sandwich borough recs. Sa/AC10/62-68. Marryat and Troubridge had 322 split votes, which comprised 65 per cent and 81 per cent of their respective totals. Price shared 156 votes with Marryat (53 and 31 per cent of their totals) and got 127 plumpers (43 per cent). He shared only 14 votes with Troubridge, who received 61 plumpers to Marryat’s 20. Of the 700 who voted, 241 (34 per cent) were Sandwich residents. A further 230 freemen, made up of 66 residents and 164 out-voters, were listed as qualified but unpolled. Marryat and Price did markedly better in Sandwich, where 80 per cent and 49 per cent of voters respectively supported them, than among the electorate as a whole (71 per cent and 42 per cent). Troubridge fared worse there, with the support of 48 per cent as against that of 57 per cent overall. Four-hundred-and-three freemen (58 per cent) voted in effect for reform; 127 (18 per cent) were against it; and 170 (24 per cent) cast mixed votes. In Sandwich the proportions were 51, 14 and 35 per cent; and among the out-voters 61, 20 and 19 per cent. Enthusiasm for reform within Sandwich was therefore apparently somewhat dampened by a wish to support the sitting Members. The Deal voters were easily the most zealous for reform, with 82 per cent for and only five per cent hostile. By contrast, only half the London voters backed reform, and 35 per cent voted against it. Of the 22 identifiable members of the corporation who voted, 11 split for the reform candidates, four plumped for Marryat, four for Price, two for Troubridge, and one split for Marryat and Price: that is, 17 were for reform and four against. (Of the two jurats named as supporters by Price to Salisbury, Hodgson did not vote and Voile plumped for Troubridge.)Sandwich Pollbook (1831); Sandwich borough recs.Sa/RF38. For a more detailed analysis of the voting see F.W.G. Andrews, ‘Pollbooks of Sandwich’, HR, lxxi (1998), 75-107. Troubridge’s expenses, which were apparently paid by government, amounted to £1,837 9s.6d.: the main items were tavern expenses (£335); payments to freemen in lieu of a dinner, averaging £1 each (£264); non-residents’ travelling expenses (£220); coach hire (£160); legal fees (£156); bands and colourmen (£140), and ribbons, banners and flags (£121).Sandwich borough recs. Sa/FZ1. He and Marryat held separate rounds of celebration dinners, and the former described his triumphant entry into Deal to his wife:

Wellington or even Napoleon could not have been better received. Thousands of people met me about a mile from the town with a band, and banners, and flags, men on horseback, etc. They took my horses from the carriage and dragged it through Upper and Lower Deal. The windows of the houses were filled with well-dressed and pretty women, all wearing my colours; and [there were] discharges of musketry and rockets every here and there.Kentish Gazette, 10, 20 May; Kentish Chron. 10, 17 May; Kent Herald, 12,19 May; NMM, Troubridge mss 3/14, Troubridge to wife, 9, 13 May 1831.

On 18 May 1831 a meeting at Deal resolved to petition the treasury to have the town and Walmer, which had a combined population of 9,000, united with Sandwich to form a new two Member constituency. The common assembly of Sandwich decided not to co-operate, but about a hundred freemen supported the bid. Ministers responded favourably to the Deal petition, which Troubridge submitted to them, and the proposal was duly incorporated in the reintroduced and amended reform bill, as Troubridge told his wife, 30 June: ‘I have no doubt that Mr. Marryat and myself can now defy any other candidate. My letters from Deal say they are ringing the bells, and nothing goes down but Sir T. Troubridge’.Kent Herald, 2, 30 June; Sandwich borough recs. Sa/AC10/69, 70; PP (1831), xvi. 24-27, 65-66; Troubridge mss 3/14. In the House, 26 July, Croker, trying to goad Lord John Russell into explaining why and when the scheme had been adopted, alluded to a press report that Troubridge had persuaded ministers to take it up in fulfilment of a promise by which he had secured the support of Deal voters reluctant to vote for their own disfranchisement. Russell played dumb, but Troubridge dismissed the story as ‘totally without foundation’. Two days later Warrender, unaware or forgetful of this development, asserted that his former constituency would become ‘a very snug nomination borough in the hands of the admiralty’, with an electorate of no more than 225. On the formal proposal to include the revamped borough in Schedule E, 9 Aug., Wetherell, who claimed that the inhabitants of Sandwich would prefer union with Margate or Ramsgate, repeated the allegation that it would fall under admiralty control. Marryat retorted that there would be ‘too many independent voters’ for that to occur; and, after an argument between him and Croker as to whether Deal was four or six miles from Sandwich, the motion was carried. Sandwich freemen resident in Margate petitioned the Commons, 16 Aug. 1831, to be allowed to retain their votes in perpetuity, or at least for their own lives.Kentish Chron. 19 July 1831; CJ, lxxxvi. 760.

Price, who was alleged to have paid his supporters £1 for split votes and £2 for plumpers, continued to cultivate Sandwich.Kent Herald, 7, 14 July; Kentish Gazette, 12 July, 9 Aug. 1831. He and Gleig encouraged Wellington to exert his influence and patronage as lord warden. Although the duke thought that ‘the lord warden has very little indeed in his power’, an attempt was made later in the year to benefit Price through the appointment of Cinque Ports pilots at the court of lodemanage. Gleig was also anxious that Price and Wellington should patronize the revived harbour scheme, even though he did not ‘believe it will ever come to anything’.Wellington mss WP1/1196/35; WP2/215/67-71, 75; 222/15; Gleig to Wellington, 21 Sept. 1831. A Deal meeting to petition the Lords to pass the reform bill, 26 Sept., was countered four days later by one got up at Sandwich by Price and Gleig. Price claimed that its petition, which he entrusted to Wellington, was carried by a ‘majority ... of five to three’; but his detractors reckoned that it attracted only 126 signatures and that an alternative pro-bill petition was signed by 224 freemen, including the mayor, and 135 inhabitants.Kent Herald, 29 Sept., 6 Oct.; Kentish Gazette, 4 Oct. 1831; LJ, lxiii. 1034, 1055. A Reform Club was established at Sandwich the following month, when there was another enthusiastic meeting at Deal, which voted an address to the king deploring the loss of the bill in the Lords.J.H. Andrews, ‘Political Issues in Kent, 1820-46’ (London Univ. M. Phil. thesis, 1967), 88, 89, 97; Kent Herald, 20, 27 Oct.; Kentish Chron. 25 Oct. 1831. Soon afterwards Gleig warned Wellington of a plot hatched in a Deal public house to attack him on his way to Walmer Castle. The duke, though sceptical, armed himself and changed the time of his journey; but Gleig and a group of his fellow magistrates, taking no chances, met his carriage near Ash and escorted it to the Castle. Both pro and anti-bill addresses were subsequently got up in Sandwich.Wellington mss, Gleig to Wellington, 25 Oct.; Kent Herald, 10, 17, 24 Nov., 15 Dec. 1831; Wellington Despatches, viii. 41-42. In the first printed schedule of the final reform bill only Deal was mentioned as the addition to be made to Sandwich to form the new borough; but the boundary commissioners made it clear that Walmer was understood to be included, and the mistake was subsequently rectified. PP (1831-2), xxxiv. 16-17. The reorganization was ratified in the Commons, 23 Jan. 1832, despite protests by Goulburn and an unidentified Member who claimed to have ‘a good deal of local connection’ with the area. A campaign by the inhabitants of Ramsgate, who contributed to the local taxation of Sandwich, for their town to be added to the new constituency was taken up by Hodges, but his proposal to this effect, 14 Mar. (when he was still under the impression that Walmer had been excluded) was opposed by Marryat and rejected by ministers. Kent Herald, 24 Nov., 22, 29 Dec. 1831; CJ, lxxxvii. 26. As finally determined, the reformed constituency had a population of 12,183, contained 796 qualifying houses and had a slightly reduced registered electorate of 916 (including 409 freemen), of whom 429 lived in and around Sandwich, and 487 in and around Deal and Walmer). The Conservative Lord Mahon* considered standing for the borough in the summer of 1832; Cent. Kent. Stud. Stanhope mss U1590 C130/8, Mahon to Stanhope, 19 June 1832; Berks. RO. Pusey mss D/Ebp C1/27. but at the general election in December Marryat and Troubridge easily beat Price and Owen. Government influence continued to play a significant part at Sandwich, and for many years was probably decisive in the disposition of one seat. N. Gash, Politics in Age of Peel, 337, 338, 458-9.