Worcestershire was ‘extremely irregular’ in shape, ‘having upon every side small portions detached and insulated by the adjoining counties’.
For many years our beautiful and important county has been only nominally represented. The Foley interest has returned one Member to Parliament and the Lygon interest the other. The votes of our Members in the House of Commons have, in fact, neutralized each other. One has, uniformly, voted with the Tory, and the other with the Whig party. And, in this way, you might just as well for any good purpose, have been not represented at all.
Worcs. RO BA 3762 b.899:31, Foley scrapbk. vol. 4, pp. 172-4, election address of John Richards, 16 Apr. 1831.
At the 1820 general election Lyttelton, who ‘had intended to retire’ in 1818, stepped down, privately blaming the ‘annual expenses of the seat’ which were proving ‘too heavy ... for a man with a small income and an increasing family’. The leading Whig Lord Althorp* could not ‘think the expense need be so great as he reckons it’ and lamented ‘the loss of a thoroughly honest county Member without necessity’; but as Lyttelton explained to Lord Lansdowne, although the expenses ‘might perhaps have been reduced with the consent of the county ... it did not become me to ask the county to allow me to reduce them’. John William Ward* of Himley Hall, Staffordshire, Member for Worcestershire, 1803-6, having turned down the vacancy, Lyttelton felt ‘great apprehensions’ about his successor and feared that he ‘may not be the right sort’; Lord Foley had apparently ‘applied in vain to his cousin, Edward Foley (the Bean)’, whose refusal was deemed ‘no great loss’. Foley’s brother John Foley* was considered ‘much fitter in all respects’, but owing to his being ‘unluckily abroad’, Sir Thomas Winnington of Stanford Court, another of Lord Foley’s cousins, was adopted instead. A committee was established in Worcester to ‘promote his election’, 23 Feb., and with Foley he attended a county meeting held to congratulate the new king a few days later. Lord Beauchamp’s younger brother Henry Lygon, who had sat since 1816, offered again, despite having recently been ‘very unwell’, and he and Winnington were returned unopposed.
Following the acquittal of Queen Caroline the lord lieutenant, the 7th earl of Coventry, got up a loyal address to the king, which was condemned by The Times as ‘an insidious attempt’ to ‘sacrifice those principles of justice and humanity which have lately been called into action on [her] behalf’.
At the 1826 general election both Members offered again, stressing their past conduct. Rumours that ‘a gentleman in Lord Dudley’s [Ward’s] interest would come forward’, backed ‘by a long purse’ and ‘possessing the highest pretensions’, were ‘very current and generally believed’, and a ‘temporary platform’ was erected to serve as a hustings. In the event, however, no other candidate appeared and the sitting Members were again returned unopposed.
At the 1830 general election Lygon stood again, but Winnington made way for his cousin’s heir Thomas Foley, who had recently come of age, it being privately noted that it had become ‘quite impossible for the baronet to stand a contest’ as he was ‘not too rich’. Declarations were received from the freeholders of Stourbridge, 12 July, and Kidderminster, 19 July, in support of Foley, who overcame concerns about his ‘youth and inexperience’ and obtained ‘a most cordial reception’. Rumours that Thomas Attwood† of Birmingham, founder of its political union, would offer came to nothing and Lygon and Foley were returned unopposed.
At the 1831 general election both Members stood for re-election, prompting ‘zealous exertions’ on the part of the reformers to ‘find a gentleman of talent’ to oppose Lygon, who denounced the bill as ‘violent in principle’ and ‘hazardous to our well balanced constitution’. A number of local men declared an interest, including John Richards, ‘a man of business’ from Stourbridge, who was ‘a well known friend to reform’ and a ‘staunch supporter of civil and religious liberty’. He was joined by Sir Thomas Phillipps of Broadway, who, believing that the electors must ‘first reform themselves’ if they wished ‘to reform the House of Commons’, offered to stand ‘solely on the condition that you elect me free of expense’. On hearing rumours that the Dowager Lady Beauchamp had subscribed £50,000 towards Lygon’s return, however, both withdrew, leaving the way clear for Frederick Spencer, younger brother of Althorp, chancellor of the exchequer, who came forward ‘for this Parliament only, under the unequivocal pledge’ of voting for the bill. He argued that his return would ‘assign to ... Foley a colleague who will double the force of his vote, instead of rendering it to nothing’, but denied reports that he was ‘a treasury candidate with the exchequer at my back’ and attacked his opponents for resorting ‘to that last effort of a sliding cause, the No Popery cry’, on account of the recent conversion of his younger brother George. Lygon, seeing that the cause of ‘Foley, Spencer and reform’ was taken up with ‘zeal and spirit’ and attracting ‘very liberal subscriptions’, insisted that he was ‘no enemy to parliamentary reform upon just and constitutional principles’ and accused his opponents of establishing a ‘dishonourable’ alliance, contrary to Foley’s ‘most public and solemn engagements’. (His supporters later asserted that ‘treasury money was expended in thousands to bring about the coalition’.) At the nomination Lygon’s principal agent challenged Spencer’s legal qualification, but on production of a deed from his father Lord Spencer granting him £600 a year on estates in Hertfordshire, the challenge was dismissed by the undersheriff. A ‘tremendous struggle’ lasting one week then ensued, during which Lygon’s headquarters were assaulted twice by an ‘infuriated mob’ and Spencer complained of ‘impediments being thrown in the way of his friends, by frivolous and untenable objections being made to their votes’.
Foley, who led from the second day, secured the support of 65 per cent of the 3,137 who polled (1,718 as split votes shared with Spencer, 271 shared with Lygon, and 45 as plumpers). Spencer received a vote from 56 per cent (39 as plumpers and eight shared with Lygon), and Lygon, who ‘quitted’ Worcester ‘for his seat’ on the sixth day, from 43 per cent (1,056 as plumpers).
Both Members supported the reintroduced reform bill in the House, where Spencer was impugned by Wetherell, Tory Member for Boroughbridge, in a speech condemning the use of pledges by candidates, 6 July 1831. Spencer, however, denied that he had campaigned on the alleged slogan of ‘Spencer and no corn laws’ and was supported by Foley, who had ‘never heard of such a placard, either in opposition to the corn laws, or any other laws’, and insisted that they owed their return solely to the prevailing ‘feeling in favour of reform’. Foley presented petitions from the county’s brewing industry for the use of molasses, 5, 28 Sept.
Worcestershire’s peculiar shape posed difficulties for the reform bill’s proposed division of counties. The boundary commissioners complained that ‘the hundreds of this county are so irregular, and so strangely intermixed, that in dividing the county into two continuous parts, it is impossible not to break into them’.
At the 1832 general election Spencer redeemed his pledge and retired, leaving Foley and Lygon to come in for the Western division unopposed. The following year Foley, on succeeding to the peerage, was replaced by Winnington’s youngest brother Henry, who sat until 1841. Lygon sat until his succession to the peerage in 1853, when he was replaced by his eldest son. Two Liberals sat for the Eastern division, in the face of stiff Conservative opposition, until the general election of 1837, when the Conservatives secured both seats.
Number of voters: 3137 in 1831
Estimated voters: about 3,500, rising to 4,900