Lancashire

Lancashire, whose industries and population continued to grow rapidly, was noted for its textiles, large unfranchised manufacturing towns, commerce and Fylde coast ‘granary’. Administratively it comprised six hundreds: Amoundness, Blackburn, Leyland, Lonsdale to the north, and West Derby and Salford to the south, where the great towns of Liverpool and Manchester lay and 74 per cent of the population of 1,335,600 resided in 1821. There were six represented boroughs and 21 market towns, most of which were industrializing rapidly. Textile production (wool, cotton, worsteds and silk) was concentrated in eastern and central parts of the county, but fustian production persisted in Bolton and Wigan. Most enterprises were small, but large-scale factories combining spinning and weaving operated in Manchester, Bolton and Preston. Manchester and Salford specialized in dyeing and bleaching, Warrington and St. Helens in glass production, while collieries and metal extraction also expanded in the south around Wigan, Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Oldham and Rochdale. Lancaster, the county and election town, had been eclipsed by the port and town of Liverpool, which with Manchester and Preston coveted its assize town status.PP (1831-2), xxxvi. 181; A. Howe, Cotton Masters, 1830-1860, pp. 80, 90-126; Oldfield, Rep. Hist. (1816), iv. 84-88; G. Timmins, Made in Lancashire: A History of Regional Industrialization. (1998 edn.), ii. 85-118.

The electorate had not polled since 1747 (not seriously since 1722) and by 1820 the representation was said to be settled as ‘snugly by a Whig and Tory compromise as the rottenest borough in the kingdom’. Cowdroy’s Manchester Gazette, 19 Feb. 1820. The lord lieutenancy had been held since 1776 by the Whig Edward Smith Stanley, 12th earl of Derby, who controlled one seat from Knowsley, and the second was customarily reserved for a representative of one of the county’s old Tory families: Bold of Bold, Hesketh of Rossall, Hoghton of Hoghton, Patten of Bank Hall and Shuttleworth of Gawforth Hall. The influence of the Tory Lowther family, earls of Lonsdale, who returned Members for neighbouring Cumberland and Westmorland, counted, and so did the succession of the Whig Cheshire peer Lord Grosvenor’s second son Thomas to the earldom and estates of Wilton, where, after coming of age in December 1820, he soon asserted himself as a Tory. Oldfield, iv. 89; Bucks. RO, Fremantle mss D/FR/49/1/2a. Rival contenders were requisitioned at most elections, pressure to concede a seat to a ‘commercial man’ was mounting, and Manchester’s middle class Dissenting reformers, a coterie led by the Potters, were beginning to mobilize the employers and shopkeepers to campaign for reform and representation. The size and complexity of the electorate, however, served to prevent a poll. HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 222-3; J. Walton, Social History of Lancs. 1558-1939, p. 137. Party organization was conducted through Pitt Clubs in Bolton, Liverpool, Manchester and Preston (1821) and the revived Cheshire Whig Club, and it was essential to canvass freeholders and others with Lancashire connections in London, at race meetings, the assizes at Lancaster and the sessions, and at the merchants’ exchanges in Liverpool, Manchester, and towns countywide. County meetings had largely been dispensed with, and petitions were commonly adopted at borough and town meetings, radical dinners and mass gatherings, and great weight was attached to those from commercial and trading associations and chambers of commerce. J. Epstein, ‘Radical Dining, Toasting and Symbolic Expression in Early 19th Cent. Lancs.’ Albion, xx (1988), 271-91. Some two-thirds of the petitions sent up in this period were organized by the Dissenters for the abolition of slavery, repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and Catholic relief.

The sitting Members were the increasingly eccentric anti-Catholic Tory John Blackburne of Hale, who when first returned in 1784 had had the wealth of the Greenes of Childwall to draw on, and Derby’s son and heir Lord Stanley, a pro-Catholic Whig, who had been substituted for his uncle in 1812. Both sought re-election in 1820, when their conduct in the county and the House after the August 1819 Peterloo massacre prompted challenges by prospective candidates. Manchester Mercury, 15, 29 Feb. 1820. The radical Whigs whipped up a furore against Derby’s coalition with the Tory corporation of Preston, where Henry Hunt* stood against the sitting Members. They also denounced his collusion in the return of two government supporters for Liverpool (Blackburne’s cousin Isaac Gascoyne and the president of the India board George Canning) and his oligarchic control of appointments to the Lancashire grand jury. To provoke a challenge to Stanley they also criticized his reaction to the Peterloo massacre: his defence of the yeomanry and the Manchester magistrates, his conduct as foreman of the grand jury and his refusal to declare for radical reform and to condemn the Liverpool ministry’s repressive Six Acts outright. Liverpool Mercury, 18, 25 Feb., 3 Mar.; Cowdroy’s Manchester Gazette, 19, 26 Feb. 1820. The radicals’ approaches to ‘suitable’ Whigs, were channelled through the Liverpool Concentric Society but were unavailing. With attention focussed on contests at Liverpool and Preston, the radical Liverpool militia Colonel George Williams†, a no-hope candidate drawn from within their own ranks, became their third man. Wheelers’ Manchester Chron. 4, 11 Mar.; Blackburn Mail, 8 Mar.; Liverpool Mercury, 10 Mar. 1820. Their campaign encouraged hostile manoeuvring by Tories dissatisfied with the ageing Blackburne’s ineffective defence of the county authorities after Peterloo and his neglect of Lancashire commercial interests in the Commons, where Edward Bootle Wilbraham of Latham (from 1828 Baron Skelmersdale) deputized increasingly for him. Add. 38280, f. 19; Lancs. RO, Hulton mss DDHu53/61. With Robert Hesketh of Rossall disqualified as sheriff and Thomas Richmond Gale Braddyll† of Conishead Priory searching for a seat, a committee headed by James Ackers of Lark Hill and the manufacturer Robert Fielden of Bolton organized requisitions from each hundred to William Hulton of Hulton. He was the chairman of the Bolton and Manchester Pitt Clubs and of the 1819 Lancashire and Cheshire magistrates, whose committee had ordered Hunt’s arrest after Peterloo. Hulton declined ‘for the present’ on financial grounds, 10 Mar. 1820. D. Read, Peterloo, 121-6; Hulton mss 53/61; Lancaster Gazette, 11 Mar.; Wheelers’ Manchester Chron. 11 Mar. 1820. Blackburne and Stanley appointed committees and dined their supporters. Manchester Mercury, 29 Feb., 7, 14 Mar. 1820. On the hustings, 14 Mar., Blackburne, who proclaimed his long service and ‘church and state politics’, was proposed by Hulton, who confirmed his ambition to succeed him and thanked his own supporters. Blackburne’s seconder was Joseph Fielden† of Witton. Proposing Stanley, Sir Thomas Dalrymple Hesketh of Hesketh praised his conduct after Peterloo and, while acknowledging Hulton’s claim, he declared his own ambition to succeed Blackburne as the ‘king and constitution’ Member. Lawrence Rawstorne of Penwortham seconded Stanley. Williams’s sponsors, both Unitarians, were the radical physician Dr. Richard Crompton (whom he had recently nominated for Liverpool) and the former fustian manufacturer Ottiwell Wood of Edge Hill. They criticized Blackburne as an undeviating ministerialist and Stanley as a ‘friend to liberty in the abstract, but ... a friend to party in the ... Commons’. A poll demanded by Crompton for Williams was abandoned after Williams received four ‘plumpers’. The ‘tallies’ for the Members were not formally recorded, but over 300 present signed an ‘address of esteem’ for the Members, instigated by Ackers and Robert Fielden and afterwards printed in the Lancaster Gazette. Lancaster Gazette, 18 Mar.; Manchester Mercury, 21 Mar. 1820. The usual addresses of condolence and congratulation were adopted at Lancaster, 23 Mar. 1820, when Stanley arrived too late to counter the anti-Catholic tone of speeches by Dalrymple Hesketh, Lord Lowther’s* henchman William Wilson Carus Wilson* of Casterton Hall and Thomas Greene* of Slyne (making his debut as a member of the grand jury). Lancs. RO, Dawson Greene mss DDGr box C7, bdle. 2, Greene to Bradley, 29 Feb.; Lancaster Gazette, 25 Mar. 1820.

Supported by the Whig Manchester cotton manufacturer George Philips* and the Tory Bootle Wilbraham, the Members presented petitions to the Commons for repeal of the tariff on wool imports, 16, 25 May, against commercial restrictions (Manchester’s contribution to the City of London’s campaign), 19 May, and for free trade with India, 11 July 1820. CJ, lxxv. 216, 228, 236, 429. The Lords also received petitions from Manchester opposing the calico printers’ bill, 14 July, and requesting permission for their counsel to make representations against it, 17 July. Legislation for lighting Bolton, erecting a chapel of ease in Eccles and the Pennington enclosure bill all received royal assent, 8 July. LJ, liii. 272, 301, 318. The parliamentary campaign on behalf of the Peterloo radicals targeted Derby’s management of the county and his ‘monopoly’ of the grand jury and was conducted locally and in Parliament. The Members easily countered the Blackburn reed maker George Dewhurst’s allegations of ill-treatment at Lancaster gaol, 31 May 1820; but the non-delivery of Williams’s letter (of 2 July 1820) to the convict Nathan Broadhurst had been sent under the frank of his stepson, William James*, and caused the stir Williams intended. A hurriedly convened meeting of the grand jury in Preston chaired by Dalrymple Hesketh, 22 Aug., resolved unanimously that the letter was ‘peculiarly calculated to destroy all discipline within that prison, and ... insulting to the magistrates’. They also ordered the publication of all correspondence and papers (with copies for the home secretary) and praised the gaoler Higgins’s ‘sound and commendable discretion in withholding the letter ... from the prisoner to whom it was addressed’, as authorized by the prison regulations of 6 Sept. 1819. Lancs. RO HS3, grand jury minutes, 6 Sept. 1819, 3, 22 Aug., 8 Sept.; CJ, lxxv. 259; Hulton mss 53/59; Preston Sentinel, 30 June 1821. James’s attempts to have interference with his mail declared a breach of privilege, which Stanley, Bootle Wilbraham and Carus Wilson opposed, failed by 86-33, 7 Mar. 1821, and 167-60, 25 Feb. 1822. Preston Sentinel, 2 Mar. 1822. The Commons rejected inquiry into Peterloo by 235-111, 16 May 1821, after a two-day debate, during which the conduct of the magistracy and the grand jury was closely scrutinized. Stanley and others supported inquiry ‘to draw a line under the affair’, but it remained a live issue while petitions of complaint were forthcoming from Broadhurst, George Dewhurst and John Knight in Lancaster gaol and Hunt was imprisoned at Ilchester. LJ, liii. 363; CJ, lxxvi. 343; The Times, 16, 17 May; Observer, 19, 26 May, 2 June 1821. Ashton-under-Lyne, Blackburn, Darwen, Eccles, Hollenwood, Liverpool, Manchester, Mossley, Oldham, Preston and Rochdale petitioned protesting at Hunt’s treatment, and Hulton (whom Hunt accused of perjuring himself at his trial at York) was the target of the Redford v. Birley case at Lancaster assizes in April 1822. CJ, lxxvii. 41, 72, 77, 81, 104, 123, 149, 167; M.J. Turner, Reform and Respectability, 269-71; R. Walmsley, Peterloo, 412. A petition criticizing ‘close’ grand jury selection (it alleged that only 38 of 163 qualified jurors were called between 1811 and 1823) claimed that it was for this reason alone that the Peterloo yeomanry had avoided conviction, 12 June 1823. CJ, lxxviii. 387. The petition was also designed to promote Liverpool’s faltering campaign to become the assize town, which Lancaster and Derby successfully opposed. The 1824 Judges’ Lodging Act (5 Geo. IV, c. 19), which Stanley and Bootle Wilbraham carried with difficulty in the Commons, served to improve facilities and assisted Lancaster, so briefly impeding its rivals’ claims to assize town status, which remained the subject of repeated memorials and petitions, 1823-32. HLRO, Thomas Greene mss GRE4/1-6; CJ, lxxviii. 46, 387; lxxix. 31, 119, 160, 173, 188, 195 211, 234, 246, 265, 277; lxxxv. 464; Liverpool RO, Parliament Office mss 328/PAR3/38; The Times, 3 Apr. 1824; Derby mss 920 Der (14) box 63, Burrows to Smith Stanley, 11 June 1829.

Despite his private reservations, Stanley supported the campaign on behalf of Queen Caroline, which Blackburne opposed. Derby mss (13) 1/161/19, 20. Spontaneous illuminations, facetious proclamations and addresses from the boroughs and manufacturing towns marked the abandonment of the bill of pains and penalties in November 1820. Rioting was feared in Manchester after requisitions from rival factions for a borough meeting were refused, but one chaired by the Unitarian cotton merchant Edward Baxter adopted an anti-ministerial address, 4 Dec. 1820. The Commons received petitions from Bolton, Chorley and Manchester for restoration of the queen’s name to the liturgy, 26 Jan. 1821. Warrington, where the meeting was chaired by Blackburne’s son John Ireland Blackburne†, addressed the king. Hulton mss 53/83/13; Wheelers’ Manchester Chron. 25 Nov., 9, 16 Dec. 1820; CJ, lxxvi. 12-13. The duchy’s attorney-general James Scarlett’s poor bill was the subject of widespread hostile petitioning in 1821, as were the Salford small debts bill and the 1822 poor removal bill. CJ, lxxvi. 411, 415; lxxvii. 249, 254, 280, 300, 304. Free trade, especially with China, the East Indies and Ireland, was demanded in several petitions instigated by the Manchester chamber of commerce, 1821-3 and 1826. Ibid. lxxvi. 127; lxxvii. 230; lxxviii. 236, 298; lxxxi. 302, 352. Certain Fylde landowners, organized by Robert Hesketh, contributed to the agriculturists’ petitioning campaign for government action to combat distress, 8 Mar. 1822. Preston Sentinel, 26 Jan. 1822; CJ, lxxvii. 91. The Commons received petitions opposing the leather tax and the hides and skins bill in 1822 and 1824, and both Houses received ones for repeal of the Insolvent Debtors Act from the merchants, manufacturers, grocers and traders of Blackburn, Great and Little Bolton and Oldham in 1823, when Blackburn also petitioned for repeal or amendment of the Hawkers and Pedlars Act with a view to restricting the activities of itinerant traders, 19 Mar. CJ, lxxvii. 48, 111, 194-5, 218, 394-5; lxxix. 153, 159, 194, 212, 358, 392, 394-5; LJ, lv. 529, 567, 578, 604. Amendments to the licensing and excise laws were opposed, 1822-4, and changes in duties on textiles resisted. CJ, lxxvii. 321, 324, 426; lxxviii. 171, 195, 372; lxxix. 102, 120, 124, 130, 179-80, 234, 253, 335-6, 346, 358, 411. The county’s Dissenters and the Association for the Gradual Amelioration of Slavery organized and sent up petitions to the Commons for the abolition of colonial slavery in 1823 and 1824 and both Houses in 1826; Ibid. lxxviii. 296; lxxix. 155, 194, 210, 234, 253; lxxxi. 106, 111, 175, 372; LJ, lviii. 71, 162, 321; K. Charlton, ‘James Cropper and Liverpool’s Contribution to the Anti-Slavery Movement’, Trans. Hist. Soc. Lancs. and Cheshire, cxxiii (1971), 57-80. and Dissenting and Nonconformist congregations petitioned in protest at the indictment in Demerara of the Methodist missionary John Smith 24, 26, 27 May, 1 June 1824. CJ, lxxix. 404, 417, 442, 446. Both Houses received petitions from Bolton, Blackburn, Manchester, Oldham and elsewhere requesting the repeal of the combination laws when Hume secured it in 1824, and from Rochdale against their re-enactment, 25 Apr. 1825. Bolton’s petition opposing their precipitate repeal had been promoted by Hulton and forwarded to Stanley, who endorsed its prayer, 14 Apr. 1824.Ibid. 161, 211, 265 297; lxxx. 337; LJ, lvi. 209, 263, Hulton mss 53/66-68. Petitions unfavourable to Catholic relief were received by the Lords in 1821 and 1822 from Aldingham, Dalton, Ulverston, Urswick and the gentry, inhabitants and collegiate church of Manchester.LJ, liv. 148; lv. 203, 210. Favourable mass petitioning was encouraged by local branches of the Catholic Association and the Orange Order and by the Catholics of Manchester and Blackburn in 1825, but Blackburn, Bolton and Oldham also sent up hostile petitions. Others, instigated by the anti-Catholic landowners and clergy of the Fylde, Lonsdale hundred and Warrington, were vehemently anti-Catholic.G.I.T. Machin, Catholic Question in English Politics, 46; LJ, lvi. 191; lvii. 536, 621, 627, 750, 771, 781, 805-6, 833, 835; CJ, lxxx. 314-15, 325, 396; Preston Pilot, 9, 16, 23, 30 Apr. 1825. The 1825 factory bill, restricting child labour, was locally unpopular, opposed by Horrocks, Philips and their fellow mill owners in the Commons as prejudicial to Lancashire interests, and petitioned against, 29 Apr., 20, 31 May.CJ, lxxx. 355, 445. Petitions were also sent up by the manufacturers and artisans of Bolton, Blackburn, Chorley, Oldham and Rochdale in favour of the 1825 Equitable Loan Company bill.LJ, lvii. 643, 661, 781, 1031. The merchants, manufacturers and artisans of Manchester, 22 Apr., and Rochdale, 25 Apr. 1825, also petitioned for repeal or revision of the corn laws.CJ, lxxx. 331, 337; LJ, lvii. 624 The collapse in manufacturing in 1826 prompted mass meetings in Blackburn, Bolton, Bury and Manchester to petition in this sense, and disturbances in Addingham, Bacup, Bolton, Chadderton and Oldham alarmed the government and contributed to their decision to abandon the corn admission bill, 9 May.CJ, lxxxi. 15, 96, 107, 217, 328; LJ, lviii. 72, 127, 305; LSE Lib. Archives, Richard Potter mss iv, diary, Jan.-Apr.; Preston Pilot, 22, 29 Apr.; Manchester Mercury, 2 May, Lancaster Gazette, 6 May 1826; B. Hilton, Corn, Cash, Commerce, 273-5. Meanwhile the magistrates criticized Stanley, as presenter of the grand jury’s petition against the game laws, 20 Apr. (later referred to the 1828 Lords select committee), for misrepresenting their views by exaggerating lawlessness in the county.CJ, lxxxi. 264, 337; LJ, lx. 105; D. Walsh, ‘Lancs. Rising of 1826’, Albion, xxvi (1994), 601-21. Most of the local legislation affecting Lancashire carried in the 1820 Parliament concerned turnpikes (43 Acts), and, as subsequently, mainly affected the Bury and Blackburn districts and Manchester, where the priority was consolidation. S. Horrocks, Lancs. Acts of Parl. 60-70; Leading the Way: A History of Lancashire’s Roads ed. A.G. Crosby, 146-7, 181. The 28 new Acts to facilitate municipal improvements included measures to provide burial grounds for Blackburn and Prestwich-cum-Oldham (which received royal assent, 17, 28 May 1824) and improve water supplies to Manchester and Salford (27 June 1823), Great and Little Bolton (17 June 1824), and Ashton-under-Lyne (20 May 1825).Horrocks, 60-70; LJ, lv. 821; lvi. 234, 274, 425; lvii. 854. The 1824 Manchester Gas Light Act was opposed on financial grounds in petitions to the Commons from the ley payers and several townships, 18 Feb., 4, 12, 15, 25, 30 Mar.CJ, lxxix 54, 119, 153, 160, 200, 229, 266, 294, 353. Despite the previous clamour for better utilities and courts to facilitate small debt collection, the 1826 Salford Hundred Court Act was strongly opposed prior to enactment, as were the Rochdale Roads Act and the Liverpool-Manchester Railway Act, introduced after the 1825 scheme foundered.LJ, lvi. 131; lvii. 976.

The Lowthers and their agents were anxious to prevent Stanley backing Henry Brougham* in Westmorland, and so seized on Derby’s opposition to local bills to provoke a challenge to Stanley at the general election of 1826, when the economic downturn, corn law revision and ‘No Popery’ were the main issues.Blackburn Mail, 12 Apr. 1826. Hulton had issued notices in February citing ‘cares inseparable from a large family and the inadequacy of my fortune’ as his reasons for desisting at the dissolution.Preston Pilot, 11 Feb. 1826. Blackburne refused to stand down. His addresses of 31 May and 3 June made virtues of his ‘church and state’ principles and his ‘long tenure’ which rendered his duties ‘comparatively easy’, and he challenged his critics to prove him negligent. Rightly anticipating opposition from several quarters, Blackburne’s committee chairmen Joseph Lee and Robert Fletcher dined supporters in Bolton, Lancaster and Warrington and canvassed early and widely, turning their opponents’ disunity and the prohibitive cost of a contest to their own advantage.Blackburn Mail, 7, 14 June; Bolton Express, 17 June 1826. Stanley, now preoccupied with his son Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley’s* candidature for Preston, issued notices, 31 May. The militia colonel and erstwhile Lowtherite Daniel Wilson of Dalham Tower, Westmorland, declined to stand and held aloof, and so did Dalrymple Hesketh until Alexander Nowelb of Underley, a Lancashire-born nabob and Lowtherite whose wife was a Farington (of Shawe Hall), declared on 14 June, after canvassing the boroughs of Carlisle and Lancaster.Globe and Traveller, 31 May; The Times, 2, 10 June; Bolton Express, 17 June 1826. The Liverpool broker John Moss organized Nowell’s requisition, the Commercial Inn became his headquarters and his colour light blue. ‘Surprised’, Dalrymple Hesketh confirmed his 1820 statement, threatened opposition and promised to attend the election.Lonsdale mss, Holmes to Lord Lowther, 13 June, Nowell to Lonsdale, 14 June; The Times, 17 June 1826. Some observers maintained that Nowell had been persuaded by Blackburne’s agents to stand to ‘smoke out’ Dalrymple Hesketh; others that he was Sir Thomas’s stalking horse.Preston Pilot, 17 June; The Times, 19 June 1826. Blackburne, sporting dark blue, and Stanley, wearing orange, mustered their supporters in a great show of force at Lancaster, 16 June. On the hustings, where the under-sheriff John Addison presided, Henry Bold Houghton of Houghton and Charles Gibson of Quernmore nominated Blackburne, who promised to poll to the last and to observe ‘strict neutrality’ on the assizes question. Stanley was proposed by Rawstorne and William Townley, the head of the Townhead (Rotherham) family. He declared for king and constitution, called for an end to infighting over local bills and testified to his enormous workload as Member. Robert Jackson of Lancaster and Richard Townley of Ortner briefly sponsored Nowell, who staked his claim on his Lancashire heritage and military and business experience in India. Stanley and Nowell won the show of hands, but, wrecking his prospects, Dalrymple Hesketh claimed that Nowell had originally been adopted as an anti-Stanley candidate, had defected and now targeted Blackburne’s seat. He promised to oppose him ‘to protect Blackburne’ unless he stood down. The poll was fixed for the 17th, but to the Lowthers’ fury, Nowell retired before it commenced.The Times, 19 June 1826; Lonsdale mss, Lonsdale to Lowther, 16 May 1831; W.W. Bean, Parl. Rep. Six Northern Counties, 184. The Blackburn Mail of 21 June expressed satisfaction ‘that the contest ended in smoke. Blackburne was too old, but Nowell was unknown and had neglected to declare his principles’. The episode cost Lord Stanley £938.Lancs. RO, Derby [of Knowsley] mss DDK1740/3.

Unrest fuelled by lay-offs and scarcity remained rife in the industrial townships and The Times reported on 31 Aug. 1826 that large claims for damages during recent disturbances had been registered at the summer assizes.Liverpool Mercury, 19 May; The Times, 31 Aug. 1826. Correspondence and memorials to the grand jury and ministers concerning distress and the work of the relief committees dominated Stanley’s letter books before Parliament met; and memorials and petitions for free trade, repeal of the corn laws and the calico duties, equalization of the sugar duties and abolition of the East India Company’s trading monopoly were under way (and received 14 Feb.-22 Mar. 1827).Liverpool Mercury, 27 Oct.; Examiner, 5 Nov. 1826; Derby mss (13) 2, Lord Stanley’s letterbks. i, ff. 1-26; CJ, lxxxii. 167, 190, 230, 288, 461, 478; LJ, lix. 72, 85, 91, 95, 105, 114, 132, 193. With Catholic relief, which Manchester and Salford petitioned for, 6 Mar., and Warrington and the parishes and clergy of the northern deaneries against, 4, 14, 16 May, wage and machinery regulation, 22 Feb., 5 Mar., 18 May, and assisted emigration, 21 May, were the major petitioning issues,CJ, lxxxii. 285, 456, 472, 478; LJ, lix. 91, 95, 132, 272, 311. before the Dissenters’ successful 1827-8 campaign for repeal of the Test Acts gathered momentum, with assistance from the national committee, Stanley and the Preston Members.CJ, lxxxii. 485, 490, 498, 504-5, 520-1, 545; lxxxiii. 74, 87, 96, 101; LJ, lix. 445; lx. 47-48, 53, 57, 63, 65, 67-68, 71, 73-75, 79, 125, 146; Stanley’s letterbks. iii, ff. 93-96. Petitions for continued agricultural protection were received from the Fylde, 13 Feb., parishes in the Lonsdale hundred and Low Furness, 4 May 1827.LJ, lix. 68, 272. Manchester’s bid of 1821 to secure the seats taken from the corrupt borough of Grampound had failed, but the prospect of receiving Penryn’s seats, following its disfranchisement, broached in the Commons by Lord John Russell shortly before Canning became premier in April 1827, revived the campaign. A Manchester mass meeting petitioned for the enfranchisement of populous towns, 28 May, and petitions and representations requesting Penryn’s seats continued to be made, 1827-8. A damaging trial of strength over a suitable voting qualification ensued, involving the Pittite borough reeve Charles Cross and the leading Unitarian manufacturers and lawyers (Hugh Hornby Birley†, William Cririe, Robert Hyde Gregg†, Richard Potter† and his brother Thomas Potter†, Gilbert Winter, George William Wood†), who dominated the Manchester Representation Committee. Preferences varied from £15 to £30, with ‘talk of as much as £40 and £50’. This, George Philips and Stanley failed to resolve. John Wood (the Preston Member), as counsel for the 1828 Manchester police bill, eventually set it at £20 when the prospect of securing Penryn’s disfranchisement had evaporated.Hulton mss 53/62; M.J. Turner, ‘Manchester Reformers and the Penryn Seats’, Northern Hist. xxx (1994), 139-60; Reform and Respectability, 281-7; Stanley’s letterbks. i. ff. 36-40; CJ, lxxxii. 498; LJ, lx. 506, 568; Richard Potter mss xii, ff. 157-87, 199-203. On 28 Apr. 1828 the Lords had received a petition from the magistrates and clergy of Rochdale, asking them to ‘exempt the hundred from bearing the cost electoral violence and damage when Manchester received Penryn’s seats.LJ, lix. 249. Dissenters and Catholics led the petitioning for Catholic relief in 1828, which Stanley divided for and Blackburne against, 12 May.CJ, lxxxiii. 259, 264, 319; LJ, lx. 307, 369, 392, 401. The inhabitants of Poulton and neighbouring parishes, 2 June, and the clergy, gentry and principal inhabitants of Rochdale petitioned both Houses opposing concessions, 3 June 1828.CJ, lxxxiii. 392; LJ, lx. 486, 503. Blackburne resolutely opposed emancipation in 1829, and Braddyll, Gascoyne, Hulton, John Wilson Patten of Bank Hall, the Blackburn Gazette, Manchester Courier and the Preston Pilot now encouraged the adoption of heavily signed anti-Catholic petitions from the clergy, magistrates and inhabitants of Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Burnley, Chorley, Colne, Manchester, Warrington, the Fylde, Lonsdale hundred and Rossendale. The Unitarians and Dissenters, however, petitioned strongly in its favour on grounds of religious liberty and freedom of conscience. Both sides criticized the methods by which the other’s petitions were procured.CJ, lxxxiv. 8, 22, 76, 89, 94, 103, 109, 115, 120, 140; LJ, lxi. 19, 27, 61, 67, 76, 90-91, 107, 109-10, 115, 119, 123, 134-6, 140, 147, 155, 182, 185, 193, 198, 201, 211, 227-8, 258, 299, 340, 367; Preston Pilot, 14, 21 Feb., 7, 21 Mar.; The Times, 21 Feb.; Manchester Courier, 28 Feb.; Blackburn Gazette, 4, 11, 18 Mar.; Manchester Guardian, 14 Mar. 1829. Amid signs of economic downturn, Manchester chamber of commerce petitioned the Commons and lobbied for concessions on the duty on receipts, 11 Feb., and against restricting grain imports, 24 Apr.; and the Lords received protectionist petitions from the woollen manufacturers of Bury, 12 June, all engaged in the silk trade, 17 June 1828, and the operative shoemakers of Ashton-under-Lyne, 10 June 1829.CJ, lxxxiii. 36, 336; LJ, lx. 531, 552; lxi. 418, 561; Add. 43233, ff. 109, 115. The county’s West India planters and mortgagees asked the Lords to consider their losses and warned of the dangers to slaves of precipitate manumission, 3 June 1828. A petition from the inhabitants of Chorley called for an end to the East India Company’s trading monopoly, 4 May, and Manchester chamber of commerce complained of the ‘mischievous effects’ of the Spanish war in South America on their trade, 16 May 1829. (In May 1830 they petitioned for redress of their losses sustained in Mexico.)LJ, lx. 504; lxi. 418; Manchester Times, 20 June, 19 Sept. 1829. Manchester, like Liverpool, was represented on the committee of deputies from manufacturing districts which co-ordinated lobbying against the East India Company’s trading monopoly. The merchants and manufacturers of Bolton, Bury, Chorley, Haslingden, Oldham, Prescot, Rochdale and Warrington joined them in petitioning in this vein, and their petitions were referred to the 1830 East India select committee, together with ones from Dissenters and Nonconformist chapels countywide condemning the Hindu practice of suttee.Lancs. RO, Garnett of Quernmore mss DDQ35/4/81; CJ, lxxxv. 89, 158, 179, 183, 210, 235, 410; LJ, lxii. 53, 73, 105, 129, 172-3, 182-4, 194, 212, 342, 366, 388, 460.

Reflecting William Cobbett’s† recent visit, a Salford distress petition received by the Commons 17 Feb., and the Lords, 25 Feb. 1830, advocated stringent tax cuts. A similar 13,800-signature petition adopted at Manchester, 25 Feb., called additionally for currency change, which Philips supported but its presenter Stanley refused to endorse, 22 Mar.Manchester Guardian, 6 Feb. 1830; CJ, lxxxv. 54, 211; LJ, lxii. 38. Haslingden petitioned similarly, 5 Apr.LJ, lxii. 194. Bolton, Manchester (including its chamber of commerce), Rochdale, Salford and Warrington sent up petitions for criminal law reform and abolition of the death penalty for forgery in 1830, and certain Manchester and Warrington attorneys petitioned, 10 May, 13 July, against the administration of justice bill, by which Cheshire’s palatine jurisdiction and exchequer court were abolished.CJ, lxxxv. 330, 394-5, 435, 463; LJ, lxii. 191, 324, 759, 869. The county’s licensees petitioned the Commons in March for extended opening hours, and in July they joined the magistrates of the Blackburn hundred, Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Rochdale and Salford in opposing the 1830 sale of beer bill’s proposals for extending on-consumption to beer shops.CJ, lxxxv. 221, 236, 347, 365, 381, 394, 410; LJ, lxii. 137, 834, 846. In another late flurry of petitioning, Manchester chamber of commerce and the calico printers and operatives of Ashton-under-Lyne, Mossley, Oldham and Stalybridge sought protection by restricting apprentice numbers and the use of machinery in their trades, 24 May, 7, 11, 14 June, 10 July.CJ, 463, 540, 548; LJ, 629, 699. A broad-based political union had been established in Bolton in April on the principles of the Birmingham one, and a distress petition to the Lords from the inhabitants of Oldham (received in the names of John Hague and John Knight), 3 June, requested repeal of the corn laws and reform, including annual parliaments, the ballot and universal suffrage ‘in order that people’s wants and sufferings may be known and removed by Parliament before the people are driven to misery and crime’.N. LoPatin, Political Unions, Popular Politics and the Great Reform Act of 1832, pp. 44-45; LJ, lxii. 582. The Lords received a petition for the abolition of colonial slavery from the Protestant Dissenters of Blackburn, 17 July 1830.LJ, lxii. 753. New improvement bills for Bolton and Manchester were carried before the dissolution in July 1830, but as Lord Carlisle’s agent James Loch* had predicted in December 1829, much of the railway legislation now enacted was for establishing branch lines to the Liverpool-Manchester, and premature.Horrocks, 70-75; Add. 38758, f. 76. Manchester had resisted the changes proposed to the railway under the 1829 bill.CJ, lxxxiii. 36, 336; lxxxiv. 137, 159; lxxxv. 440-1; Add. 43233, ff. 109, 115.

Stanley hoped his son would succeed him as Member for Lancashire, and Smith Stanley had staked his claim to a county seat in a speech at Liverpool in August 1829, when his father was unwell and Blackburne’s retirement was anticipated.Derby mss (12), Holland to Derby, 11 July, Stanley to same [n.d.]; Add. 51566, Derby to Holland, 14 July 1827; Albion, 24 Aug. 1829.. Blackburne announced that he would not seek re-election, 12 Nov., and notices from Dalrymple Hesketh ‘declining the honour’, 14 Nov. 1829, prompted campaigns on behalf of Peter Hesketh of Rossall, ‘who has youth, talent and energy in his favour accompanied with an excellent disposition’, and Wilson Patten, who declared, 21 Nov., as ‘Blackburne’s heir’ and adopted his colours. A moderate Ultra, personal friend of Smith Stanley and joint-proprietor of a rolling mill, he had the necessary lineage, status, connections and commitments to land and commerce.Lancaster Gazette, 14, 21 Nov. 1829. Hesketh’s appointment as sheriff in March 1830 cleared the field for him, and he adopted a high profile and canvassed the county thoroughly, concentrating on Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester and Warrington.Preston Chron. 3 July; Lancaster Gazette, 3, 10 July; Hatfield House mss bdle. 3, Leigh to Salisbury, 9 July 1830. Grumbling in the newspapers and manoeuvring by Liverpool and Manchester merchants anxious to return one of their own persisted, but at the general election in August the unopposed return of Wilson Patten, proposed by Gibson and John Entwisle of Foxholes, and Stanley, sponsored by Rawsthorne and William Townley, was not seriously threatened. Had it been, Stanley had decided privately to make way for his son.Blackburne Gazette, 7, 14, 21, 28 July, 4 Aug.; Lancaster Gazette, 31 July, 7 Aug. 1830. James Hardcastle of Bolton, who had been outpolled at Wigan, spoke at length, but had no candidate to propose. Crompton declined to stand but quizzed the candidates closely on the East India question and the corn laws, leaving Ottiwell Wood to test them on reform. Both declared against all monopolies, for moderate reform and the enfranchisement of the great towns, but against the ballot. On corn, Wilson Patten refused to commit himself and Stanley sought ‘some concession’. Hulton, as spokesman for the Ultras, warned Wilson Patten that he was ‘on trial’.Manchester Guardian, 7 Aug.; The Times, 9 Aug.; Blackburne Gazette, 11 Aug. 1830.

Lancashire’s contribution to the 1830-1 anti-slavery campaigns was a major one, with petitions brought up almost daily in November and December 1830, and again, 28 Feb.-21 Apr. 1831.CJ, lxxxvi. 47, 55-57, 61, 74-75, 105-8, 132, 152, 160, 442-3, 488; LJ, lxiii. 222, 4, 31, 33, 49, 56, 58, 60, 62-63, 66-69, 71-73, 76-77, 79-81, 83-84, 86, 88-92, 94, 96-97, 99-101, 107-8, 110, 174, 183, 268, 408, 429, 431, 436, 454, 482-3, 491, 501-4. Both Members voted against the Wellington ministry on the civil list when they were brought down, 15 Nov. 1830, and Stanley was expected to support Lord Grey’s administration in which his son was Irish secretary. The establishment of a political union in Manchester in July 1830 by the proprietor of the Manchester Times, Archibald Prentice, and of branches in Chorley, Rochdale and Salford coincided with the Bolton and Ashton-under-Lyne spinners’ strikes, handloom weavers’ riots in Rochdale and colliery strikes and lockouts, all of which were taken seriously by government.Manchester Times, 24 July, 21 Aug., 27 Nov., 4 Dec. 1830; Bolton Chron. 14 Aug., 23 Oct. 1830; TNA HO40/26/1, Bouverie to Phillips, 26 Aug., same to Peel, 1 Sept.; Manchester Guardian, 6, 13 Nov., 18 Dec. 1830; Hulton mss 53/71. Petitioning for reform was discouraged, although the radicals of Banktop, Oldham, petitioned the Commons requesting it and the ballot, 7 Dec. 1830.CJ, lxxxvi. 155; Manchester Guardian, 18 Dec. 1830, 22 Jan. 1831. Hunt toured the manufacturing towns that month to celebrate his by-election victory over Smith Stanley at Preston, and in his wake branches were established of the radical Political Union of the Working Classes, committed to reform (including universal suffrage and the ballot), corn law repeal and ending the East India monopoly.Manchester Times, 15 Jan. 1831. Huntite resolutions were carried at meetings in Oldham and Manchester, 17 Jan., where the petition adopted was qualified by another, carried at a borough meeting on the 20th chaired by Baxter and addressed by the Potters, James Shuttleworth, Gregg, Mark Philips, Alexander Fielding, George Gill and Prentice and his allies, who also appointed a reform committee. Salford, Bolton, Blackburn, Warrington and Oldham, where the petition was moved by John Clegg, petitioned for reform and requested enfranchisement.Ibid. 22, 29 Jan., 5, 12, 26 Feb. 1831; LJ, lxiii. 205, 207, 220, 274, 402. Further radical petitions from Accrington, Bolton, Chorley, Crumsall, Haslingden, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Todmorden and Walsden followed before the details of the ministerial reform bill were announced, 1 Mar.CJ, lxxxvi. 155, 226, 279, 309, 324; LJ, lxiii. 207, 216, 262. It proposed doubling the county representation by dividing it in two, with the four northern hundreds forming Lancashire North, and the two southern Lancashire South. Lancaster, Liverpool, Preston and Wigan each kept two Members, Newton was disfranchised, and a Member was taken from Clitheroe. One seat was awarded to Blackburn, Bolton and Warrington, and two to Manchester. Canvassing in the new constituencies commenced immediately. Mass meetings at Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Bury, Chorley, Colne, Eccles, Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester (where Prentice’s political union met separately), Oldham, Preston, Rochdale, Salford, Todmorden and Warrington petitioned both Houses in favour of the bill. Pleas for the ballot and universal suffrage were added to the Oldham petition. Those from Ashton-under-Lyne, Chorley and Rochdale included requests for enfranchisement, provided the bill was not jeopardized thereby.Manchester Times, 5, 12, 19 Mar.; Manchester Guardian, 12, 19 Mar.; Bolton Chron. 19 Mar. 1831; CJ, lxxxvi. 407, 419, 423, 446, 487, 509; LJ, lxiii. 345, 349, 354-5, 385, 401, 501. A hostile petition from Manchester and Salford was promoted by the Manchester Courier, adopted privately, and presented to the Commons by Wilson Patten, 12 Apr.Manchester Courier, 19, 26 Mar., 2 Apr.; Glynne-Gladstone mss 197, T. to J. Gladstone, 19 Mar. 1831; CJ, lxxxvi. 477. Hunt denounced the bill’s inadequacies during his Easter tour of the manufacturing districts and in the Commons, where Members were hard pressed to counter his claims that support for the bill was waning in Lancashire, 18 Apr.Manchester Times, 9 Apr. 1831. That day Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and Salford were added to the new single Member boroughs (Schedule D). Stanley naturally welcomed it. Wilson Patten tacked between the reformers and anti-reformers before voting for the amendment by which the bill was wrecked, 19 Apr. 1831, precipitating a dissolution.Glynne-Gladstone mss 197, T. to J. Gladstone, 11, 19 Mar. 1831.

The leading manufacturers and Whig aristocracy hesitated before opposing him, for he had supported their delegations and petitions and lobbied effectively to secure concessions on the calico and cotton duties,CJ, lxxxvi. 184, 222, 226, 229, 309, 356, 420, 451, 477, 487, 503. and seconded the truck bill and criticized the factory bill on their behalf.Glynne-Gladstone mss 196, T. to J. Gladstone, 18 Dec. 1830; CJ, lxxxvi. 167, 172, 405, 408. His handling of local legislation, especially rival railway schemes, was astute, whereas Stanley’s was compromised by deafness and allegations of jobbing. Seven of the nine railway bills affecting Lancashire attempted that Parliament were timed out by the dissolution and only the Wigan-Liverpool and Warrington-Newton schemes received royal assent.Glynne-Gladstone mss 196, T. to J. Gladstone, 18 Dec. 1830. Richard Hyde Gregg asked Wilson Patten to explain his vote and headed a delegation of four sent to London to persuade him to declare unequivocally for the bill and, should he refuse, to interview alternative candidates.Manchester Guardian, 23, 30 Apr.; Derby mss (14) 116/6, Winstanley to Smith Stanley, 25 Apr.; Hatfield House mss bdle. 4, Leigh to Salisbury, 27 Apr.; Brougham mss, Shepherd to Brougham [1831]. Lord John Russell*, their first choice when Wilson Patten declined ‘to pledge’, was requisitioned at the Spread Eagle Inn, Hanging Ditch, 23 Apr., but chose to contest Devon. With the Huntites entering the fray and Stanley and Wilson Patten canvassing, deputations from reform committees in Manchester, Hyde, Ashton-under-Lyne, Wigan and Liverpool agreed to requisition Liverpool’s choice for the seat, Lord Sefton’s* son Lord Molyneux†; and Edward Jeremiah Lloyd, Robert Hyde Gregg and Thomas Heywood interviewed him in London as directed. While Sefton and Molyneux prevaricated, delegates from the reform committees of Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Blackburn, Bury, Cartmel, Colne, Leigh, Liverpool, Oldham, Manchester, Rochdale, Stalybridge, Todmorden and Warrington met at the York Hotel, Liverpool, 29 Apr., made the Manchester Unitarian banker Benjamin Heywood their compromise candidate and set up a fighting fund.TNA 30/29/9/5/80. Russell expressed relief that ‘on my declining, and Lord Sefton not being willing, the Manchester men fixed at once on B. Heywood ... not ... a low radical’.Add. 51680, Russell to Lady Holland, n.d. Accompanied by John Wood, and with his fellow banker Lloyd as his committee chairman, Heywood canvassed at the exchanges in Manchester, 29 Apr., and Liverpool, 30 Apr., when, meeting him by chance, he came to an understanding with Molyneux, who had started late.T. Heywood, Mem. of Benjamin Heywood, 63-68; Lancaster Gazette, 30 Apr.; Creevey mss, Creevey to Miss Ord, 30 Apr., 2 May 1831. The anti-reformer Lord Salisbury, who was briefed throughout by his Liverpool agents, predicted that support for Wilson Patten, who canvassed Manchester, 25 Apr., Lancaster, 26 Apr., and Liverpool, 27, 28 Apr., might ‘just hold up’, but he feared for his finances.Hatfield House mss bdle. 4, Leigh to Salisbury, 30 Apr., 2 May 1831. Supported by the Manchester Chronicle, the Manchester Herald and the Lancaster Gazette, but opposed by the Manchester Guardian and Manchester Times, Wilson Patten made little headway and retired ‘rather than pledge greater support for the ministerial bill’, 3 May.The Times, 2, 6 May; Lancaster Herald, 7 May 1831. The Whig Thomas Creevey* commented, ‘What a bore that our Mull has not got it as he might have done by putting up a finger only a week ago’.Creevey mss, Creevey to Miss Ord, 4 May 1831. Prentice, in his paper, called on the freeholders to celebrate Wilson Patten’s retirement by using the money thus saved to assist reformers in other counties. The Lancashire reform committees ‘voted £300 for the Carlisle election; £1,000 to assist George Wilbraham* in Cheshire; £300 for Cumberland and £250 for Worcestershire’.Manchester Times, 7, 14 May 1831. Stanley dined the corporation of Lancaster before the nomination, 10 May. His proposers, Rawstorne and William Townley, spoke only of his recent votes for the bill, which Stanley praised as a measure ‘in the same tradition ... [and] supported by many of the same gentry families who backed the 1688 revolution’. Molyneux and Lloyd proposed Heywood, who dwelt on his ‘extraordinary’ candidature and declared his opposition to the corn laws, colonial slavery and all monopolies, especially the East Indian. Ottiwell Wood congratulated the freeholders on their choice. The sheriff Peregrine Townley presided at a dinner for 300 at the National School, where the main speakers were the Liverpool and Manchester reformers. The Members and their committees paid tribute to Wilson Patten and looked to his return at the next election, and Molyneux confirmed that he would then stand.Manchester Herald, 18 May 1831. The Members rallied their supporters at dinners in Manchester in honour of the king’s birthday, 28 May, and at the races, and toured the manufacturing towns and were fêted with Wilson Patten by the calico printers, 17 June 1831.Ibid. 1, 22 June, 6 July 1831; Heywood, 75-80.

Hunt made use of a petition entrusted to him by the Manchester working classes requesting repeal of the corn laws, annual parliaments, universal suffrage and the ballot to ‘smoke out’ Heywood as a ministerial moderate, 8 July 1831.CJ, lxxxvi. 632. The reintroduced reform bill made no changes affecting Lancashire, where the Members’ votes and speeches were closely monitored by the nascent unions and Heywood remained a target of Huntite abuse. Attempts by anti-reformers to have Salford included in the Manchester constituency were successfully resisted, 2 Aug. 1831, 28 Feb. 1832. The claim of Ashton-under-Lyne (population 26,267 in 1821 and 33,597 in 1831) to separate representation was pressed in memorials and by John Wood when an additional Member was proposed for Stoke-on-Trent, 4 Aug., and conceded, 7 Sept. 1831.PP (1831-2), xxxix. 47-49. Stanley’s anti-government vote on Stoke caused unease, but his hostile vote and representations against the county division, 11 Aug., which he had warned ministers he would oppose, was widely approved.Add. 51836, Stanley to Holland, 8 June; Lancaster Gazette, 20 Aug. 1831. However, Heywood’s legitimate absence from the division on the reform bill’s third reading, 19 Sept. 1831, created a furore.Manchester Guardian, 24 Sept. 1831 The Commons had received petitions criticizing it and demanding the ballot from Chorley, 14 July, and the Manchester Political Union, 8 Aug., but the unions generally and public meetings in the towns rallied for it and the Lords received at least 18 petitions from unrepresented Lancashire towns urging its speedy passage, 30 Sept.-10 Oct.; Ulverston petitioned commending the bill, 19 Oct.CJ, lxxxvi. 654, 735; LJ, lxiii. 1034, 1037-8, 1040, 1045, 1047 1051-2, 1054, 1061, 1067, 1076, 1103. The moderates, led by Thomas Potter and Shuttleworth, had failed to carry their resolutions at the Camp Field meeting convened to protest at the bill’s rejection by the Lords in October 1831 and, by mass attendance, the working class Huntites, who made martyrs of their imprisoned spokesmen Broadhurst, Curran and John Pym, dominated subsequent meetings.Manchester Guardian, 15, 22 Oct., 26 Nov, 3 Dec.; Manchester Times, 19, 26 Nov., 3 Dec.; The Times, 30 Nov. 1831. The revised reform bill, announced in December 1831, confirmed the enfranchisement of Ashton-under-Lyne, and made Blackburn, Bolton and Oldham two Member constituencies. Critical petitions from Manchester Political Union requesting the ballot, corn law reform, short parliaments and universal suffrage were received by the Commons, 3 Feb., and the anti-reformers of Lonsdale hundred petitioned in outright opposition to the measure, 3 Apr. 1832.CJ, lxxxvii. 143, 227. In February, the boundary commissioners confirmed the county division, making Wigan the election venue and Liverpool, Manchester, Newton, Ormskirk and Rochdale polling towns for Lancashire South; and Lancaster the election venue and Burnley, Hawkshead, Lancaster, Poulton, Preston and Ulverston the polling towns for Lancashire North. Their report expressed unease over the unequal division, but justified it as the best way agriculture could be represented without redefining all local boundaries.PP (1831-2), xxxix. 33-34. Heywood agreed, but conceded privately:

The only point in the proposed division about which I have hesitated is whether the hundred of Leyland should not have been placed in the Southern division [for] geographically it belongs to it. But it is a small agricultural district; it would be wholly without influence in conjunction with Salford and West Derby.Heywood, 84-85.

Over-Darwen and Todmorden petitioned the Commons for inclusion in the new Blackburn constituency, 7 May, 6 June.CJ, lxxxvii. 184, 280. Encouraged by the unions, the inhabitants of Blackburn, Bolton, Heywood, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Royton, Todmorden and Warrington met and petitioned in protest when a further Lords’ defeat and the prospect of a ministry headed by the duke of Wellington threatened the reform bill in May 1832. The 1831 election committees were now reconvened (with Lloyd as chairman) in anticipation of a snap dissolution, and a truce with political union moderates (Hetherington and Absalom Watkin) was effected. Canvassing to return the Members free of charge was under way before Grey resumed office that month.The Times, 12 May; Manchester Guardian, 12, 19, 26 May; Bolton Chron. 19 May 1832; CJ, lxxxvii. 307, 317, 332; LJ, lxiv. 184, 243. In the Lords, 1 June, a wrecking amendment moved by the anti-reformer Ellenborough, with Salisbury’s support, proposed replicating the provisions for Yorkshire by awarding Lancashire six Members. Citing the boundary report, and provisionally assigning the additional Members to the Southern division, Ellenborough hailed this as the best way to safeguard the landed interest, but it was soundly rejected.LJ, lxiv. 257. Heywood was credited with having Newton added to Manchester and Crompton to Oldham when adjustments to the proposed boundaries were made, and the Commons carried an amendment substituting Newton for Wigan as the election town for Lancashire South (by 54-5), 7 June.Ibid. 85; CJ, lxxxvii. 387. After the bill received royal assent that month the political gulf between the reformers, Hunt’s political unionites and the Manchester Reform Association widened, and they petitioned criticizing the Reform Act’s shortcomings, 10, 15 Aug. 1832, so culminating a year-long campaign by the society’s chairman Elijah Dixon, who severely criticized the registration provisions, fearing that the electorate would be unduly restricted and the reformers therefore unable to keep the Huntites at bay.The Times, 1 July 1832; CJ, lxxxvii, 577, 588.

Petitioning for corn law repeal continued, but both Members opposed it as advocated by Hunt, who proclaimed it as the radical reformers’ priority.CJ, lxxxvi. 654, 657, 693, 738, 748, 750; LJ, lxiii. 897. The millers of Rochdale and Warrington meanwhile petitioned against permitting foreign flour to be imported, 7 July 1831.LJ, lxiii. 796. The political unions organized petitions in favour of Hunt’s motion for inquiry into Peterloo, which was rejected (by 206-31), 15 Mar., and Manchester petitioned similarly, 17 July.CJ, lxxxvii. 70, 139, 197, 497. Unionists also campaigned during that Parliament to exempt newsprint from stamp duty (the tax on knowledge) and against the provisions for dissection in the coroners’ bill.LJ, lxiv. 113. Both Houses received petitions from the Dissenters in favour of the Maynooth grant and for a reduction in capital offences, the anti-slavery campaign revived, and Heywood’s support for the immediate appointment of a select committee with a view to total abolition was welcomed.CJ, lxxxvii. 432, 448, 471, 491, 505; LJ, lxiv. 31, 292, 321, 322, 344, 422, 429, 433; Manchester Guardian, 1, 23 June 1832. His appointment to the East India committee and the secret committee on the Bank of England’s charter and his expertise on the factory bill pleased both the manufacturers who petitioned against it, 7, 9, 16 Mar. 1832, and the clergy, artisans, tradesmen and parents who sought additional restrictions on child labour, 5 Aug. 1831, 17 Apr., 7 June 1832. The announcement that month of his retirement at the dissolution was greeted with dismay.CJ, lxxxvii. 79, 170-1, 177, 200; LJ, lxiii. 900; lxiv. 76, 177, 283, 343; Manchester Guardian, 30 June 1832.

The registration of 6,593 voters in Lancashire North (population 355,353) and 10,039 in Lancashire South (population 935,392) before the general election of December 1832 was closely scrutinized by both parties. Thirteen of the 14 Lancashire constituencies were contested and Liberals took 23 of the 26 seats. A poll was avoided in the Northern division, where the 10th duke of Hamilton’s heir, the marquess of Douglas, declined a requisition and a pact secured the return of Smith Stanley and Wilson Patten. The constituency was polled twice before it was abolished in 1885, with shared representation persisting until 1868, and the Conservatives prevailing subsequently. Lancashire South, where the Liberals George William Wood and Molyneux defeated the Conservative Dalrymple Hesketh, was contested seven times before its boundaries were revised in 1867. Two Conservatives were returned, 1835-41, and two Liberals, 1847-59, when two Conservatives were returned. A Conservative also took the third seat awarded to the constituency in 1861, but after each party fielded three candidates in 1865 two Conservatives and a Liberal were elected.