Colchester

Colchester, a Roman settlement and the largest urban centre in Essex (but not the county town), lay on the River Colne in the north-east of the county, five miles from the Suffolk border. Its once flourishing cloth making industry had virtually disappeared by the end of the Napoleonic wars, and in this period its economy was largely dependent on the agriculture of the surrounding area. There was some trade through its small port at The Hythe and a lucrative oyster fishery on the river. Pigot’s Commercial Dir. (1823-4), 288-9; T. Cromwell, Hist. Colchester, i. 165; VCH Essex, ix. 135-47; A.F.J. Brown, Colchester, 7, 8, 19; M.E. Speight, ‘Politics in Colchester’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1969), 2, 7-9, 19. Oldfield gave the borough ‘a distinguished place in the annals of controversy and corruption’; but the great cost of its frequently contested elections (24 out of 33 between 1715 and 1831), which ruined more than one Member, derived less from blatant venality than from the cost of transporting and entertaining out-voters. Oldfield, Key (1820), 126-7; Speight, 2, 12, 13, 155-64. In this period about one third of the electorate was resident, while roughly a quarter lived in London, mainly in the East End, where migrating textile workers had settled in the late eighteenth century. Brown, 73, 74. The corporation, which was closely identified with the dominant True Blue anti-Catholic Tory interest, bolstered by local gentry families, including the Bramstons of Skreens, Rounds of Danbury and Tyrells of Boreham, consisted of a mayor, 11 other aldermen, 18 assistants and 18 common councilmen. In theory it was open to all freemen, but no reformer was elected to it between 1813 and 1835. There were, however, divisions within it, particularly until 1826: the new charter of 1818 (essentially the same as that of 1763) did not immediately end these disputes; and two excluded aldermen, Samuel Bridges and Francis Smythies, town clerk, 1818-35, sought in a series of legal actions to dislodge local traders from control of the corporation. There was also litigation over the eligibility of the non-free or foreign members of the select body, nominated by the charter, to vote in parliamentary elections; this was settled in their favour in 1826. Speight, 26-35; VCH Essex, ix. 156, 157, 161, 162. Opposition to the corporation and the True Blues was not particularly coherent; but from 1812 it was to a great extent embodied in the person of Daniel Whittle Harvey* of Feering, a Unitarian attorney of local origin, who espoused a vigorously expressed but essentially moderate radicalism to promote the cause of electoral independence. He derived much support from the Dissenters, mainly Independents, who comprised about a quarter of Colchester’s population. Defeated at the general election of 1812 and the by-election of February 1818, he was returned at the general election four months later with the True Blue sitting Member James Wildman, a wealthy outsider who had inherited a Kent estate and a Jamaican plantation. Harvey aspired to the recordership of Colchester and soon after his election he engineered the removal of the incumbent; but his application to be called to the bar to qualify himself was rejected by the benchers of the Inner Temple on the ground of his supposed professional misconduct in 1809. Harvey, whose personal vendetta against the authorities was henceforward closely linked with the growth of local radicalism, failed to secure the election of his nominee: he was beaten by the corporation candidate Kelly at the end of 1819. Speight, 35-36; The Times, 3 Jan. 1820; HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 159. The Colchester electorate had a high degree of political awareness and party loyalty, which were reinforced by a network of local clubs, of varying size and importance, on both sides; the London voters, among whom independence was strong, were also organized. Speight, 167-80; F. O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons, and Parties, 290, 356; Brown, 74-77.

At the dissolution in 1820 the leaders of the corporation and True Blue interest, keen to get rid of Harvey, persuaded Wildman to agree in principle to a coalition with a third man, though he refused to spend more than £1,000. General Francis Rebow of nearby Wivenhoe was their choice, but after discussions with Wildman he backed down. The corporation subsequently came up with the 69-year-old Sir Henry Russell of Swallowfield, Berkshire, a retired Indian judge and East India Company pensioner, who in his absence through illness was represented by his son Charles. Wildman was apparently asked to unite with Russell, who was willing to spend at least £4,000, but after due consideration he refused to do so, to Russell’s indignation. All this dirty corporation linen was washed on the hustings, to the gratification of Harvey, who, as well as attacking the Liverpool ministry’s recent repressive legislation, made capital of the public wrangling between the leaders and candidates of the True Blues. After six days of polling Harvey and Wildman were returned, with the latter 165 ahead of Russell. Suff. Chron. 26 Feb., 4, 11, 18 Mar. 1820; Procs. at Colchester and Essex Elections (1820), 7-14; Speight, 102. Of the 1,382 who polled (32 per cent from Colchester, 24 from London and 44 from Essex and elsewhere) 51 per cent gave a vote for Harvey, 48 for Wildman and 36 for Russell. Harvey received 434 plumpers (120 from Colchester, 107 from London, 207 from the county and elsewhere), which made up 62 per cent of his total. Wildman had 241 plumpers (122 from Colchester, 31 from London, 88 from the county and elsewhere), forming 36 per cent of his total. Russell got 226 (three from Colchester, 131 from London, 92 from the county and elsewhere), which accounted for 45 per cent of his total. Harvey shared 209 votes with Wildman (30 and 32 per cent of their respective totals) and 59 with Russell (eight and 12 per cent). There were 213 split votes for Wildman and Russell (32 and 43 per cent of their respective totals). Colchester voters were markedly more favourable to Wildman (71 per cent) and Harvey (60) than the voters as a whole, while only 14 per cent voted for Russell, who polled strongest of the three among the London voters (54 per cent, to 46 for Harvey and 16 for Wildman). The other out-voters polled 49 per cent for Wildman, 47 for Harvey and 41 for Russell. Only 46 per cent of the voters (Harvey’s 434 plumpers and the 213 Wildman-Russell splits) cast straight party votes, which reflected the divisions within the True Blue interest. Colchester Pollbook (1820).

On 11 May 1820 Russell, in the name of a number of freemen, petitioned against Harvey’s return, alleging a flaw in his property qualification, as well as bribery and treating. The objection to his qualification, which turned on a transaction concerning his leasehold house in Brighton, was upheld, and on 30 June his election was declared void. CJ, lxv. 189, 358-9, 374. Harvey, who since the election had, with the militant confectioner Chignell Wire, instigated ultimately unsuccessful legislation to try to overturn Kelly’s election as recorder, did not risk standing at the ensuing by-election, but backed the wealthy Whig Henry Baring, a partner in the London finance house, a former Member for Bossiney and more recently an aspirant to a seat for Ipswich. It was understood that Harvey would replace or come in with him at the next general election. The premier Lord Liverpool, through Arbuthnot, the patronage secretary, offered government support to Joseph Holden Strutt of Terling Place, Member for Maldon, for his son. Strutt’s inquiries confirmed that the corporation of Colchester was still ‘divided into two parties, hostile to each other’ and that this ‘rancour’ had ‘palsied’ the True Blue interest. Acknowledging that the ‘popular cry’ was ‘unbounded’ for Harvey, he declined to expose his son and his purse to a hopeless contest. Discovery of this state of affairs also deterred Colonel John Camac of the Life Guards, who had been enticed to Colchester ‘with the assurance that our political friends were united’. Suff. Chron. 8 July 1820; Add. 38458, f. 331. Baring, whose brother’s death obliged him to leave Colchester immediately after the formalities, was endorsed by Harvey and Thomas Barrett Lennard, Whig Member for Ipswich, and walked over. Suff. Chron. 15 July; County Chron. 18 July 1820. A petition in the name of three freemen, alleging bribery and treating, was lodged against his return, 26 July, but it was not pursued. CJ, lxxv. 478; Lansdowne mss, Baring to Lansdowne, 30 July 1820. The independents, probably abetted by Harvey, had some minor success at the municipal elections of 1820; but the True Blues rallied to restore order the following year. The independents’ resort to litigation to overturn this defeat ended in failure in July 1823. Speight, 38-42.

The merchants, tradesmen and inhabitants of Colchester petitioned the Commons for relief from agricultural distress, 30 May 1820. CJ, lxxv. 252. There was widespread defiance of the authorities’ attempt to prevent an illumination to celebrate the abandonment of the prosecution of Queen Caroline that November. A meeting of the ‘friends of freedom’ chaired by George Savill, 5 Dec., voted addresses to counter the loyal ones got up by the corporation; and Harvey, Savill, the Essex reformer John Disney† and Curwood spoke at a celebratory meeting at the Three Cups, chaired by Charles Western, the Whig county Member, 19 Dec. 1820. The Times, 18, 23 Nov., 2 Dec.; Suff. Chron. 25 Nov., 9, 23 Dec. 1820. The True Blues continued to muster annually at the True Blue Freemen’s Club and the Colchester True Blue or Pitt Club; and in February 1821 they formed the Loyal Colchester Association to ‘counteract the diffusion of disloyal and seditious principles’. Colchester Gazette, 17 Feb., 3 Mar., 24 Nov. 1821, 15 Feb., 22 Nov. 1823, 26 Nov. 1825, 11 Feb. 1826. Anti-Catholicism was deeply entrenched in Colchester, not least among Harvey’s Dissenter supporters. The corporation, the archdeacon and clergy and the inhabitants variously petitioned both Houses against Catholic claims in 1821, 1822, 1823 and 1825. CJ, lxxvi. 121-2; lxxviii. 215; lxxx. 134, 309, 320; LJ, liv. 79-80, 103; lv. 251; lvii. 64-65, 592, 757; Colchester Gazette, 24 Feb., 3 Mar. 1821; The Times, 8 Feb. 1825. Wildman supported and Baring opposed them in the House. Petitions were also sent to the Commons for repeal of the additional malt duty, 13 Mar., and relief from agricultural distress, 18 Apr. 1821; mitigation of the criminal code, 4 June 1822; the abolition of slavery, 14 May 1823, 17 Mar. 1824, 14 Feb. 1826, and repeal of the coastwise coal duties, 23 Feb. 1824; and to the Lords on slavery, 24 June 1824, 13 Feb. 1826. CJ, lxxvi. 163, 279; lxxvii. 316; lxxviii. 308; lxxix. 81, 173; lxxxi. 41; LJ, lvi. 467; lviii. 34.

At the general election of 1826 Harvey, who had failed in renewed attempts to be admitted to the bar and aired his grievance in a Letter to the Burgesses of Colchester (1822), offered as an ‘independent ... unfettered by party engagements or family compact’. Baring, a gambler and sportsman who had been lax in his attendance, and Wildman, whose ‘pecuniary embarrassment’ was such that he could not afford even the £1,000 needed for an unopposed return, retired. The corporation invited Sir George Smyth of nearby Berechurch, a leading figure in the True Blue Club, to stand, and he agreed to do so, though he was apparently unwilling to spend much money. Sir John Sewell, a retired admiralty court judge, had already shown an interest, but he deferred to Smyth. One Bland, a head clerk at East India House, sounded the Russells. Charles was at first keen, but his elder brother Henry, who was implicated with him in the scandal of a fraudulent loan to the nizam of Hyderabad, which would have been a godsend to Harvey, talked him out of standing. An appeal by the London freemen ‘in the Blue interest’ to Peel, the home secretary, to suggest a second candidate hostile to Catholic relief had no result. Kent and Essex Mercury, 16, 23 May; Colchester Gazette, 27 May, 3 June 1826; Bodl. MS. Eng. lett. c. 159, ff. 38-42; Add. 40387, f. 29. Smyth and Harvey were returned unopposed: the former’s hostility to Catholic claims was taken as read, while Harvey, who damned both Whigs and Tories as he tried to widen the political agenda, promised not to vote for relief ‘unless requested to do so by his constituents’. Colchester Gazette, 10, 17, 24 June; Kent and Essex Mercury, 13 June 1826.

The inhabitants, the corporation and the archdeaconry petitioned both Houses against relief in 1827 and 1828, when Smyth voted against and Harvey, sheltering behind Protestant Dissenters’ disabilities, abstained. CJ, lxxxii. 256, 274; lxxxiii. 282; LJ, lix. 120, 121, 127; lx. 119, 486; Colchester Gazette, 24 Feb., 10, 17 Mar. 1827, 22 Mar., 3 May 1828. Artisans and labourers petitioned the Commons for revision of the corn laws, 9 Feb., but local landowners petitioned the Lords against interference, 6 Apr. 1827, and the Commons against the new corn bill, 22 Apr. 1828. Harvey favoured free trade and a property tax, but Smyth was in sympathy with the protectionists and was involved in the formation in May 1828 of the Colchester and Eastern Essex Agricultural Association, which petitioned the Lords against the corn bill, 13 June. CJ, lxxxii. 144; lxxxxiii. 259; LJ, lix. 236; lx. 541; Colchester Gazette, 16 Feb., 17 May 1828. There was sustained petitioning by Dissenters for repeal of the Test Acts, but the corporation petitioned against this, 17 Mar. 1828; Harvey supported it, while Smyth probably opposed it. CJ, lxxxii. 527, 560; lxxxiii. 96, 176, 197; LJ, lx. 236-7; Colchester Gazette, 29 Mar. 1828. Harvey presented several petitions against the friendly societies bill, 22 Apr., and the inhabitants petitioned the Commons for the abolition of slavery, 13 June 1828. CJ, lxxxiii. 259, 430; Colchester Gazette, 19, 26 Apr. 1828. At a meeting of Harvey’s London supporters in the Colchester Independent Club at the Kent and Essex Tavern, Whitechapel, 14 Oct. 1828, Chigwell Wire, the chairman, praised their Member, attacked the corn laws and called for efforts to return two reformers next time; but the proposal of the secretary David Wire, a solicitor, that Harvey should be pressed to support Catholic relief provoked much dissent. The Times, 15 Oct. 1828. Smyth was a prime mover in the formation of the Colchester and Essex Brunswick Constitutional Club to resist Catholic claims in December 1828. Colchester Gazette, 22 Nov., 6, 13 Dec. 1828. At a meeting of his Colchester supporters chaired by the attorney Edward Daniell, 2 Feb. 1829, Harvey attacked all ecclesiastical establishments, said he would oppose any ‘unregulated concession’ of Catholic relief and promised to resign his seat if he came into conflict with his constituents on the issue. At the Loyal Freemen’s Club anniversary dinner, 10 Feb., Smyth denounced the ministerial decision to concede emancipation. The inhabitants, the corporation and the archdeaconry petitioned the Commons, 5 Mar., and the Lords, 6 Mar., against it; but other inhabitants subsequently petitioned both Houses in favour of it, and a congregation of Protestant Dissenters petitioned the Lords in the same sense. Colchester Gazette, 7, 14, 21 Feb., 14, 28 Mar. 1829; CJ, lxxxiv. 109, 141; LJ, lxi. 115, 117, 297. Harvey voted for emancipation, 6 Mar., but abstained thereafter, continued to call for an appropriation of Irish church revenues and repeated his offer to resign if required. Smyth steadily opposed it before giving up his seat in disgust, 31 Mar. An attempt by a corporation delegation to make him change his mind failed, and he was replaced on the True Blue interest by Richard Sanderson, a wealthy London bill broker. One of the Russell brothers reconnoitred the borough but retreated. There was token opposition to Sanderson’s return from the brothers James and William Mayhew, London wine merchants and hitherto stalwarts of the London anti-Catholic Blues, who complained that ‘the vacant seat had been taken by storm’ and vowed to organize to safeguard the cause of independence in the future. Harvey stayed aloof. Colchester Gazette, 11, 18, 25 Apr.; The Times, 15 Apr. 1829.

At a meeting of the Whitechapel Independent Club chaired by the printer William Buck (which Harvey did not attend), 7 July 1829, David Wire called for a ‘union’ of the various Colchester clubs to petition for Harvey’s programme of parliamentary and financial reform. Colchester Gazette, 11 July 1829. Harvey’s conduct on Catholic emancipation, his habitual arrogance and his proprietorial attitude to his seat had alienated a number of his supporters, particularly in London; and in October 1829, when Buck and David Wire, at the Kent and Essex Tavern, continued their agitation for reform, repeal of the corn laws and a revision of taxation, a breakaway Independent Club was formed at the Angel and Crown, Whitechapel, under the initial chairmanship of Daniel Iron, a silk manufacturer. They condemned the ‘rotten borough system’ operated by Harvey and his cronies, and later in the year they promoted the establishment of a similar club in Colchester. By February 1830 Iron was claiming over 100 members for the London organization, which continued to flourish. Ibid. 10 Oct. 1829, 13 Feb. 1830; Speight, 191, 192, 234. Meanwhile Harvey had peddled his property tax nostrum, and at a meeting of the Kent and Essex Tavern Club, 5 Jan. 1830, when he was quizzed on his plans for the coming session, he stuck to this as well as advocating the appropriation of ecclesiastical and crown lands revenues and ‘the lopping off of corruption’. On reform, however, he stated his aversion to universal suffrage and the ballot. He presented reform petitions from Colchester and London freemen during the session, and worked to rally his supporters against the dissidents’ threat. Colchester Gazette, 26 Dec. 1829, 9 Jan., 13, 27 Feb., 13 Mar., 17 Apr., 15 May 1830; CJ, lxxxv. 219, 615; Speight, 232-5. The inhabitants of Colchester petitioned the Commons for mitigation of the criminal code, 4 Mar., and Protestant Dissenters and Anglican inhabitants petitioned the Lords for abolition of the death penalty for forgery, 17, 22 June 1830. CJ, lxxxv. 133; LJ, lxii. 735, 759.

On the dissolution the following month Harvey, who put his expenditure on Colchester elections at £25,700, came forward as the promoter of his own ‘rational political creed’. At a meeting of the Kent and Essex Club, 6 July, he crushed by 260-40 an attempt by a discontented few to have him rejected for two men of ‘fortune and independence’, and denied an allegation that he was in cahoots with Sanderson, who had also offered, to secure a cheap return. Colchester Gazette, 10 July 1830. The Angel and Crown defectors condemned the ‘dishonourable and degrading local practice’ of returning Members ‘by sinister and corrupt means’ and eventually put up William Mayhew. The day before the election Sanderson was forced to withdraw when one of his agents was caught in the act of bribery. At the nomination, in addition to Harvey, who was proposed by Alderman Edward Clay of The Hythe, a convert to parliamentary and municipal reform, and Mayhew, four men were started: Smyth, the London aldermen William Heygate* and William Venables*, and Andrew Spottiswoode, the king’s printer and Tory Member for Saltash in the 1826 Parliament. Mayhew subsequently alleged that Venables, the corporation’s first choice, had balked at the likely cost of a contest and persuaded Spottiswoode, who had also been inclined to drop out, to negotiate with them, and that the terms had not been settled until the last moment before polling. Only Harvey, Mayhew and Spottiswoode stood their ground, each professing independence of the other two. Mayhew, now the promoter of moderate reformism, claimed to be ‘a liberal Blue’, while Harvey attacked both major parties. After a five-day poll Harvey and Spottiswoode, who were separated by 78 votes, were returned, with Mayhew a distant third. Ibid. 17, 24, 31 July, 7, 14 Aug., 1830; CJ, lxxxvi. 100-2; Speight, 235. Of the 1,238 voters who polled (36 per cent from Colchester, 27 from London and 37 from the county and elsewhere), 53 per cent voted for Harvey, 46 for Spottiswoode and 24 for Mayhew. Harvey got 394 plumpers (149 from Colchester, 108 from London, 137 from the county and elsewhere), which represented 61 per cent of his total. Spottiswoode had 377 plumpers (189 from Colchester, 29 from London, 159 from the county and elsewhere), which made up 66 per cent of his total. Mayhew’s 181 plumpers (three from Colchester, 135 from London, 43 from elsewhere) comprised 60 per cent of his total. Thus 77 per cent of those who polled cast plumpers. Harvey shared 164 votes (25 per cent of his total) with Spottiswoode and 92 (14 per cent) with Mayhew. Spottiswoode derived 29 per cent of his total from splits with Harvey and shared 30 votes (five per cent) with Mayhew. Thirty per cent of Mayhew’s total consisted of splits with Harvey and ten of splits with Spottiswoode. Colchester residents overwhelmingly supported Spottiswoode (62 per cent) and Harvey (57) in preference to Mayhew (five), while Mayhew (57 per cent) had the edge over Harvey (48) among London voters, of whom only 12 per cent supported Spottiswoode. The county and other out-voters divided 50, 37 and 36 per cent for Harvey, Spottiswoode and Mayhew respectively. Colchester Pollbook (1830). At his celebration dinner, which was chaired by Clay, 8 Sept. 1830, Harvey berated the 588 freemen who through ‘want of thought and political principle’ had voted for his rivals. The supporters of Mayhew rallied at the Angel and Crown, 5 Oct., and the True Blues in Colchester, 28 Oct. In November 1830 the London Independent Club hostile to Harvey moved its headquarters to the Swan, Whitechapel; and on the 16th Mayhew petitioned against Spottiswoode’s return, complaining of ‘arbitrary, illegal and corrupt conduct’ by the returning officer, Alderman Edward Clay of Greenstead, and asserting that as king’s printer, and therefore a government contractor, Spottiswoode was disqualified. Colchester Gazette, 13, 20 Nov., 11, 25 Dec. 1830, 1 Jan. 1831; CJ, lxxxvi. 100-2.

Anti-slavery petitions, mainly from Dissenters, reached the Commons, 23 Nov. 1830, 13 Apr. 1831, and the Lords, 8, 18 Nov. 1830. The inhabitants petitioned the Commons for reform, 1 Mar. 1831. CJ, lxxxvi. 130, 483; LJ, lxiii. 24, 106. Harvey welcomed the Grey ministry’s reform bill, but it created division among the members of the London New Independent Club, some of whom resented its threatened disfranchisement of freemen. Clay of The Hythe, who had begun a vigorous campaign for municipal reform, accusing his fellow corporators of mismanaging and misappropriating borough revenues, also came out for the bill. Colchester Gazette, 5, 12 Mar. 1831; Speight, 48. On 21 Mar. 1831 the election committee declared Spottiswoode ineligible to sit and his election void. CJ, lxxxvi. 392, 411; Colchester Gazette, 19 Mar. 1831. Mayhew immediately started for the vacancy as ‘the enemy of corruption, profligacy and oppression’. To spite him and cause him as much expense as possible, the corporation nominated Sir William Curtis, son and successor of the late Tory alderman of and Member for London, who did not set foot in the borough. The angry Mayhew, who supported the principle of the reform bill, made clear his hostility to the proposed disfranchisement of non-resident voters but promised not to endanger the measure, and took up the theme of corporation corruption started by Clay of The Hythe, his proposer; they threatened exposure of ‘secrets’, including malversation and ‘other snug matters’, and held out the prospect of eventual financial benefit for every freeman if a reforming major was elected next Michaelmas. Most of Harvey’s supporters backed Mayhew, though Harvey himself kept out of it. Mayhew beat the ‘man of straw’ Curtis by 114 votes after a vexatious poll of seven days. The Times, 1, 2, 4-9 Apr.; Colchester Gazette, 2, 9, 16 Apr. 1831; Speight, 49. Of the 1,094 who polled (35 per cent from Colchester, 25 from London and 40 from Essex and elsewhere), 55 per cent voted for Mayhew and 45 for Curtis. London voters (70 per cent) overwhelmingly supported Mayhew; the other out-voters divided in the same proportions as the electorate as a whole; and the Colchester residents (57 per cent) markedly preferred Curtis. Colchester Pollbook (Mar. 1831).

Only a fortnight after Mayhew’s return Parliament was dissolved following the defeat of the reform bill. Mayhew and Harvey offered again, but the latter, still resentful of the defections of 1830, insisted that ‘a direct and close coalition’, with ‘a common purse and common support’, was the only basis on which he would co-operate, as he considered himself, as ‘a better reformer’, to be the ‘preferable candidate’. Mayhew angled for a more informal understanding. When the corporation resurrected Sanderson as a so-called moderate reformer, Harvey urged the freemen to divide their votes between himself and Mayhew, indicating that he would pay the costs of travel to Colchester if Mayhew would fund the return journeys. Mayhew agreed to this, warned against plumping, which might let in Sanderson, and correctly asserted that in practice support for reform had already forged a natural coalition. Harvey, however, insisted on his own precedence and remained suspicious. During Sanderson’s canvass, his carriage was overturned by a furious mob, and he was shouted down on the hustings. He polled very respectably, but gave up after three days, when he was 93 behind Harvey and 71 below Mayhew. Plans for an illumination to celebrate the triumph of reform were abandoned for fear of violent disorder. A public subscription was opened to defray Harvey and Mayhew’s expenses. The Times, 26-28 Apr., 4-6 May; Colchester Gazette, 30 Apr., 7, 14 May 1831. During the Commons inquiry into Harvey’s claim to be called to the bar three years later his enemy Western said in evidence that at the 1831 general election he had got Ellice, the government’s patronage secretary, to send £500 to assist Mayhew only, although Harvey, cross-questioning him, insisted that there had been a joint fund, managed by Savill. The matter was raised in the Commons, 21, 23 July 1834, by Daniel O’Connell, in an attack on Ellice, who claimed that the money had come not from any ‘secret service’ fund but from a general subscription to promote the cause of reform, and produced his correspondence with Harvey to show that the financial aid had not been intended for Mayhew alone, but to uphold ‘the liberal cause’. PP (1834), xviii. 329-31, 701-2; Greville Mems. iii. 63; N. Gash, Politics in Age of Peel, 325, 326. Of the 1,109 who polled (27 per cent from Colchester, 29 from London, 44 from Essex and elsewhere), 56 per cent voted for Harvey, 54 for Mayhew and 47 for Sanderson. The effects of the reform issue were striking. Harvey and Mayhew shared 572 votes, which represented 93 and 96 per cent of their respective totals, while Sanderson got 469 plumpers, accounting for 90 per cent of his total. There were only eight plumpers for Harvey and five for Mayhew; and only 55 voters (five per cent) cast mixed votes. London voters divided 73 per cent for Mayhew, 72 for Harvey and 38 for Sanderson; the other out-voters were almost evenly split; and the Colchester residents preferred Sanderson (62 per cent) to Harvey (42) and Mayhew (38). Of 407 identifiable voters for Mayhew in March 1831, 347 (85 per cent) split for the reformers. (The respective proportions for Colchester, London and other out-voters were 92, 90 and 79 per cent.) Of 388 identifiable voters for Curtis in March 1831, 310 (80 per cent) plumped for Sanderson (Colchester 89, London 73, others 73 per cent). Colchester Pollbook (May 1831).

Clay continued his attack on alleged municipal corruption, arguing in his Inquiry into the Necessity of a Borough Rate (June 1831) that an estimated annual revenue of £2,060 had been misapplied and that reform would bring each freeman a windfall of 31s. a year. The borough treasurer John Theobald replied in a Letter to the Free Burgesses, in which he denied corruption and put the net annual income at only £450. In August 1831 Clay and his associates were refused inspection of the accounts, in defiance of an earlier promise. Their campaign ended in effective defeat at the municipal elections of Michaelmas 1832. Speight, 49-53; Colchester Gazette, 25 June, 30 July, 6 Aug. 1831. On 19 May 1832 an inhabitants’ meeting, originally summoned to confront the crisis precipitated by the Grey ministry’s resignation, welcomed their reinstatement and the securing thereby of reform. Colchester Gazette, 26 May 1832.

The Boundary Act made no change to the constituency, which at the 1832 general election had 1,200 qualifying houses and a reduced electorate of 1,099. PP (1831-2), xxxviii. 177, 178. The disfranchisement of non-residents weakened the reformers, and in December 1832 Sanderson easily topped the poll, with Harvey a distant second and Mayhew a poor third. Harvey abandoned the borough for Southwark in 1835, and Conservatism was generally in the ascendancy at Colchester until the second Reform Act.