Lichfield

Economic and social profile:

The cathedral city of Lichfield had been an important transport hub in the eighteenth century, with coaches from London to the north-west regularly passing through it, stimulating local coach-making and leather manufacture.This paragraph is based on L.D. Schwarz, ‘On the margins of industrialisation: Lichfield’, in J. Stobart and N. Raven (eds.), Towns, regions and industries: urban and industrial change in the Midlands, c. 1700-1840 (2005), 176-92. The city suffered a relative decline in the nineteenth century. The last coach travelled through Lichfield in 1838, and employment in ancillary trades consequently disappeared. Despite its marginalisation and static population, Lichfield adapted with modest success by becoming a local centre for agriculture and transport.

Electoral history:

A city and county of itself, Lichfield has been aptly described by Donald Southgate as ‘the prize gem in the jewel-case of the Whig magnates … which provided the county Whig aristocracy with its safe seats’.D. Southgate, The passing of the Whigs, 1832-1886 (1962), 95-6. During the reformed period the city was represented by scions of the Paget family of Beaudesert, marquises of Anglesey; the Ryders of Sandon Hall, earls of Harrowby; and the Leveson-Gowers of Stone Park, earls Granville. The chief electoral influence was possessed by the Ansons of Shugborough, earls of Lichfield, who returned one member at every general election in this period apart from 1857.Dod’s electoral facts, 1832-1853, impartially stated, ed. H.J. Hanham, (1972), 183. Indeed, Norman Gash categorised the constituency as one of the few proprietary boroughs where a patron was able to return two members after 1832.N. Gash, Politics in the age of Peel (1952), 215, 438. Lord Anglesey and the duke of Sutherland, both Whigs, also possessed some influence.Dod’s electoral facts, 183. Lichfield politics passed through three distinct phases in this period. There was a brief period of political fluidity in the early to mid-1830s, when the traditional polarity between the Anson interest and the independent party gave way to a partisan alignment. The following decade was characterised by a fierce struggle between Conservatives, led by the Dyotts of Freeford, hitherto champions of the independent party, and Reformers. In alliance with local Radicals, the Whig patrons and representatives were able to repulse the Conservative challenge, but the struggle was also played out in municipal and parochial elections, as well as magisterial appointments and petitioning battles. After the Conservatives split in the mid-1840s, the heat went out of the party battle, and the Anson family’s nominees were generally unchallenged. The 2nd earl of Lichfield, who succeeded in 1854, sought to underplay party labels, and secure candidates of moderate principles capable of appealing to Conservatives as well as Liberals. However, this strategy did not prevent the Conservative Richard Dyott eventually winning a seat in 1865.

For much of the eighteenth century Lichfield’s parliamentary representation had been dominated by the the Ansons and Leveson-Gowers, the latter known as the Trentham interest.HP Commons, 1790-1820, ii. 358-60. During the 1820s, the ‘Pinks’, as the Anson-Trentham coalition was known, were increasingly challenged by the independent party, or the ‘Blues’. Thomas William Anson (1795-1854), 2nd viscount Anson, bought out the property owned by the Trentham interest from the marquis of Stafford in 1825.HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 10-14. A few years later General William Dyott, stalwart of the Blues, wrote that Lord Anson ‘rules in the city’.Dyott’s diary, ed. R.W. Jeffrey (1907), ii. 37 (18 Dec. 1828). Seeking to secure two Reformers in 1831 the 1st earl of Lichfield (as Anson had become) consented to a division of the representation, with Sir Edward Dolman Scott, champion of the Blues, returned unopposed with Sir George Anson.HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 13.

The 1832 Reform Act left Lichfield’s two members intact, but added the extra-parochial ‘cathedral close’ to the constituncy.PP (1831-2), xxxvi. 326; xl. 11, 12. As a county of itself, ‘considerable confusion arose’ over whether the residency requirements applied to freehold and annuitant voters as well as the freemen.P. Salmon, Electoral reform at work: local politics and national parties, 1832-1841 (2002), 31. There had been an attempt in the third reform bill to reinstate ‘the annuitant voters in their former unlimited right of voting without reference to residence’, which Sir Robert Peel described as a ‘trick evidently to serve the new created peer, the Earl of Lichfield’.Dyott’s diary, ii. 122 (10 Jan. 1832). Peel forced the government to state that the residency requirements would apply to annuitants, 1 February 1832.Ibid., 123 (26 Jan. 1832); Hansard, 1 Feb. 1832, vol. 9, c. 1101. Even so, before the first election under the new system in December 1832, the earl and his agent sought legal advice, but were informed by an expert that:

It seems to me to be the clear, and anxiously expressed, intention of the statute, looking at the whole of its provisions, as to the qualifications of electors, to make Residence an indispensable condition, precedent to the exercise of the franchise.Legal opinion of Edward Vaughan Williams, 26 Sept. 1832, Anson papers, Staffordshire Record Office, D615/P(P)/1/21.

The residency restrictions of the 1832 Reform Act reduced the electorate by 33% from an estimated 1,277 to 861, despite the addition of 563 £10 householders.HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 10, 14; PP 1833 (189), xxvii. 171. Another consequence of the Act was that Dissenters now formed ‘a large class of the constituency’.Dyott’s diary, ii. 188 (7-8 Jan. 1835). The electorate stood at 937 by 1847, which comprised 481 householders, 197 freemen and 259 freeholders.PP 1849 (16), xlv. 179. A stagnant population and the decline of the freemen to 95 reduced the electorate to 565 by 1865-6, a figure considerably below the municipal electorate of 2,865.PP 1866 (169), lvii. 748; 1867 (11), lvi. 396.

The candidates at the 1832 general election were all Reformers, as the incumbents Scott and Anson were joined by a third candidate, Francis Finch, of Great Barr, a Walsall Radical and banker.J.C. Wedgwood, Staffordshire Parliamentary History (1934), iii. 105. Finch’s support came from the ‘Blues’, including Tories, Radicals and others united by their opposition to the Anson interest.Lichfield Mercury, qu. in Derby Mercury, 5 Dec. 1832; The Times, 11 Dec. 1832. Scott was forced to deny rumours that he was in coalition with his colleague Sir George Anson.Sir E.D. Scott, draft address, ‘To the independent electors of the city and close of Lichfield’, n.d.; idem, draft address, ‘To the independent electors of the city and close of Lichfield’, 12 Oct. 1832, both in Hinckley papers, Lichfield Record Office, D15/4/8/4. At the nomination Anson promised to ‘vote against oppressive taxation, and for economy and reform in the public expenditure’. Scott declared that he was ‘an independent man, and tied to no ministers’. Finch was more specific, advocating the abolition of slavery and the Bank of England’s monopoly. Referring to the treatment of tenants of Anson, he criticised ‘the system of intimidation that has been practised to thwart your independence … You have been … swamped by notices to quit’.Staffordshire Advertiser, 15 Dec. 1832. The show of hands favoured Scott and Finch, and the baronet topped the poll, with Anson elected in second place, after Finch resigned early on the second day.Ibid.; The Times, 17 Dec. 1832.

The 1835 general election was almost a replay of the previous contest, with Finch declaring his ‘uncompromising opposition’ to Peel’s minority administration, but his absence for much of the campaign undermined his prospects.Staffordshire Advertiser, 13 Dec. 1834; The Times, 31 Dec. 1834; Morning Post, 17 Dec. 1834. Scott had ‘sunk in favour with many of his friends’ and he was only supported with reluctance by local independents and Tories, who were alarmed by Finch’s radicalism.Dyott’s diary, ii. 188-9 (7-8 Jan. 1835); The Times, 25 Dec. 1834, 5 Jan. 1835. Finch accused Scott of forming a ‘connexion with the Tories’, while Anson described himself as ‘an old Reformer’ whose ‘principles were unchanged’. The same could not be said of Scott, who ‘was not inclined’ to give Peel’s government ‘a factious opposition’.Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 Jan. 1835. Finch and Anson won the show of hands, but the poll saw the incumbents re-elected by a comfortable margin, prompting the Radical to complain of broken promises.Ibid. A petition against Scott’s return, alleging ‘open and extensive bribery’, in which the returning officer, a publican, was implicated, was presented, 6 Mar. 1835.CJ, xc. 56. On 13 March 1835, the petitioners complained that they had not been informed of the presentation of the petition until it was too late to enter into recognizances, for which they blamed the MP responsible.Ibid., 125. The speaker took a different view, however, and discharged the petition, 23 Mar. 1835.Ibid., 150.

Lichfield’s corporation had been one of the few to refuse to co-operate with the municipal corporation commissioners in December 1834, and their subsequent 1835 report criticised the institution’s past record of creating freemen for electoral purposes, abuse of charitable trusts and partisan exclusiveness.PP 1835 (116), xxv. 517-24; The Times, 17 Dec. 1833; W. White, History, gazetteer and directory of Staffordshire and the city and county of Lichfield (1834), 74-6. Municipal reform replaced the self-electing corporation with a town council and at the first elections in December 1835 the Reformers won seventeen seats, and consequently packed the aldermanic bench, with only a solitary Tory councillor to resist them.The Times, 31 Dec. 1835; Dyott’s diary, ii. 221 (1 Jan. 1836).

The 1837 general election was notable for a significant realignment in Lichfield politics. The fluidity of the previous five years was replaced by clear-cut partisan dividing lines between Conservatives, led by the Dyott family, and Reformers. Scott’s wayward voting record and unclear party allegiance left him with little support and he retired after his canvass.Dyott’s diary, ii. 258 (16 July 1837). His replacement, the ‘ministerialist’ Whig and ‘staunch Reformer’ Lord Alfred Paget, son of Lord Anglesey, was returned unopposed with Anson.The Standard, 26 July 1837; Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 July 1837. General William Dyott, former stalwart of the Blues, rightly noted that the election signified a new alliance, not only between Lords Lichfield and Anglesey, but between the Whig members and local Radicals, who now controlled the town council.Dyott’s diary, ii. 256-8, 263, 268 (12, 14, 16, 21 July 1837, Dec. 1837).

Thereafter local Conservatives began to organise themselves. They made modest gains at the 1838 registration courts and in January 1840 General Dyott’s son Richard, who had unsuccessfully contested South Staffordshire in 1837, accepted a requisition signed by 400 inhabitants to challenge Paget at the next opportunity, a move which had Peel’s approval.‘The registration of 1838’, Fraser’s Magazine (1838), xviii. 629-36 (at 633); Dyott’s diary, ii. 296-7 (5 June 1839). The requisition was organised with considerable care by General Dyott and Richard Hinckley, solicitor and chief party organiser, who both believed that the signatures would aid their electoral calculations and prospects.Dyott’s diary, ii. 307-11 (23, 26 Nov. 1839, 14, 17 Dec. 1839, 13 Jan. 1840); the original requisition can be found in the Hinckley papers, Lichfield RO, D15/4/11/1. Conservatives also organised a memoral signed by 500 householders against the Whig government’s appointment of Rev. J. Muckleston and R.C. Chawner as magistrates in November 1839, which General Dyott admitted was got up for ‘electioneering purposes’.Dyott’s diary, ii. 306 (19 Nov. 1839). The party battle was also played out in rival petitioning campaigns over the corn laws. Conservatives and local agriculturalists held meetings and got up pro-corn law petitions, whilst anti-corn law petitions were organised under the aegis of the Radical council, perhaps with the sanction of Lord Lichfield, who was ‘not friendly to the existing corn laws’.Dyott’s diary, ii. 287-8, 315-16 (8 Feb. 1839, 29 Feb. 1840, 9, 15 Mar. 1840), qu. at 302 (8 Oct. 1839); Select Committee on Public Petitions (1839), appendix 111; ibid., (1841), appendix 716. The 1840 municipal election was an ‘arduous struggle’ at which the Conservatives gained two seats.Dyott’s diary, ii. 328 (9 Nov. 1840).

From early 1841 both parties prepared the ground for an anticipated general election. The Conservatives held regular meetings and dinners.Staffordshire Advertiser, 23, 30 Jan. 1841; Dyott’s diary, ii. 331-2 (19, 22 Jan. 1841).Although their candidate was to challenge Paget, Lichfield Conservatism retained some of the independent party’s hostility to the Anson interest. A speaker at one meeting acknowledged property’s right to influence, but declared that when this was used ‘to control and to empower the whole of a constituency’ then it was ‘their bounden duty to offer the most determined resistance to such dictation’.Staffordshire Advertiser, 30 Jan. 1841. According to General Dyott, the earl was ‘making an effort … to swamp the electors by adding plots of land for gardens to small houses’ rented at £10 per annum.Dyott’s diary, ii. 337 (25 Mar. 1841). For their part, Lichfield’s magistrates appointed fellow radicals as overseers to the poor, the officials with the responsibility for providing the list of ratepayers from which the electoral register was derived.Ibid., 337-8 (4 Apr. 1841). In May both sides channelled activity into public meetings to produce anti and pro-corn law petitions.Ibid., 339-40 (19, 28 May 1841).

Although the general election in June was in the end a straightforward contest, it was initially complicated by the cross-party negotiations between local magnates to share the representation of South Staffordshire. Before the 1841 election, that division’s Conservative landowners suggested avoiding a contest to their Whig counterparts, a compromise which would preserve the even split in the representation of the southern division and minimise expense. The Conservatives later demanded that the Whigs surrender Paget’s seat at Lichfield as the price for the compromise.Gash, Politics in the age of Peel, 253-7; Edward Monckton to Lord Hatherton, 10 June 1841, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/5/27/14. However, a meeting of local Whig peers, including Anglesey, rejected this additional demand, informing the Conservatives ‘that they were all of the opinion that Lord Alfred Paget’s seat at Lichfield was secure & that the proposition as far as regarded that City was inadmissable’.E. Monckton, ‘Memorandum of a conversation the 9th day of June with Lord Hatherton’, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/5/27/14. See also Lord Hatherton, ‘Memorandum of a conversation with Mr Monckton in Grosvenor Place on the 9th June 1841’, in ibid. The meeting also browbeat the earl of Lichfield into abandoning his plan to withdraw his brother, George Anson, from the representation of the southern division, in order to bring him in at Lichfield. Hatherton journal, 9, 11 June 1841, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/5/26/22.

The Conservative bluff having been called, Richard Dyott proceeded to fight a spirited campaign.Dyott’s diary, ii. 343-4 (14 June 1841). At a stormy nomination, Dyott emphasised his independence, denounced the poor laws and argued that repeal of the corn laws would lower wages, while Paget offered support for free trade and a conciliatory policy towards Ireland, with Sir George giving his customary terse speech.Staffordshire Advertiser, 3 July 1841. Anson topped the poll, with Paget securing second place by just eight votes ahead of Dyott, whose father bitterly lamented that his son ‘was defeated by treachery, fraud, bribery, and every scandalous invention that villainy could suggest’.Dyott’s diary, ii. 345-6 (30 June 1841). The beaten candidate also noted that 23 electors who had signed his requisition had voted against him, with a further seven abstaining or plumping for Anson.Richard Dyott, ‘List of names who signed a requisition to me & voted against me’, n.d., Dyott papers, Staffs. RO, D 661/17/9.

Following his defeat Dyott prepared a petition against Paget’s return after consulting leading Conservatives including Peel, the chief whip Sir Thomas Fremantle, and the election agent Francis Bonham, as well as two ‘celebrated parliamentary barristers’.Dyott’s diary, ii. 347-8 (7, 9, 26, 28 Aug. 1841). Dyott had not yet presented his petition when Anson announced his long-expected retirement, 4 Sept. 1841, having only reluctantly stood at the general election in order to secure the return of Paget.The Standard, 10 Sept. 1841. His replacement was the young Whig Lord Leveson, heir to the 1st Earl Granville, who was returned unopposed after Dyott declined to challenge him. Dyott declared that he did not seek to overturn Anson’s election, and he was focusing on his petition against Paget.The Times, 11 Sept. 1841. This was for public consumption; privately the Conservatives had made ‘the most minute calculations’ as to Dyott’s chances at the by-election, but ‘it was thought better to decline than risk an uncertainty’.Dyott’s diary, ii. 348-9 (7, 18 Sept. 1841).

Dyott’s petition against Paget’s return, presented 6 Sept. 1841, made a plethora of allegations in support of its claim that the nobleman had ‘only an apparent and colourable majority’.CJ, xcvi. 526. Many of Paget’s votes had come from those not legally entitled to vote, as qualifications had lapsed, whilst many of Dyott’s valid ones had been rejected. As well as bribes and treating, ‘threats, intimidation, … and undue influence’ had been deployed against Dyott. It was also implied that Lord Lichfield, then postmaster general, had given promises of employment in the post office as inducements to electors.Ibid., 526-7. A committee was appointed, 21 Apr. 1842.CJ, xcvii. 213. During the hearings Dyott’s counsel noted that ‘no less than 50 persons who were entitled to vote at the election … were appointed to situations in the post office during the period when Lord Lichfield was postmaster general’.The Standard, 22 Apr. 1842. Given the ‘deep and extensive charges’ contained in the petition it was surprising that Dyott’s legal representatives based their case on the narrow and complicated question of whether seven votes for Dyott (tendered by men whose claims to the freemen franchise had been rejected at the 1840 revision) were admissable or not.‘Anti-Bubble’, The Lichfield election petition, its adjuncts and its accidents (1842), 56, Lichfield RO, D77/17/6; A. Barron and A. Austin, Report of cases of controverted elections, in the fourteenth parliament of the United Kingdom (1844), 343-75; PP 1842 (548), v. 19-24. Although his lawyers thought that this strategy gave Dyott a ‘good chance of success’, the committee only accepted three of the claims and consequently his counsel ‘advised him to retire in order to save overwhelming expense’.Dyson Hall & Parkes to Richard Dyott, 24 Jan. 1842, Dyott papers, Staffs. RO, D 661/17/9; Dyott’s diary, ii. 356 (2 May 1842). The committee confirmed Paget’s election, 28 Apr. 1842.CJ, xcvii. 230.

Despite this setback, the strength of local Conservatism continued to grow. The Radical council was checked by the new government’s appointment of ‘four steady Conservatives’ as magistrates in December 1841.Dyott’s diary, ii. 352 (13 Dec. 1841). In May 1843 the election for an assistant overseer in St. Chad’s parish revealed strongly partisan voting patterns, with over 90% of those who were parliamentary electors repeating their party votes of the previous general election.Salmon, Electoral reform at work, 196-7. In October Lord Lichfield’s agent and the council (the latter acting in their capacity as trustees for various charities) gave notices to quit to tenants who had voted Conservative at the previous general election, a move vigorously contested by local partisans, led by Richard Dyott.Dyott’s diary, ii. 375-6 (26 Oct. 1843). At the municipal election that December the Conservatives finally took control of the town council, ‘after eight years of tyrannical sway by the Radicals’.Ibid., 376 (1 Nov. 1843). In 1844 the Dyotts rallied local gentry and agriculturalists behind pro-corn law petitions and the Conservatives retained their majority on the town council after a municipal election marred by violence.Ibid., 379, 384-5 (11 Feb. 1844, 29 Oct. 1844); Derby Mercury, 21 Feb. 1844.

The election prospects of Lichfield Conservatism at the parliamentary level were, however, severely undermined by Peel’s conversion to repeal of the corn laws in December 1845, a policy condemned by Richard Dyott and viscount Ingestre, MP for South Staffordshire, at a meeting of the Lichfield Agricultural Protection Society in January 1846.The Standard, 10 Jan. 1846. However, when Leveson succeeded to the peerage in the same month, the Conservatives offered no opposition to his Whig replacement Edward Mostyn Lloyd-Mostyn, a north Wales landowner and former MP for Flintshire, who was a trustee for property in Lichfield.The Times, 19 Jan. 1846. Mostyn was selected as a stopgap as the earl’s heir Thomas George Anson, viscount Anson, had not yet attained his majority.The Times, 2 Feb. 1846. Mostyn shrewdly emphasised that he was ‘almost exclusively dependent on landed property’ when defending free trade, but rather surprisingly, the Times noted, he was supported by many local protectionists.The Times, 19 Jan. 1846, 2 Feb. 1846. Dyott offered no opposition, saying that Conservatives had always recognised the ‘just influence’ to which the house of Anson was entitled.The Times, 26 Jan. 1846.

After the Whigs’ accession to office in July 1846, Paget’s appointment to the royal household necessitated his re-election. Despite another hustings eulogy to free trade, the Conservatives again offered no challenge.Daily News, 13 July 1846; The Times, 16 July 1846. The Morning Chronicle conjectured that this was because ‘the voters of Lichfield have not yet learned to distinguish between the Peel party and the Bentinck party’. Consequently, although many Conservatives were ‘very bitter’ about Peel’s betrayal, any protectionist candidate would ‘stand no chance’ as they would be tarred with the same brush. The newspaper also noted that ‘almost all the new voters belong to the Whig party’, the gains on the register partly resulting from the exertions of the Anti-Corn Law League.Morning Chronicle, 16 July 1846. At the general election the following year, Mostyn resigned in favour of viscount Anson as expected, and despite rumours of a Conservative opposition to Paget, Dyott, the only likely challenger, did not offer.Staffordshire Advertiser, 26 June 1847. At the nomination Paget emphasised his support for the ballot and free trade, while Anson reaffirmed his family’s longstanding support for civil and religious liberty and the Whig party, also arguing that the poor laws ‘urgently demand revision’.Staffordshire Advertiser, 31 July 1847.

The 1852 general election was preceeded by a dispute between Dyott and his erstwhile supporters. Some Conservatives complained that Dyott’s unwillingness to publicly declare his intentions had prevented other candidates from coming forward.‘True Conservative’, ‘To the electors of the city of Lichfield’, 3 June 1852, scrapbook, p. 12, Lichfield RO, D77/20/10. Dyott said that he would contest another election if there was a decent chance of success, but he would not ‘lead a divided party’ or give pledges.R. Dyott, ‘To the electors of the city of Lichfield’, 1 June 1852, scrapbook, p. 14, Lichfield RO, D77/20/10. Consequently, the Conservatives brought forward Robert Bayley Follet, a lawyer, and brother of the late Sir William Follett, Conservative MP for Exeter.Staffordshire Advertiser, 5 June 1852. Although Anson disapproved of a restoration of the corn laws, he advocated a ‘thorough readjustment’ to relieve agriculture and opposed extensive parliamentary reform.Viscount Anson, ‘To the electors of the city of Lichfield’, 30 Mar. 1852, scrapbook, p. 11, Lichfield RO, D77/20/10. In a witty speech, which provoked ‘roars of laughter’, Paget said that his opponent had been sent down from the Carlton club after numerous other candidates had declined to stand. Follett declared his support for repeal of the corn laws but called for repeal of malt duty and the removal of burdens on land to relieve agriculture.Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 July 1852. Despite expectations of a ‘severe’ contest, Follett was well beaten, finishing almost a hundred votes behind the second-placed Paget.Staffordshire Advertiser, 26 June 1852. In January 1853 Paget was re-elected without opposition after being reappointed to the royal household.The Times, 3, 6 Jan. 1853.

Anson succeeded as 2nd earl of Lichfield on 18 March 1854, and brought in his uncle Henry Manners Cavendish, Lord Waterpark, of Doveridge Hall, Derbyshire, who had sat for South Derbyshire 1832-5, to fill the vacancy. Rumours that Dyott or Frederick Calthorpe, of Perry Barr Hall and Shenstone Hall, Warwickshire, would stand proved ill-founded.Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 25 Mar. 1854; Morning Chronicle, 3 Apr. 1854. A handbill urging electors not to act ‘like Russian serfs … driven to do the bidding of your weathercock patron’ was in vain, as Waterpark was returned unopposed after declaring himself a ‘thorough Reformer’.Anon., ‘To the dependent electors of Lichfield’, 1 Apr. 1854, scrapbook, p. 16, Lichfield RO, D77/20/10; Derby Mercury, 17 May 1854. The aged Waterpark resigned two years later, having ‘not been very conspicuous’ in his parliamentary duties, which prompted the Times to note that ‘family connexions’ were now the main criteria used by ‘those who mainly rule the elections of the city’.The Times, 23 May 1856. The earl rejected an expression of interest in the vacancy from the Conservative Charles John Chetwynd-Talbot, viscount Ingestre, preferring to nominate the Liberal Conservative Dudley Francis Stuart Ryder, viscount Sandon, who promised support for Palmerston’s government.Viscount Ingestre to Lord Lichfield, 22 May 1856, Anson papers, Staffs. RO, D615/P(P)/4/2/1; The Times, 31 May 1856.

Sandon’s views corresponded in large part to the moderate opinions of his patron. Writing to Lord Lichfield, 6 Mar. 1857, shortly before the general election at which he and Paget were returned unopposed, Sandon stated:

I must frankly confess, that, should Lord J. Russell once more get at the head of the whig party & bring forward large measures of political change, I might very probably take part with the conservatives against him. At present however, with the belief that there is no real difference of principle between the great Parties of the country, & that the national interests could not be in safer hands than Lord Palmerston’s, I can cordially & in good confidence support the present government.Viscount Sandon to Lord Lichfield, 3 Mar. 1857, Anson Papers, Staffs. RO, D615/P(P)/4/2/2.

Another walkover was anticipated for the incumbents at the 1859 general election, but Sandon’s retirement, prompted by the ill-health of his mother, posed a problem for the earl.The Times, 6 Apr. 1859; Morning Post, 19 Apr. 1859. He discounted candidates whom he deemed too radical, including Whigs such as Lord Stafford, the duke of Sutherland’s heir, and Arthur Wrottesley, son of baron Wrottesley.Hatherton Journal, 15 Apr. 1859, Hatherton papers, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/5/26/81. Although the anti-democratic opinions of Robert Lowe, former MP for Kidderminster, appealed to the earl, he ‘feared his unpopularity with the Tory party’, whom he sought to conciliate.Ibid. The earl eventually decided upon his brother, Augustus Anson, and, advising him on his election address, wrote that:

Sandon he tells me is a liberal-conservative. I thought it best to avoid both words and express general views to which no one can take exception and which will leave it open to him to support whoever brings in good measures without regard to their coming from liberal or cons[ervative] gov[ernmen]ts.Lord Lichfield to viscount Anson, 16 Apr. 1859, Anson papers, Staffs. RO, D616/P(P)/1/28. Although the letter was to his son, it was meant to be passed on to his brother.

No opposition was forthcoming, and at the nomination Paget restated his support for the ballot and the extension of the suffrage, a position notably different from Anson, who rejected the former measure as ‘contrary to the spirit of the English constitution’.The Times, 20 Apr. 1859. Paget was re-elected without opposition on his re-appointment to the royal household in July.The Times, 7 July 1859.

Before the 1865 general election Paget urgently sought the endorsement of his patron, who belatedly gave it, despite his aversion to radical opinions and parliamentary reform, after pointedly informing his nominee that:

You may be quite sure that as long as you support such people as Ld Palmerston we shall not disagree.Lord Lichfield to Lord Alfred Paget, n.d. [1865], Anson papers, Staffs. RO, D615/P(P)/4/2/4. See also Paget’s two letters to Lichfield, 23 June 1865, in ibid.

However, with Anson topping the poll, the popular Paget was beaten into third place by Dyott, who avenged his defeat of 1841, finally securing the Conservatives a seat.The Standard, 19 June 1865; The Times, 24 June 1865; Birmingham Daily Post, 15 July 1865. Paget later wrote to the earl that ‘it seems we have been hopeless from the first. Out of 57 public houses there were only 4 positively that seem not taken up by their party’.Paget to Lord Lichfield, n.d. [1865], Staffs. RO, D615/P(P)/4/2/4. Although Paget privately disapproved of his farewell address (written by another hand), which attributed his defeat to the ‘Purse & Gin glass’, he thought it was accurate.Paget to Lichfield, 22 July 1865, Staffs. RO, D615/P(P)/4/2/4. A petition against Dyott’s return, presented 17 Feb. 1866, alleged that the Conservative had benefited from ‘threats, intimidations, abduction, duress, undue influence, and divers[e] other corrupt and illegal practices’, treating, and invalid votes.CJ, cxxi. 188; Copy of petition by James Lloyd and John Butler against Richard Dyott’s election (1865), Dyott papers, Staffs. RO, D661/17/11. However the petition was withdrawn, 20 Apr. 1866.CJ, cxxi. 234.

The 1854 reform bill and 1866 redistribution of seats bill had both proposed reducing Lichfield to a single member constituency, and this was effected by the 1867 Representation of the People Act, which increased the electorate to 1,115, although this still remained much lower than the municipal electorate.PP 1854 (17), v. 399; 1866 (138), v. 46; 1867 (79), v. 539; 1867 (11), lvi. 396; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 172. After a bitter contest, Dyott defeated Anson at the 1868 general election, and held the seat until being unseated on petition in 1880, but the Liberals regained the seat in 1881.Ibid.; H. Clayton, Cathedral city: a look at Victorian Lichfield (1977), 151-7. As the expansion of the electorate after 1868 rendered the burgage tenures, through which the Anson family had traditionally controlled the representation, electorally worthless, the 2nd earl began selling them off in the 1880s.VCH Staffs., xiv. 92-5. The 1885 redistribution created the Lichfield division, formed from portions of East and South Staffordshire as well as the old city constituency.PP 1884-5 (258), lxiii. 363, 365; 48 & 49 Vict., c. 23. Lord Lichfield’s heir viscount Anson contested the new constituency as a Liberal Unionist in 1886 but was defeated by a Gladstonian Liberal. The Liberal Unionists held the seat 1892-5, but otherwise the constituency was controlled by the Liberals.McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, pt. II, pp. 224-5.