Leicester

Economic and social profile:

A market and county town situated on the east bank of the river Soar, Leicester was the ‘principal seat of worsted hose and fancy articles’, the production of which dominated its economy in the first half of the nineteenth century.W. White, History, gazetteer, and directory of Leicestershire and Rutland (1846), 65. The hosiery industry was generally organised on a ‘putting out’ basis with master manufacturers contracting out worsted or cotton to framework knitters, often through intermediaries known as bagmen. The framework knitters were not independent artisans as the frames were usually owned by the manufacturers who deducted frame rent from their wages, and often other charges besides.A. Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester: a history of Leicester, 1780-1850 (1954), 41-62. Frame rent, which formed a not insignificant proportion of many hosiers’ profits, and the oversupply of labour meant that framework knitters faced considerable distress in this period, but also that there was little incentive for businessmen to reorganise the industry along factory lines.S. Chapman, Hosiery and knitwear: four centuries of small-scale industry in Britain, c.1589-2000 (2002), 141-45; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 275-76, 380-81, 387; White, History, 63-65. The application of steam power was also delayed by poor transport links which meant that coal from within and without the county remained expensive until the opening of the Leicester to Swannington railway in 1832.Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 260-74. After 1850, the economy diversified with the development of boot and shoe production and light engineering.J. Simmons, ‘Mid-Victorian Leicester’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaelogical and Historical Society (1965-66), xli. 41-56 (at 42-43); idem, Leicester past and present (1974), ii. 1-6; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 388. The town was a dissenting stronghold, with Baptists especially numerous, having thirteen chapels in 1846, although many of the most influential townsmen in this period were Unitarians.White, History, 92-93. Partly due to intense political disputes in the 1820s and 1840s, it took a long time for local authorities to improve Leicester’s sanitation and water supply, which only began in earnest after 1850, part of a general remodelling of the town in the mid-Victorian era, which included the belated construction of a new town hall in 1876.For sanitation, public health, water and sewerage see esp. M. Elliott, Victorian Leicester (1979), but also Simmons, Leicester past and present, i. 170-73; idem, ‘Mid-Victorian Leicester’, 41, 45, 55; J. Storey, Historical sketches of some of the principal works and undertakings of the council of the borough of Leicester (1895), 6-31, 104-20.

Electoral history:

Before 1820 Leicester had experienced periods of compromise and contestation between the Tory corporation and the independent party.R. Greaves, The corporation of Leicester, 1689-1836 (1939), 104-05, 114-15; HP Commons, 1754-1790, i. 322-24; ibid., 1790-1820, ii. 240-43; VCH Leics. iv. 128-42. In the pre-reform decade the corporation faced increasingly strong opposition from the independents, including many prominent hosiers, and retained control at the 1826 election only at the price of financial ruin which forced the corporation to concede one seat in 1830 and both in 1831, on each occasion without a contest.Greaves, Corporation of Leicester, 116-23; HP Commons, 1820-1832; PP 1835 (116), xxv. 477, 488, 494-98, 502-04; VCH Leics. iv. 140-47. The disenfranchisement of non-resident freemen by the 1832 Reform Act, and the prevention of the use of corporation funds or property for electoral purposes by the 1832 Corporate Funds Act, further weakened the Tories.2 Will. IV, c.45; 2 & 3 Will. IV, c.69. For the corporate fund bills see PP 1830-31 (166), i. 449; PP 1831 (18), i. 339; PP 1831-32 (12), i. 635. The centrality of the long-standing political rivalry between the corporation and its ‘independent’ opponents, both before and after 1832, has been well-documented, for example, by R.W. Greaves whose history of the corporation was published in 1939, and Alfred Temple Patterson, whose Radical Leicester (1954), integrated a study of the politics in the town with an account of its economic and social life, 1780-1850. The latter chapters of his book, which clearly influenced the 1958 Victoria County History of Leicestershire’s account of parliamentary politics, chronicled how Reformers gained control of the town.Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, chs. 10-12; VCH Leics. iv. 201-50 (at 201-24). The replacement of the old corporation by an elected town council in 1835 opened up new opportunities for the Reformers, who easily won the first local elections. Two years later they regained both parliamentary seats, which they had lost at the 1835 general election. The Reformers’ dominance was hard won, however, and came after a fierce partisan battle in the 1830s, which was fought out in parliamentary, municipal, parochial, and poor law elections as shown in Radical Leicester and in the work of Derek Fraser, who refers to the town in his Urban politics in Victorian England (1976).Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, chs. 10-12; D. Fraser, Urban politics in Victorian England: the structure of politics in Victorian cities (1976), 49-53, 76, 124, 198, 223-24. The extensive and systematic bribery resorted to by both sides was the subject of an influential 1946 article by Temple Patterson and was well-documented in contemporary sources, including numerous election petitions and election committee reports and the evidence of the 1835 select committee on bribery.A. Temple Patterson, ‘Electoral corruption in early Victorian Leicester’, History (1946), xxxi. 113-124; PP 1835 (547), viii. 124-38. There were election petitions after the 1835, 1837, 1847 and 1852 elections and election committees for the 1847 and 1852 elections: CJ xc. 73-74; xciii. 111-12; ciii. 53-54; cviii. 73-74; PP 1847-48 (381), xiii. 233; 1852-53 (336), xiv. 133; 1852-53 (375), xiv. 141. After the 1837 election the unity of the Reformers gradually dissipated and the Conservatives attempted to profit by co-operating with the Chartists in the late 1830s and early 1840s, and by supporting Whig and moderate candidates against the radicals in the late 1840s and 1850s.VCH Leics. iv. 205-06. Despite their divisions, the Reformers, or Liberals, retained their monopoly until the Conservatives captured a seat at the 1861 by-election, which forced radicals and moderates to make peace the following year, and subsequently resume their dominance, which was now placed on a more stable footing.

As a result of the Reform Act, the Leicester electorate fell from 5,000 in 1831 to 3,063 in 1832, a reduction of 39%. The ‘voterate’, that is those electors who actually polled, fell by 42%, from a pre-1832 high of 4,781 in 1826 to 2,795 in 1832.P. Salmon, ‘The English reform legislation, 1831-2’, in D.R. Fisher (ed.), The History of Parliament: The Commons, 1820-1832 (2009, forthcoming), 374-412 (at 389, 391); PP 1831-32 (112), xxxvi. 530. Although non-resident freemen had been disenfranchised, the remaining freemen still outnumbered £10 householders by 2,070 to 1,200 in 1833.PP 1833 (189), xxvii. 169. The electoral registers indicate that the number of £10 householders increased to 1,589 in 1835 and 1,911 the following year, rising to 2,289 in 1847, by which time they outnumbered the freemen.Leicester electoral registers, 1835 & 1836, British Library SPR Mic. P. 159/BL. L. 19/3. The last figure is taken from PP 1849 (16), xlv. 182. By contrast, the parliamentary return for 1836 reported only 1,241 £10 householders: PP 1837-38 (329), xliv. 609. Part of the explanation for this discrepancy lies with those electors who had more than one qualification. The parliamentary return for 1836 listed 671 electors with multiple qualifications and they were not counted in the freemen and £10 householder categories. However, such electors were not listed separately in the electoral registers, but double-counted (e.g. included in the freemen and £10 householder categories). There was steady growth for the rest of the period, so that 3,348 electors out of 4,716 qualified as £10 householders by 1865-66.PP 1852 (8), xlii. 319; 1852-53 (863), lxxxiii. 410; 1854 (69), liii. 222; 1859 session 2 (140), xxiii. 141; 1860 (277), lv. 94; 1866 (169), lvii. 748. The number of freemen fell to 1,695 in 1835-36 but remained around that level for the next twenty years; it then fell slightly in the late 1850s before rising to 1,839 in 1865-66.PP 1840 (579), xxxix. 194; 1837-38 (329), xliv. 609-10; 1840 (579), xxxix. 194; 1849 (16), xlv. 182; 1852 (8), xlii. 319; 1852-53 (863), lxxxiii. 410; 1854 (69), liii. 222; 1859 session 2 (140), xxiii. 141; 1860 (277), lv. 94; 1860 (130), lv. 64; 1867 (121), lvi. 306. A small, and dwindling, number of voters retained the scot and lot franchise, but there were only 11 left by 1865-66.PP 1866 (169), lvii. 748; 1867 (121), lvi. 306. A parliamentary return categorised 39.9% of the electorate as working class in 1866.PP 1866 (170), lvii. 48.

An extensive system of bribery, developed at the 1826 general election, appears to have been utilised by both sides during the 1830s. The constituency was divided into districts, each under a party agent, who in turn were under a general committee. At the beginning of the canvass, these agents, or their subordinates, would recruit electors, ostensibly as runners or messengers, and provide them with tickets which gave them ‘free access to all the public-houses for eating and drinking the whole of the time’.The summary of the system is taken from the evidence given by the radical hosier James Hudson to the 1835 select committee on bribery: PP 1835 (547), viii. 124-38 (at 125). In 1835, electors received a second ticket, which was stamped by the committee when they had voted, after which they went into a separate room to be paid a small sum, usually between 10s. and £1 10s. by a stranger.Ibid., 125-26. Of the 2,812 electors who polled in 1835, ‘at least 600 [were] marketable’, with another 400-500 who voted for their party but expected to be rewarded for doing so.Ibid., 128. Venal electors were generally freemen, and the similar strength of the two parties encouraged a bidding war, with the ‘most corrupt’ voters holding back their votes to maximise their value.Ibid., 127-28 (at 128). Until 1835 the corporation was also able to use the distribution of charity as a ‘political engine’ to influence 600-700 electors, particularly through the fund bequeathed by Sir Thomas White.Ibid., 129-32 (at 132); see also the commissioners’ report on municipal corporations: PP 1835 (116), xxv. 499-501, 508-09. Corruption persisted into the 1850s, and election petitions were frequent.

Before the 1832 general election the Reformers converted the Leicester Political Union, which had 5,000 members, into a Reform Society to attend to registration, while a Conservative equivalent was established in September.PP 1835 (116), xxv. 490; P. Radice, ‘Identification, interests and influence: voting behaviour in four English constituencies in the decade after the Great Reform Act’, University of Durham PhD Thesis (1992), 220-22; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 196-97; VCH Leics. iv. 147. At the contest, the incumbent reformers, William Evans, a businessman and landowner of Allestree Hall, near Derby, and Wynn Ellis, a London silk merchant, were re-elected comfortably in first and second place respectively ahead of the Tory, John Ward Boughton Leigh, of Brownsover Hall, Warwickshire, a result the Times considered to be a ‘death-blow’ to the corporation.The Times, 14 Dec. 1832. As Evans refused to purchase votes, the Reformers’ bribery was funded by Ellis and his committee.PP 1835 (547), viii. 126.

The victory provided a parliamentary platform for the Reformers to continue their war against the corporation. Evans presented a petition signed by 5,000 inhabitants calling for municipal reform, 22 Apr. 1833, which was described by the corporation’s counter petition, 3 May 1833, as containing ‘false and scandalous misrepresentations’, a charge which Evans fiercely denied in the Commons.CJ lxxxviii. 296, 341; Hansard, 3 May 1833, vol. 17, cc. 907-09; Morn. Chro., 23 Apr. 1833. The Reformers eagerly abetted the commissioners investigating municipal corporations when they came to Leicester that autumn. The town clerk, Thomas Burbridge, gave evidence and provided some returns, but after these were ruled unsatisfactory, the corporation refused any further co-operation, complaining, with some justification, that the commissioners were colluding with their enemies, and also objecting to public hearings.PP 1835 (116), xxv. 477-81; The Times, 30 Sept. 1833, 12 Oct. 1833, 12 Dec. 1833. The report, published in March 1835, provided much ammunition for Reformers by revealing that the corporation’s vast outlay at the 1826 election had forced it to take out a £10,000 mortgage.PP 1835 (116), xxv. 502-04. The misuse of charities for electoral purposes and the sale of a large amount of corporation land at below market value were also exposed.Ibid., 494-502, 508-09.

After their defeat in 1832, local Conservatives became more skilled at registration, established a number of operative societies, and mobilised around the threat to the established church.Radice, ‘Identification, interests and influence’, 236; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 205; VCH Leics. iv. 149, 202. At the corporation’s annual dinner, in November 1834, Boughton Leigh alleged that ‘there was a wicked conspiracy … against the property, lives, and religion of the Protestants’, which had been ‘fostered, aided, and abetted by the unjust and partial measures of the Government’.Morn. Chro., 25 Nov. 1834. In response to the king’s dismissal of Melbourne’s government, a town meeting attended by 2,000 people and chaired by Thomas Paget, a Unitarian banker and the leading opponent of the corporation since the 1820s, passed resolutions in favour of the late Whig ministry, 24 Nov. 1834.Morn. Chro., 27 Nov. 1834. At the 1835 general election, Evans and Ellis stood their ground but were challenged by two Conservatives, Edward Goulburn, who resigned as recorder of the town in order to stand, and Thomas Gladstone, of Fettercairn, Scotland, who had previously sat for Queenborough and Portarlington. The polarisation of the town was such that ‘Tory alderman and bankers declare they will no longer be shaved by Reforming barbers, and the wives of Tory parsons declared they would rather go to the wash-tub themselves than have their foul linen cleaned by a Whig laundress’.Morn. Chro., 6 Jan. 1835. Complacent after their canvass, the Reformers were stunned when Goulburn topped the poll, nine votes ahead of Gladstone, who beat Evans into third place by over 120 votes, with Ellis last.Morn. Chro., 1, 6 Jan. 1835. At the declaration, following rumours that Goulburn had not the requisite property to be a member, two radical electors requested that the returning officer swear the candidate to his qualification, and the Conservative reluctantly complied after being told that refusal would annul the election.Morn. Chro., 12 Jan. 1835. A petition against the return was presented, 9 Mar. 1835, but it was discharged, 1 Apr., after the House grew tired of granting extensions to the petitioners to correct clerical errors.CJ xc. 73-74, 147, 167, 169-70, 181-82, 185-86; Hansard, 26, 31 Mar., 1 Apr. 1835, vol. 27, cc. 268-73, 462-66, 544-47; Morn. Chro., 1 Apr. 1835.

The 1835 Municipal Corporations Act replaced the corporation with an elected town council, and the Reformers swept to victory in the first polls, 26 Dec. 1835, with Paget becoming the first mayor.5 & 6 Will. IV, c.76; Manchester Times, 5 Nov. 1836; VCH Leics. iv. 151-52; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 210-14. The new council, which was dominated by dissenters, sold off the regalia of the old regime, including a portrait of Pitt the younger and the corporation’s mace.Greaves, Corporation of Leicester, 137; Hull Packet, 15 Jan. 1836; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 216-17. More importantly, municipal reform caused the Reformers to restructure their organisation, creating ward committees under the control of the Reform Society.VCH Leics. iv. 203-04; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 232.

Despite these gains, the Reformers left nothing to chance at the 1837 general election. The ferocity of their campaign, marshalled by the radical hosier William Biggs, as well as some of its methods, were conveyed by one poster, which was printed in blood red ink:

It is your duty to oppose the Tories with all your strength.

Remember this is a contest of life or death, so let it be exclusive dealing with a vengeance!

Let no man enter the shop or public-house of the man who votes against you!!

Let their fruit rot in their gardens, their ale go sour in their cellars, and their goods become moth-eaten on their shelves!!!

It must be war to the knife, and these are the only means by which you can be revenged upon your mortal enemies, the Tories!!!The Times, 20 July 1837.

Ellis and Edward Dawson, who had been a Reform MP for South Leicestershire, were mooted as candidates, but local Reformers were unwilling to countenance the latter’s request that they denounce the system of bribery, and he consequently withdrew his pledge to stand in March 1837.Examiner, 12 Mar. 1837; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 232. Eventually Samuel Duckworth, a London barrister, and John Easthope, owner of the Morning Chronicle, were brought forward to stand on a joint platform in favour of household suffrage, the secret ballot, triennial parliaments, the abolition of church rates, repeal of the corn laws, and a poor law and municipal reform for Ireland.Examiner, 28 May 1837; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 233. The Reformers intimidated their opponents through regular patrols, ostensibly to combat Conservative bribery, and they concluded their canvass, 12 July 1837, with a procession of 1,700 electors, accompanied by 10,000 to 15,000 non-electors.Morn. Chro., 7, 18 July 1837. Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 233-34; VCH Leics. iv. 204. Duckworth and Easthope were elected, polling exactly the same total, winning by a margin of 359 over Goulburn, who finished one vote ahead of Gladstone, the figures reflecting strongly partisan voting patterns, which, as Radice has indicated, were developing in Leicester after 1832.Radice, ‘Identification, interests and influence’, 283, 444-50. Urging the Reformers to consolidate their lead, Biggs, who had masterminded the Liberal campaign, declared, ‘give me the party who will attend to the registration, and I will answer for the result at an election’.Leicestershire Mercury, 5 Aug. 1837, qu. in Radice, Identification, interests and influence’, 266. For similar comments see also Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 234.

A petition alleging ‘systematic bribery’, presented 4 Dec. 1837, complained that some Conservative supporters had had their votes improperly rejected, while others had been kidnapped and detained for the duration of the election. It also claimed that Reformer magistrates had offered and granted liquor licences as inducements, had condoned and encouraged the patrols, and that leading Reformers had abused their position as trustees of charities for political purposes.CJ xciii. 111-12. The committee appointed to consider the petition, 5 Apr. 1837, contained only one Conservative, the rest being Whigs and radicals, and it came as no surprise when they declared the members duly elected two days later.Ibid., 431-32, 439. The committee was chaired by Lord Seymour, the other members being viscount Alford (the only Conservative), George Henry Cavendish, viscount Ebrington, John Edmund Elliott, Thomas Milner Gibson, Frederick John Howard, Lord Leveson, viscount Melgund, William Pinney, and John Abel Smith. (William Biggs, who was summoned to give evidence, was conveniently absent on business in America).Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 235.

The abolition of the corporation had removed one of the Conservatives’ major electoral assets, and their Anglicanism and reliance on country gentlemen as candidates proved to be a hindrance in urban, nonconformist Leicester. Furthermore, they could not match the deep pockets of the radical manufacturers.VCH Leics. iv. 205-06. The Conservative Leicester Herald, criticising the petition, argued that the real reason for the defeat was the increase of £10 householders since 1835, which had greatly strengthened the Reformers and made the result a foregone conclusion. It concluded pessimistically that opposition was futile for the foreseeable future, and that the party would do well to dismantle its ‘expensive machinery’.Qu. in Morn. Chro., 24 Aug. 1837.

The Conservatives, however, did not give up, not least because fissures were starting to emerge amongst their opponents, who now controlled the town, apart from two select vestries and the poor law board of guardians, but differed on future policy.The poor law union, established in 1836, was controlled by the Conservatives, with one break, until 1845 when the reformers won a crushing victory in the board of guardians elections, a dominance they retained thereafter. The select vestries, St Margaret’s and St Martin’s, which continued to levy church rates on dissenters, fell in 1837 and 1849 respectively. Fraser, Urban politics, 49-53, 76; G. Searson, The Leicester municipal, borough, and county poll Book (1883), 49-79; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 248-50, 259. Moderates like Paget, the worsted spinner Robert Brewin, and the wool spinner Joseph Whetstone were content with municipal and parliamentary reform and Whig policy, but the radicals, led by John and William Biggs, pressed for further political reforms. A third faction consisted of those dissenters, led by the Baptist Rev. J.P. Mursell, who were increasingly preoccupied with the struggle against church rates and the campaign for disestablishment, which later originated in the town.Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 229-32, 247-59. These incipient divisions did not break open until the mid-1840s, when the Conservatives were no longer strong enough to mount a full-frontal assault, although the emergence of a local Chartist movement, stimulated by the distress of the town’s framework knitters and the unpopularity of the new poor law, opened up another line of attack.J. Harrison, ‘Chartism in Leicester’, in A. Briggs (ed.), Chartist studies (1959), 99-146 (at 100-05, 121-29); Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 284-301; VCH Leics. iv. 208-10.

At the by-election of 22 March 1839, prompted by Duckworth’s appointment as a master at the court of chancery, 13 Mar. 1839, the Reformers put up the former member Wynn Ellis, whose programme, which included household suffrage, triennial parliaments, abolition of church rates, and repeal of the corn laws, was designed to appeal to those radicals dissatisfied with the Whigs.VCH Leics. iv. 210. The radical Colonel Charles Perronet Thompson was nominated and later withdrawn in his absence by local Chartists, while the Conservative candidate was Charles Hay Frewen, of Cold Overton Hall, near Oakham, who pledged to support the abolition of the poor law commission and the restoration of outdoor relief.Morn. Chro., 18 Mar. 1839; Champion, 24 Mar. 1839; The Times, 27 Mar. 1839; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 307-08. Although the freemen divided in favour of Frewen by 274 to 127, Ellis was victorious by a margin of nearly 300 votes.Leicester poll book (1839), 82. Later that year, the Conservatives made a gain of 162 on the register through new claims and objections, but this was wiped out by an even larger one for their opponents in 1840.‘The registration of 1839’, Fraser’s Magazine (1839), xx. 635-46 (at 638); Derby Mercury, 30 Oct. 1839; Examiner, 1 Nov. 1840.

At the 1841 general election the Reformers were confronted by a coalition of Conservatives and Chartists. The latter, now led by Thomas Cooper, pursued a confrontational strategy and broke up an anti-corn law meeting, 1 June 1841, leading to a face-off with the radical Reformers, including the Biggses.Harrison, ‘Chartism in Leicester’, 109; Morn. Chro., 3 June 1841; Northern Star, 5, 19 June 1841; The Times, 4 June 1841; Stephen Roberts, ‘Thomas Cooper in Leicester, 1840-1843’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society (1987), lxi. 62-76. Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 321; VCH Leics. iv. 211-12. Ellis and Easthope stood their ground, but ‘an expenditure of ten or fifteen thousand pounds, with the certainty of being defeated by an even bigger majority than at the last election’ was not much of an incentive for rival candidates to come forward.Morn. Chro., 14 June 1841. The Conservatives unsuccessfully solicited the Times proprietor John Walter, who had strong anti-poor law credentials, but eventually they secured a nephew of the duke of Rutland, Captain Charles Forester, who came forward on the understanding that his expenses would be paid. At even later notice they brought forward Spencer Hussey de Hussey (dubbed ‘Horsey de Horsey’ by local wags), who had a reputation for withdrawing from election contests, which was unfortunate as the local party were relying on him to meet the cost of the election. He was predictably absent at the nomination and Forester refused to go to the poll.Northern Star, 3 July 1841; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 321-22. This shambles meant that the plan agreed with the Chartists, that Cooper would stand and then withdraw in favour of the Conservatives, was inoperative and Easthope and Ellis were returned unopposed.T. Cooper, The life of Thomas Cooper, intro. J. Saville (1971; first published 1872), 148-56; Harrison, ‘Chartism in Leicester’, 136. The declaration was marked by disturbances as Cooper’s disappointed supporters attacked and tore the Reformers’ orange and green flags.Cooper, Life, 154-55.

Tensions diminished after Cooper’s imprisonment in 1843 for conspiring to cause labour unrest in the Potteries in 1842, leaving the Chartists to be led by local men who had more of a past connection with the radical leaders, although William Biggs’s ‘Midland counties charter’, proposed in late 1841, an attempt to unite both groups behind a limited programme, garnered little support.Harrison, ‘Chartism in Leicester’, 109-14, 138-39; Northern Star, 22 Jan. 1842; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 326. Although the Reformers rallied in support of repeal of the corn laws, unity was in short supply thereafter.Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 335. The 1846 municipal elections had exposed a deep rift over improvement. Whetstone, who was an ‘economist’, favoured prioritising sanitation, whilst the Biggses argued that this should be part of a general scheme, including, controversially, a new town hall.J. Simmons, Leicester past and present, i. 170-72; Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, 335-41; VCH Leics. iv. 214-15. Radicals were also increasingly dissatisfied with the sitting members’ support for the Whigs, and their control of the party machine forced Ellis to retire and Easthope to seek election elsewhere at the 1847 general election.Morn. Chro., 19, 24 July 1847; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 31. The Liverpool Reformer and corn merchant Sir Joshua Walmsley, who had interests in a number of Leicestershire colleries, was introduced as a prospective candidate, 17 Feb. 1847, and was commended for favouring ‘the most extended right of suffrage and the separation of church and state’.Daily News, 22 Feb. 1847; VCH Leics. iv. 215. The radicals also brought forward the Manchester manufacturer Richard Gardner.VCH Leics. iv. 215. Despite their opponents’ divisions, the Conservatives were again disorganised, and in early July three different candidates were linked with the constituency.Liverpool Mercury, 6 July 1847. Eventually they put up James Parker, Q.C., of Rothley Temple, a Peelite, who was married to the daughter of Thomas Babington, who was independent MP for Leicester, 1800-1818.Gent. Mag. (1852), xxxviii. 426-27; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 100-101. Their strategy was foiled after the Chartist candidate, Buckby, withdrew in favour of the radicals, and moderates opted to abstain rather than vote for Parker.VCH Leics. iv. 216. Walmsley, who asserted that the ‘great end and aim of all legislation is the permanent advantage and happiness of the working-classes’, and spoke strongly in favour of a national system of secular education, topped the poll, with Gardner securing second place, almost 200 votes ahead of Parker.Leicester poll book 1847 election (1848), 82; Liverpool Mercury, 3 Aug. 1847.

The Conservatives had more success with a petition, presented 6 Dec. 1847, alleging ‘systematic bribery and corruption’, which was supported by disgruntled publicans who were owed money by the Reformers from the 1841 election.CJ ciii. 53-54; PP 1847-48 (381), xiii. 265-70, 296, 299-305; The Times, 29 May 1848. The Reformers countered, 4 Feb. 1848, that the petitioners had not followed the correct procedure, but the election committee, appointed 23 May 1848, allowed the Conservatives to amend their recognizances.The Reformers’ counter-petition claimed that the recognizances entered into by the Conservatives were invalid because of the discrepancy between the document, which limited each signatory’s liabilities to £500, and 7 & 8 Vict. c.103 which stated that the combined sum must total £1,000: CJ ciii. 169, 550-51; PP 1847-48 (381), xiii. 236. Two men of ‘humble circumstances’, who were heavily implicated in the corruption, escaped to France with the collusion of wealthy radicals.CJ ciii. 184-85; PP 1847-48 (381), xiii. 324-27. Although declared innocent themselves, Gardner and Walmsley were unseated, 1 June 1848, after the committee established 18 examples of bribery, mostly involving small sums under the ‘pretence of remuneration for services as messengers and runners’, although in one case a new hat was also promised. Four publicans were bribed with quantities of malt in settlement of bills incurred in 1841.CJ ciii. 584; PP 1847-48 (381), xiii.. 241, 256, 275-76, 397.

The issue of a new writ, however, was defeated by 129 votes to 6 by the Commons, 15 June, and delayed until 25 August 1848, chiefly due to the opposition of Lord John Russell, who felt that the committee had done only half its job, for having found evidence of corruption and unseated the members, it had not made any recommendations as to the disenfranchisement ‘of any portion of the electors’, especially the freemen.CJ ciii. 621, 693-94, 978; Hansard, 15 June 1848, vol. 99, cc. 681-88; ibid., 6 July 1848, vol. 100, cc. 153-56 (at 156); The Times, 16 June 1848. At the subsequent by-election, the Reformers’ candidates were the septuagenarian hosier Richard Harris and the coal merchant and deputy chairman of Midland Railway John Ellis (no relation to the former member Wynn Ellis). Rumours that scions of the Conservative nobility such as Lord John Manners, a son of the duke of Rutland, or Lord Curzon, would offer came to nothing.Morn. Chro., 28 Aug. 1848. A combination of Conservatives and disgruntled liberals rallied behind Henry Paget, of Birstall, who represented the ‘old Whig school’ and contended, correctly as it turned out, that Ellis and Harris had been ‘put forward merely to keep the places warm for Walmsley and Gardner’.Morn. Chro., 2 Sept. 1848; VCH Leics. iv. 217. He did not, however, proceed any further than the nomination, leaving the two veteran Reformers to be were returned without a poll. On the hustings, Harris told electors that ‘he had no ambition to go to Parliament and stood before them solely at the earnest request of a large number of fellow-townsmen’.Daily News, 2 Sept. 1848; Morn. Chro., 2 Sept. 1848. He was proposed by John Biggs, who for the next decade and a half was the most powerful figure in Leicester politics.

At the 1852 general election, however, moderates, Whigs, and Conservatives were determined not to allow the radicals to have it all their own way. As predicted, Ellis and Harris retired in favour of Walmsley and Gardner. They were challenged by James Wilde, a London barrister, and Geoffrey Palmer, a Northamptonshire country gentleman, both of whom pledged support to Russell’s administration and benefited from the backing of the Conservatives, who opted not to run a candidate.VCH Leics. iv. 219. Palmer is listed as a Conservative in McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 168, but is described as a Whig in VCH Leics. iv. 219; Temple Patterson, ‘Electoral corruption’, 120-21, and contemporary newspapers reported the contest as an all-liberal affair: Daily News, 6 July 1852; Examiner, 26 June 1852; Morn. Chro., 2 July 1852. The radical platform, based on the programme of Walmsley’s Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association, included the replacement of indirect by direct taxation, a system of national secular education, the ballot, triennial parliaments, household suffrage, equal electoral districts and the redistribution of seats.VCH Leics. iv. 219. The popularity of the radicals, who were enthusiastically cheered by a crowd of 10,000 to 12,000 at a meeting on 29 June, resulted in Gardner and Walmsley being returned with the same total, over 550 votes ahead of Wilde, who finished a couple of votes ahead of Palmer.Daily News, 1 July 1852.

A petition against the result, alleging ‘gross, extensive, and systematic corruption’, was presented to the Commons, 23 Nov. 1852; however, the case was fatally undermined when framework knitters from Oadby, who had originally told the petitioners that they had been bribed, denied the charges before the committee, appointed 6 April 1853.CJ cviii. 73-74 (at 74), 368-69; PP 1852-53 (375), xiv. 157-99; Morn. Chro., 9, 15 Apr. 1853. Whether the men perjured themselves, or had followed a preconceived plan, it is likely that they acted at the instigation of the shady radical wirepuller Lawrence Staines.Temple Patterson, ‘Electoral corruption’, 121-24. The result was that the committee declared Gardner and Walmsley duly elected, 15 Apr. 1853.CJ cviii. 400.

The death of Gardner, 4 June 1856, triggered a by-election which revealed the fractiousness of local liberalism, and although the radical chief John Biggs was eventually returned unopposed, three Conservatives were linked with the constituency, a prohibitionist candidate was rumoured, and there were also reports that Cooper would again stand for the Chartists.Leeds Mercury, 12 June 1856; Derby Mercury, 18 June 1856. More significantly, Biggs’s support for the National Sunday League, of which Walmsley was president, incurred the disfavour of the leading nonconformist divines of the time, who apparently sought to bring forward Sir Samuel Morgan Peto, late Liberal MP for Norwich, who was currently without a seat.Liverpool Mercury, 13 June 1856; Leeds Mercury, 14 June 1856. Thomas Paget’s son, John, issued an address in favour of administrative and legal reform, but withdrew before the nomination, where Biggs was returned unopposed by ‘an immense show of hands’ from the 6,000-strong crowd.Daily News, 19 June 1856; Derby Mercury, 25 June 1856; Manchester Times, 14, 21 June 1856; VCH Leics. iv. 220.

A contest was not avoided at the general election the following year, when the moderate Liberals successfully targeted Walmsley, whose conspicuous and unrepentant support for Sunday openings of the British Museum and National Gallery had made him unpopular with dissenters. The moderates put up John Dove Harris, hosier, and son of the former member, Richard Harris, who pointedly stressed his local credentials, and was endorsed by the former member John Ellis and Whetstone at the nomination.Derby Mercury, 1 Apr. 1857. Biggs and Walmsley supported Palmerston’s foreign policy, even over Canton, whilst Harris favoured the ballot, free trade, and an ‘extensive reform of Parliament’.Derby Mercury, 1 Apr. 1857; The Times, 18 Mar. 1857. Biggs decried the contest, not least because it broke the hold of his faction over both seats, but it was with some justification that the Leicester Journal accused the moderates of cynicism for using the Sunday issue to replace Walmsley in favour of a man with almost identical opinions.Qu. in Derby Mercury, 25 Mar. 1857, 1 Apr. 1857. Harris topped the poll, finishing fifteen votes ahead of Biggs, whilst Walmsley, who complained bitterly of ‘wicked calumnies’, trailed by some 150 votes in third place.North Wales Chronicle, 4 Apr. 1857.

It proved difficult for the moderates to repeat their coup at the 1859 election, as the radicals, determined to win back both seats, selected the popular physician and mayor Joseph Noble to partner Biggs, while the Conservatives put up their first genuine candidate for two decades, William Unwin Heygate, of Roecliffe Hall, near Mountsorrell.Burke’s peerage, baronetage and knightage (1890), 702; VCH Leics. iv. 221; White, History, 46. With the Sunday question less prominent, Biggs topped the poll, while Noble scraped second place ahead of Heygate, whose total of 1,479 votes included 420 plumpers and 860 split votes with Harris, who finished last.Leicester poll book (1859), 72.

Heygate’s performance suggested that the Liberals could no longer afford the luxury of squabbling if they wanted to retain both seats. The warning was unheeded, however, and on Noble’s death, 6 Jan. 1861, Harris stood on behalf of the moderates, and was opposed by the young radical Peter Alfred Taylor, a partner with the London silk merchants Courtaulds, who had no previous connection with the town. Heygate also offered again. At the nomination, both Liberals insisted that only they could defeat the Conservative, but Heygate beat Harris by over 500 votes, with Taylor finishing bottom.The Times, 6 Feb. 1861.

This defeat, for which local Liberals were severely criticised by the press, forced a rapprochement between the two factions, who agreed to share the representation in the future.Birmingham Daily Post, 7 Feb. 1861; The Times, 14 Feb. 1861. Moderates had to abandon their occasional alliance with the Conservatives, and radicals had to give up their aim of holding both seats. This led to the retirement of John Biggs from Parliament the following February and public life thereafter.VCH Leics. iv. 222-23. His replacement was Taylor, who was returned without opposition, 17 Feb. 1862, after being nominated by William Biggs.The Times, 18 Feb. 1862.

At the 1865 election, Heygate and Taylor stood again. They were joined by John Dove Harris, now supported by a united Liberal party. Taylor was again nominated by William Biggs, whilst Harris was proposed by the veteran moderate Whetstone, and seconded by another of Paget’s sons, Thomas Tertius Paget. Heygate, who now called himself a Liberal-Conservative, was beaten into third place, with Harris topping the poll, a hundred votes ahead of Taylor who was returned in second place.VCH Leics. iv. 223-24; Derby Mercury, 19 July 1865.

The extension of the franchise in 1867 finally gave the Liberals the large majorities, which for all their domination after 1832, they had rarely enjoyed.McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 169. Their ascendancy continued with little disruption into the twentieth century, overcoming the Liberal Unionists’ threat with some ease, although the Conservatives captured a seat in 1900.McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, pt. II, 148; J. Moore, ‘Liberal Unionism and the Home Rule crisis in Leicester, 1885-1892’, Midland History, (2001), xxvi. 177-97. After 1906, the two seats were shared between the Liberals and Labour, a development that has attracted the attention of historians interested in the relationship between, and performance of, these two parties in the Edwardian era.McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, pt. II, 148-49; G. Bernstein, ‘Liberalism and the progressive alliance in the constituencies, 1900-1914: three case studies’, Historical Journal, (1983), xxvi. 617-40 (at 629-37); D. Cox, ‘The Labour party in Leicester: a study in branch development’, International Review of Social History, (1961), vi. 197-211; J. Pasiecznik, ‘Liberals, Labour and Leicester: the 1913 by-election in local and national perspective’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society (1989), lxiii. 96-104; D. Tanner, Political change and the Labour party, 1900-1918 (1990), 289-301.