Now every General Election will have a clear set of issues which the political parties offer answers to, and as the Brexit train moves on into even more uncertain times, I was reminded of the 1835 General Election.
It followed just three years after the Great Reform Act reshaped our electoral system, creating the South Lancashire Constituency of which Didsbury, Withington and Chorlton-cum Hardy were part of.
The General Election which followed the Reform Act saw the two Whig candidates elected, who went on to play their part in the reforming Whig government which prepared the way for a uniform system of local government, created a new way of administering benefits to the poor, unemployed and old, abolished slavery in the Empire and had made some inroads into factory reform.
But after two years there were divisions within its ranks and some outside who were unhappy with its record.
The radicals were disappointed that the Reform Act had not gone further and was now seen as an end to further Parliamentary change. The urban working class were again organising themselves industrially and through the Chartist movement demanding a vote in elections.
In the rural areas poverty had led to widespread riots at the beginning of the 1830s and the Whig Government made martyrs of six Dorchester farm labourers who had protested at falling wages.
And while certain sections of the population thought the Government had been too hard on these Tolpuddle Martyrs, there were others who felt the Whigs had not gone far enough in quelling the rural disturbances during 1830and 31.
And both the urban working class and the rural farm labourers were hostile to the 1834 Poor Law which had created the Poor Law bastilles and stigmatised any who needed parish relief. Against this background there was also a Tory revival which saw it gain ten seats in by-elections between 1832 and 1833.
From the outset the Tories were determined to win. Their leader Peel had issued a clear statement of policy which appeared to promise both change and stability.
It was contained in an address to his own electors in Tamworth, but its real intention was to signal to the country that the Tory party could deliver reform where it was most needed but would also conserve the best of the old.
The Reform Act was a reality which Peel would not overturn and it followed that in the same spirit of improvement there should be “a careful review of institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, undertaken in a friendly temper combining, with the firm maintenance of established rights, the correction of proved abuses and the redress of real grievances, -”. But there was to be no further extension of the vote, “the reform bill was a final and irrevocable settlement of a great constitutional question”, and the Tories were opposed “to a perpetual vortex of agitation”.
By contrast the Whigs were divided and complacent and up against a sleek Tory electoral machine, which was as ruthless in the way it manipulated the registering system as it was in intimidating voters at a time when you cast your vote in the public gaze and your choice was recorded.
The degree of that intimidation was reported widely in the press who also remarked on the Tory’s monopoly of cabs which they used to ferry their own to the nomination meetings.
Of course, the Didsbury electorate was small, with just 52 men, entitled to vote out of a total population of 1,789.
We will never know just the degree to which intimidation and corruption played a part in Didsbury, although across the border in Stretford, Thomas Joseph Trafford of Trafford Park instructed his tenants to vote Tory, and all but one of them did just that. The level of potential intimidation was all too clear from the one tenant who refused to follow the line. He expected “in the spirit of the olden times, to hear of Tory vengeance.”
According to one London newspaper quoting the Manchester Guardian “Mr Egerton of Tatton, we understand personally headed up his tenants, and waited on the booth whilst they voted”.
As it turned out, 9 of the electorate voted Liberal and 20 voted Tory, with similar results in Chorlton-cum Hardy where the split was 7 voting Liberal, 19 for the Tories and in Withington the Tory share of the vote was 67%.
Leaving me just to search the records to see how far the voters in Didsbury were connected in some way to the Tory Egerton family which owned most of south Manchester. A similar search in Chorlton showed significant links.
Pictures; Didsbury showing the Church Inn and Old Cock, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ Didsbury Parish Church, 1852, from from A History of the Ancient Chapels, Rev. J Booker, 1852, and tables taken from data published by the Leeds Mercury, January 1835.
*adapted from The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012
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| Didsbury Village, 1853 |
The General Election which followed the Reform Act saw the two Whig candidates elected, who went on to play their part in the reforming Whig government which prepared the way for a uniform system of local government, created a new way of administering benefits to the poor, unemployed and old, abolished slavery in the Empire and had made some inroads into factory reform.
But after two years there were divisions within its ranks and some outside who were unhappy with its record.
The radicals were disappointed that the Reform Act had not gone further and was now seen as an end to further Parliamentary change. The urban working class were again organising themselves industrially and through the Chartist movement demanding a vote in elections.
 |
| The parish church, 1852 |
And while certain sections of the population thought the Government had been too hard on these Tolpuddle Martyrs, there were others who felt the Whigs had not gone far enough in quelling the rural disturbances during 1830and 31.
And both the urban working class and the rural farm labourers were hostile to the 1834 Poor Law which had created the Poor Law bastilles and stigmatised any who needed parish relief. Against this background there was also a Tory revival which saw it gain ten seats in by-elections between 1832 and 1833.
From the outset the Tories were determined to win. Their leader Peel had issued a clear statement of policy which appeared to promise both change and stability.
It was contained in an address to his own electors in Tamworth, but its real intention was to signal to the country that the Tory party could deliver reform where it was most needed but would also conserve the best of the old.
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| Didsbury's electorate, 1836 |
By contrast the Whigs were divided and complacent and up against a sleek Tory electoral machine, which was as ruthless in the way it manipulated the registering system as it was in intimidating voters at a time when you cast your vote in the public gaze and your choice was recorded.
 |
| How Didsbury voted in 1835 |
Of course, the Didsbury electorate was small, with just 52 men, entitled to vote out of a total population of 1,789.
We will never know just the degree to which intimidation and corruption played a part in Didsbury, although across the border in Stretford, Thomas Joseph Trafford of Trafford Park instructed his tenants to vote Tory, and all but one of them did just that. The level of potential intimidation was all too clear from the one tenant who refused to follow the line. He expected “in the spirit of the olden times, to hear of Tory vengeance.”
According to one London newspaper quoting the Manchester Guardian “Mr Egerton of Tatton, we understand personally headed up his tenants, and waited on the booth whilst they voted”.
 |
| How Chorlton voted in 1835 |
Leaving me just to search the records to see how far the voters in Didsbury were connected in some way to the Tory Egerton family which owned most of south Manchester. A similar search in Chorlton showed significant links.
Pictures; Didsbury showing the Church Inn and Old Cock, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ Didsbury Parish Church, 1852, from from A History of the Ancient Chapels, Rev. J Booker, 1852, and tables taken from data published by the Leeds Mercury, January 1835.
*adapted from The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012
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