“This day may be characterised as one of great activity, bustle and preliminary preparation, on both sides, for the completion of the canvas, and for bringing up the voters”*
And in the 171 years since the election of 1844 little has changed for the election team, the candidates and the voters.
So while there is not the violence or the bribery and voting is carried out in secret there is much that would be familiar to a voter from 1844 looking at an election today.
They might be surprised at how restrained the candidates were when talking about each other and mystified at the lack of dirty tricks and intimidation practised by the leading members of the political factions.
But they would be at home with the banners and posters and the sheer excitement of the outcome.
Yesterday we followed our 27 voters into Manchester from Chorlton where they voted at the Bush Inn on Deansgate.
They were a mixed bunch of “gentlemen,” business types and farmers. Over half qualified to vote by virtue of owning property while the remainder were tenant farmers.
But only two were absentee voters, which contrasts with another rural area down south where just fifty percent lived in the place they cast their vote.**
It is a practice which sits a little uncomfortably with our modern ideas of democracy as does the practice of voting openly and having your vote recorded in the Poll Books.
Now not all of these Poll Books have survived but where they do they give a fascinating insight into how a community might vote. Of course some care has to be taken with them.
Our 27 represented about 9% of the entire adult population and there is plenty of evidence that the open nature of voting led to some tenants feeling that they could be intimidated by the landlords.
Just nine years earlier the vote in Chorlton mirrored the wishes of the big Tory grandees who forcibly expressed their preferences. So of the sixteen tenant farmers who were qualified to vote, twelve farmed land from one of these big Tory landowners.
They may not have voted for the “big family’s wishes” and it is equally possible that they shared the same outlook, but as we saw yesterday the Tory candidate received 72% of the vote here.
Of course some of our electors were well off enough to be independent of any such intimidation and this may have included the small group of Methodists.
In total we have the names of 72 Methodist families who were active in the years up to 1851 out of a total of 119 families. Not all of these have revealed their occupations but of those who have, seventeen were farmers and market gardeners, nine in trade and retail, forty four were labourers, one, Betty Moores was a charwoman and one a servant.***
There were also a policeman, a coachman and a sailor.
Few of the farmers worked large amounts of land; most were market gardeners making a living from less than 5 acres.
But even given this middling to lowly economic status Chorlton Methodists represented a large number of those entitled to vote in the reformed Parliament.
In 1832 of the 21 electors, eight were Methodists of which 5 were freeholders and three tenant farmers.
I doubt that will ever know whether they went together to Manchester to vote and sadly the Poll Book for 1844 is not available so it is impossible to hazard who they voted for or if they all voted the same way.
At least we know that James Holt of Beech House consistently voted Tory. He had a fine house in a large estate stretching from the corner of Beech Road, down to High Lane, along High lane almost to Cross Road and back along Cross Road to Beech Road. He had made his money in calico engraving in Manchester and moved from his fine house in St John’s Street to Chorlton in the 1830s.
But he retained his right to vote in Manchester and had two votes. And his story is for another time.
Pictures; from the Manchester Guardian, May 1844, Jeremiah Brundrit and James Bracegirdle from the Wesleyan Handbook, 1909, data from the electoral register for 1832
*The Manchester Guardian May 29 1844
** This was Eltham in Kent where only 35 of the 67 electors lived in the district.
*** Beech Road Baptismal Records 1807-1847 from The Register of Baptisms, In the Wesleyan Chapel Radnor Street Circuit 1830-1837, microfilm MFPR2120, Local History Library Manchester City Council Libraries, Beech Road Baptismal Records 1807-1850,
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| Manchester Guardian, May 1844 |
So while there is not the violence or the bribery and voting is carried out in secret there is much that would be familiar to a voter from 1844 looking at an election today.
They might be surprised at how restrained the candidates were when talking about each other and mystified at the lack of dirty tricks and intimidation practised by the leading members of the political factions.
But they would be at home with the banners and posters and the sheer excitement of the outcome.
Yesterday we followed our 27 voters into Manchester from Chorlton where they voted at the Bush Inn on Deansgate.
 |
| James Bracegirdle, Methodist |
But only two were absentee voters, which contrasts with another rural area down south where just fifty percent lived in the place they cast their vote.**
It is a practice which sits a little uncomfortably with our modern ideas of democracy as does the practice of voting openly and having your vote recorded in the Poll Books.
Now not all of these Poll Books have survived but where they do they give a fascinating insight into how a community might vote. Of course some care has to be taken with them.
Our 27 represented about 9% of the entire adult population and there is plenty of evidence that the open nature of voting led to some tenants feeling that they could be intimidated by the landlords.
Just nine years earlier the vote in Chorlton mirrored the wishes of the big Tory grandees who forcibly expressed their preferences. So of the sixteen tenant farmers who were qualified to vote, twelve farmed land from one of these big Tory landowners.
They may not have voted for the “big family’s wishes” and it is equally possible that they shared the same outlook, but as we saw yesterday the Tory candidate received 72% of the vote here.
 |
| Jeremiah Brundrit, Methodist |
In total we have the names of 72 Methodist families who were active in the years up to 1851 out of a total of 119 families. Not all of these have revealed their occupations but of those who have, seventeen were farmers and market gardeners, nine in trade and retail, forty four were labourers, one, Betty Moores was a charwoman and one a servant.***
There were also a policeman, a coachman and a sailor.
Few of the farmers worked large amounts of land; most were market gardeners making a living from less than 5 acres.
But even given this middling to lowly economic status Chorlton Methodists represented a large number of those entitled to vote in the reformed Parliament.
I doubt that will ever know whether they went together to Manchester to vote and sadly the Poll Book for 1844 is not available so it is impossible to hazard who they voted for or if they all voted the same way.
At least we know that James Holt of Beech House consistently voted Tory. He had a fine house in a large estate stretching from the corner of Beech Road, down to High Lane, along High lane almost to Cross Road and back along Cross Road to Beech Road. He had made his money in calico engraving in Manchester and moved from his fine house in St John’s Street to Chorlton in the 1830s.
But he retained his right to vote in Manchester and had two votes. And his story is for another time.
Pictures; from the Manchester Guardian, May 1844, Jeremiah Brundrit and James Bracegirdle from the Wesleyan Handbook, 1909, data from the electoral register for 1832
*The Manchester Guardian May 29 1844
** This was Eltham in Kent where only 35 of the 67 electors lived in the district.
*** Beech Road Baptismal Records 1807-1847 from The Register of Baptisms, In the Wesleyan Chapel Radnor Street Circuit 1830-1837, microfilm MFPR2120, Local History Library Manchester City Council Libraries, Beech Road Baptismal Records 1807-1850,
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