Previous blogs have highlighted our research on the electoral dynamics of many different types of constituency, from agricultural county seats such as Northamptonshire South to newly created boroughs such as Whitby, where the shipping and railway interests dominated. In our latest blog, Dr Philip Salmon looks at the Buckinghamshire ‘pocket borough’ of Great Marlow, where, contrary to what might have been expected, the influence of its electoral patron became even more firmly entrenched after the 1832 Reform Act.
Constituencies where electoral outcomes were almost completely controlled by local patrons or wealthy ‘boroughmongers’ were a key feature of the UK’s representative system before 1832. From Thomas Peacock’s ‘Borough of One Vote’ electing an orangutan to Blackadder’s antics at ‘Dunny-on-the-Wold’, they have also attracted plenty of parody and satire. The 1832 Reform Act famously removed 56 of the very worst ‘rotten’ boroughs. Constituencies like Dunwich, a town that had fallen into the sea, or Old Sarum, an uninhabited mound of earth, were no longer able to return MPs. Many boroughs remained though where elections were far from free and fair after 1832, as some of our blogs about corruption and electioneering have illustrated. Few, however, became even more of a ‘pocket borough’ in quite the way that Great Marlow did.
Before 1832 the wealthy Williams family, heirs to the banking and industrial fortune of the ‘copper king’ Thomas Williams MP, had assumed almost complete control of Great Marlow’s elections, mainly by buying up local property. The 1832 Reform Act’s enfranchisement of new £10 householder voters, combined with the dramatic expansion of Marlow’s boundaries from 0.1 to 5.6 square miles, however, initially seemed to have seriously dented the family’s influence. At the 1832, 1835 and 1837 general elections, they reluctantly conceded one of the borough’s two seats to a Liberal, as part of a behind-the-scenes compromise reflecting the new political realities.
This ‘sharing’ of Marlow’s representation, with Thomas Peers Williams sitting as a Tory MP alongside a Liberal opponent, was not popular with some locals. As was often the case in double-member constituencies with shared or mixed representation, it led to complaints about the borough being ‘misrepresented’ in the Commons, with one MP effectively cancelling out the voice and opinions of the other. However, in this case it was not local pressure that triggered a break-down in the sharing arrangement. Instead, at the 1841 election the Conservative central managers and the Carlton Club persuaded the Williams family to challenge the Liberal MP and get a second Tory elected, even though the Williamses ‘scarcely wanted a contest’ any more than their Liberal rivals. The Carlton even supplied a candidate, Renn Hampden of Little Marlow.
The ’most severe’ contest ever to have taken place in Marlow then ensued, in which voters were alleged to have been kidnapped and bribed and ‘every description of intimidation was used’. Although the Liberals won the second seat, it was only by a single vote, cast by the returning officer, leaving the way open for the result to be challenged on petition.
The ensuing election inquiry attracted national attention. The significant role of women in the electoral process, despite being excluded from the vote themselves, was amply illustrated by the dozen female witnesses summoned and questioned at inordinate length. Mostly wives and daughters of electors, they gave detailed evidence about domestic living arrangements in properties used to claim the franchise, or the money and ‘gifts’ they had been able to negotiate for their husband’s votes. One local butcher Jason Povey, for instance, had his vote ‘expunged’ after it emerged that the bailiff of the Liberal candidate had given him ‘six fat sheep’ and ‘a sum of money’ as part of a deal ‘carried on by the voter’s wife’. Two daughters of the Liberal candidate were also found to have ‘strenuously canvassed’ on their father’s behalf, with promises of money and employment.
What ultimately swung this election inquiry in the Tories’ favour, however, was not bribery and corrupt practices, which were clearly extensive on both sides, but the discovery that some of the Liberal candidate’s voters had received poor relief and as such were disqualified from voting. The Liberal MP was duly unseated and the Carlton’s nominee declared elected in his place.
Spurred on by this victory, the Williams family now set about turning Marlow into a far more permanent and pliable ‘pocket borough’. Aided by an ‘opulent’ local Tory brewer, Thomas Wethered, they began to let a selection of their larger properties to ‘loyal’ and trusted tenants at highly favourable rents. Meanwhile other buildings began to be either deliberately left empty or were rebuilt and extended to incorporate adjoining properties, which would enable their carefully chosen occupant to meet the £10 threshold for the vote. As one report put it, ‘two small cottages are knocked into one, and let to the sure man’.
Since the Williamses and Wethereds owned almost half the borough’s property, these policies had a considerable impact on the town’s housing stock and appearance. Local press reports complained that Marlow was becoming ‘one of the most depraved towns in Buckinghamshire’, with ‘bad paving’, ‘bad drainage’ and ‘premises in the most squalid and dreadful condition’, including some going to ‘wreck and ruin’ (Bucks Advertiser, 9 Dec. 1848). The reason for this was said to be the belief that ‘we don’t want too many voters here, the more you multiply them, the more costly the elections’. The effect on the number of voters was striking. Unlike the experience in most boroughs in this period, Great Marlow’s electorate declined significantly, from 457 in 1832 to just 360 by 1848.
The electoral control created by the Williams family ultimately enabled Thomas Peers Williams to sit until 1868, clocking up 48 years of continuous service as an MP. In true ‘boroughmonger’ style he was also able to return his first cousin Brownlow Knox as a second Tory MP from 1847-68, easily seeing off token challenges in 1852 and 1859. The ‘farce’ of canvassing electors at Marlow, where ‘thought was trammelled and speech fettered’ and elections were ‘very dull work’, became a regular refrain in the local press. Both men gave loyal support to the Tories when present at Westminster, but were hardly active MPs. Knox was far better known for his operatic endeavours (and financial losses), while Williams spent the bulk of his time on his estates in Wales, overlooking the Menai Strait. In 1867, having barely uttered a single word during his entire parliamentary career, he became Father of the House.
The Victorian Commons 