Late Georgian and Victorian Chester 1762-1914: Politics, 1762-1835

POLITICS, 1762-1835

The Structure of Politics

The politics of the municipal corporation were tightly bound up with control of the city's two seats in parliament, (fn. 1) and so were under the pervasive influence of the Grosvenors of Eaton Hall, in the persons of Richard, Lord and from 1784 Earl Grosvenor, and his son Robert, the second earl. (fn. 2) Their chief object until 1829 was to have the nomination of both M.P.s, for which the electorate was the entire body of resident freemen, numbering perhaps 1,500 until the 1810s and 1,700 in the 1820s, about a quarter of adult males. (fn. 3) The Grosvenors thus needed to dominate the Assembly, which regulated the admission of new freemen and enjoyed extensive patronage in the city, and whose chief officers conducted parliamentary elections. It thus suited the Grosvenors that the Assembly maintained its oligarchic ways. (fn. 4)

Many Cestrians, whether voters or not, aligned themselves wholeheartedly with the Grosvenor interest, offering political deference in return for due regard by the Grosvenors to their obligations to the city. (fn. 5) From 1750 to 1782 Grosvenor political interests were managed by their estate steward at Eaton, Henry Vigars, who joined the Assembly in 1767 and was elected alderman in 1770 and mayor the following year. (fn. 6) In later elections practical leadership for the Grosvenor party came from within the city. The general election campaign of 1818, for example, was masterminded by John Fletcher, owner of the Chester Chronicle. Although in the later 1780s and the 1790s he had been a bitter opponent of the corporation, Fletcher had switched sides when Earl Grosvenor joined the Whigs in 1807 and became a councilman in 1810, alderman in 1825, and mayor twice. (fn. 7)

At its most effective the Grosvenor political machine was vigilant for every opportunity to influence voters in Chester, (fn. 8) and willing to spend heavily: perhaps £4,000 a year between elections and far more during them. In 1784 the Grosvenors spent £24,000 in all, of which £15,000 went on drink and £1,600 on yellow ribbons and cockades (their opponents sported blue and red). In 1812 the total came to £23,000. (fn. 9) Treating, generosity to the poor at times when food was dear, paying admission fees for freemen, offering well paid employment during elections, and sponsoring public works were all part of the currency; when the machine moved up a gear in the 1810s and 1820s there was coercion and outright bribery. (fn. 10)

Among the levers at the Grosvenors' disposal was the ownership of houses and cottages in Chester. From before 1784 they were also lessees of Crown property in the city. Tenants could be offered favourable terms in return for guaranteed support, or pressurized by the threat of higher rents or eviction. (fn. 11) The already extensive Grosvenor rental was enlarged between 1810 and 1822 by buying up dozens of houses and shops, both within the walls and in Handbridge. (fn. 12)

Hostility to untrammelled aristocratic influence in Chester was led by men drawn from the city's mercantile and manufacturing interests, but was also linked to county families. It employed the rhetoric of civic freedom and Independence, rejecting the undertones of servility implied by the acceptance of Grosvenor patronage. (fn. 13) In parliamentary elections the Independents conceded that the Grosvenors had the right to nominate to one of the seats, but for both selfinterested and ideological reasons sought to widen access to office in the Assembly. In particular their demand was for elections to the mayoralty and the second, 'popular' shrievalty to be conducted under the strict terms of the charter of 1506, which gave the decisive vote to the freemen, whereas the Assembly wished to retain the nomination of both offices, basing its claims on the disputed charter of Charles II and long-established custom. Opposition to the corporation, which grew in significance by the end of the period, also flowed from the simple fact that it had excluded opponents of the Grosvenors since the early 18th century. By the 1830s critics were citing the lack of accountability for corporate expenditure (especially that undertaken in defence of its own unacceptable practices); the failure to attend to Chester's commercial facilities; and partiality along political lines in the management of the municipal charities, admissions to the freedom, and the issue of licences to sell drink. The improvement commission was also alleged to have been run on one-party lines. (fn. 14)

In contested parliamentary elections from 1784 to 1826 between two fifths and half of the voters gave at least one vote to candidates who articulated those views. (fn. 15) Nevertheless over the whole period more than half supported the Grosvenor interest. The Grosvenor candidates were favoured by more of both the wealthiest freemen (gentlemen, professionals, merchants, and industrialists) and the poorest (unskilled and semiskilled labourers), whereas retailers and craftsmen were on the whole more likely to back the Independents. (fn. 16) Individual occupations occasionally voted heavily one way or the other. In the 1818 election for popular sheriff, for example, the tobacco interest, chandlers, skinners, shoemakers, tailors, carpenters and joiners, and plasterers were strongly against the corporation candidate, whereas the shipbuilding trades, plumbers, and painters voted fairly solidly for him. (fn. 17) Political allegiances did not necessarily last for life: some 11 per cent of voters changed sides between 1820 and 1826, (fn. 18) including one of the Independents' former leaders, the silversmith John Walker. (fn. 19)

The city had almost no tradition of radicalism. Tom Paine was burnt in effigy at the Cross in 1793, (fn. 20) and the radical Chester Guardian established in 1817 folded for lack of support in 1823, (fn. 21) the year in which Henry Hunt, making a private visit to Chester, was hoaxed and subjected to vulgar abuse by Whig members of a drinking club, the King's Arms Kitchen. (fn. 22)

Issues which were believed to affect the prosperity of Chester occasionally intruded into local politics: in 1771 the Assembly's initially lukewarm attitude to the proposed canal was said to have angered mercantile interests, (fn. 23) and after 1805 the merits of a plan to deepen the Dee channel so as to allow larger ships to reach Chester had political repercussions. (fn. 24) There was also an undercurrent of hostility to Catholicism which repeatedly attached itself to the Independent cause on the grounds that the second Earl Grosvenor was sympathetic to limited measures of Catholic emancipation. (fn. 25) In the 1810s the issue seems to have brought at least parts of the clerical establishment into the Independent camp. (fn. 26) Generally there were no clear-cut divisions along religious lines. In 1812 a Grosvenor song lampooned the Presbyterians among the Independent party, (fn. 27) but in the late 18th century the Grosvenors had successfully cultivated local Methodists and Congregationalists. (fn. 28) In 1817 it was said that some freemen who normally supported the corporation objected to its nomination of a dissenter as mayor. (fn. 29) Mainly, however, politics in Chester were about access to office in the Assembly and the extent of Grosvenor influence. The Independents' watchwords were 'Freedom of Election' and 'No Bribery'. (fn. 30) Connexions between local rivalries and national political groupings were emphasized more after 1815 with the foundation of a Tory King and Constitution Club in 1817 and a Whig Club in 1820. (fn. 31)

The house of Eaton's parliamentary candidates were immediate members of the family with only two exceptions, both from the Cheshire gentry, Richard Wilbraham Bootle serving as M.P. 1761-90, and Sir Richard Brooke, Bt., standing unsuccessfully in 1812. Against them the Independents mostly fielded men from county families, notably the Egertons of Oulton, who had been active in Cheshire politics earlier in the 18th century. (fn. 32) The leaders of the Independents within the city were successively a merchant, Ralph Eddowes, (fn. 33) a gentleman, Roger Barnston of Forest House, Foregate Street, (fn. 34) and a brewer, Alderman William Seller. (fn. 35) Other prominent supporters included members of the Wrench family, owners of the Dee Mills. (fn. 36)

The Course of Politics

Grosvenor control of both seats in parliament was not openly opposed between 1747 and 1784, (fn. 37) but in 1771 the canal issue encouraged the Independents to put up a merchant against the corporation's nominee as second sheriff, though he was defeated in a poll of the freemen. (fn. 38) In 1784 the Independents challenged the Grosvenors at the parliamentary hustings in April and the Assembly election in October, in both of which they were outmanoeuvred and beaten. (fn. 39) John Fletcher, editor of the Whig Chester Chronicle, was gaoled for libelling Recorder Townsend; (fn. 40) and the Independents brought quo warranto proceedings against two Assemblymen who had been appointed in the usual manner. The House of Lords in 1790 found against the corporation's customary practices and for the validity of the charter of 1506, but negated the Independent victory by failing to award Ralph Eddowes his costs of some £2,000, whereupon he left Chester for the United States. In any case the corporation took the advice of the recorder and simply ignored the Lords' ruling. (fn. 41)

The Grosvenor candidates were again unopposed at parliamentary elections between 1790 and 1806, (fn. 42) but in October 1804 the Independents were able to turn to their advantage an incident the previous December in which a member of the Royal Chester volunteer corps had been press-ganged but then sprung from Northgate gaol after rioting by the volunteers. The Independents, whose leaders Roger Barnston and E. O. Wrench commanded the newly formed corps, nominated as second sheriff John Williamson, father-in-law of one of the volunteers tried after the riot; the Assembly gave way and indeed in the following year elected Williamson to the corporation, where he soon became a firm supporter of the regime. (fn. 43)

The Grosvenor interest's worst crisis came in the general election of 1807. At the last minute Earl Grosvenor forced his cousin, the former M.P. Richard Erle Drax Grosvenor, to stand down over his opposition to Catholic emancipation, without consulting his supporters in Chester or the corporation, which was said to support Drax Grosvenor's line. The Independents, already busy exploiting what they alleged was the earl's growing high-handedness towards the city, persuaded John Egerton to stand and Grosvenor backed down, leaving Egerton to be returned unopposed. (fn. 44) The date was commemorated in song as 'The Glorious Sixth of May', an Independent rallying cry for the next twenty years. (fn. 45)

The election ushered in a period of bitter political conflict which lasted until 1829. Earl Grosvenor immediately signalled his determination to resume unfettered control by taking his turn as mayor in 1807-8, thereby snubbing his strongest opponent within the corporation, Alderman William Seller, whose turn as mayor it would otherwise have been. (fn. 46) Meanwhile the corporation turned Egerton's supporters out of tenancies on the Crown estate. (fn. 47)

The four parliamentary elections until 1826 were accompanied by extensive bribery, intimidation, and disorder, (fn. 48) and at elections the city was flooded with Grosvenor's country tenants and with labourers engaged on the rebuilding of Eaton Hall. Several hundred new freemen might be admitted each time. Canvassing was often rowdy. Polling took place over anything between eight and twelve days at hustings set up in front of the Exchange, and involved the whole community, not only the freemen. The custom in Chester was for each side alternately to bring up a tally of ten voters, gathered together by a district 'captain' in a public house, conveyed in carriages to tally-rooms at the Exchange or in nearby pubs, and escorted by a band of musicians which might be seventy strong. After voting, the freemen were issued with tickets valid for dinner and two gallons of beer back at their starting point. As many as 100 or 140 men voted each day, numbers on each side remaining very close until one party began to run out of support. The first Grosvenor candidate - until 1818 the earl's cousin Thomas Grosvenor and thereafter his son Richard, Viscount Belgrave - normally led the poll comfortably; the real contest was between the second of Grosvenor's men and the main Independent. The Independents always put up a second candidate in an attempt to prevent their supporters from splitting their votes with the Grosvenors, but never had a realistic hope of securing both seats. Egerton (from 1815 Sir John Grey Egerton, Bt.; d. 1825) continued to carry the Independent flag. He was successful in 1812 but, hampered by his support for the suspension of habeas corpus (an issue which divided his supporters), was heavily defeated in 1818. In 1820 he ran General Thomas Grosvenor a very close second, as did his brother General C. B. Egerton in 1826. Grosvenor victories were celebrated by elaborate parades through the streets, accompanied by stage-managed cheering and further treating of supporters. (fn. 49)

The conflict was exacerbated by the personal and business rivalry of the editors of the two Chester newspapers, the Whig Chronicle and the Tory Courant, which had changed sides in municipal terms in the wake of Earl Grosvenor's switch to the Whigs in 1807 and thereafter traded insults at every opportunity. (fn. 50) It also spilled over into Chester's social life, with rival balls being organized along political lines after 1808, and near riots taking place at the Theatre Royal in 1810 when the officers of the volunteer corps arranged concerts at which 'The Glorious Sixth of May' was to be sung. (fn. 51) The Independents' political headquarters in Chester from 1784 were at the Royal Hotel in Eastgate Street, but they were forced from there in 1815 when Earl Grosvenor bought it, and from 1818 used the Albion Hotel in Lower Bridge Street. (fn. 52)

In strictly municipal politics, the few Independents on the Assembly were sidelined by the pro-Grosvenor majority as their turn for promotion to sheriff, alderman, or mayor came round. In 1809, amid rowdy scenes at the Exchange, their nomination of Seller as mayor was simply ignored, while a poll for second sheriff went against their nominee. (fn. 53) The Independents continued to try to force the issue of popular elections by legal means, (fn. 54) and in 1813 a mayor who had fallen out with his colleagues went over to the Independents, allowed them to propose a full list of 64 Assemblymen (a list which included many sitting Assemblymen but also 28 new faces), and swore in Seller as mayor, while simultaneously the recorder was swearing in the old corporation's nominee. Briefly, and to the delight of Chester's wits, the city had two corporations, (fn. 55) but the courts settled the matter in favour of the old guard on the grounds of minor procedural irregularities in the 'popular' election. (fn. 56)

Seller and his supporters continued to press their case. In 1817 he was nominated by the aldermen as one of their two candidates for mayor, and came out ahead of his rival in a poll of the freemen, but the corporation exercised its right of selection and excluded him again. (fn. 57) In 1818 the Independents ran a candidate for second sheriff against the corporation's nominee, an unpopular tobacconist satirized as the 'Dandy Snuffmonger', and got him in with an easy majority, (fn. 58) but the following year the mayoral and shrieval elections both went in favour of the corporation's candidates. To the Independents' disgust, the new mayor was the turncoat John Williamson. (fn. 59) The Independents had their revenge by citing him for corruption after the general election of 1820 (during which he had gone into hiding in order to avoid admitting any of their supporters as freemen): he was found guilty, fined £1,000, and gaoled for six months. (fn. 60)

Mayor Williamson's conduct during the election seems to have thrown the corporation into disarray, and in October 1820 the aldermen finally allowed William Seller to take his turn as mayor and named as sheriff William Cross, the twice-defeated Independent candidate for the office. (fn. 61) In 1821 Seller as mayor conducted a full election of the Assembly by the freemen which produced a more thoroughgoing clear-out of the old Assembly than in 1813, but still not a complete one. His illness, however, prevented him from swearing in the new members on the appointed day and the old corporation continued regardless, electing a new mayor and sheriffs under its usual system. From 1822 the second shrievalty became the main focus of contention between the corporation and its opponents, after the Assembly's nominee declined to stand when the Independents put up Edward Ducker, a former supporter of the Grosvenors who had switched sides. (fn. 62) In 1823 and 1824 the Independent candidate was twice beaten in a poll of the freemen. The Independents then challenged the validity of the appointment of George Harrison as mayor in 1824 through quo warranto proceedings, obtained a judgement against him, and had him turned out of office. In 1825 an Independent supporter, William Bevin, (fn. 63) was elected second sheriff without a contest, but he died in office (fn. 64) and was succeeded by Simeon Leet, who was an Assemblyman but not strongly partisan and whose declaration of impartiality at the start of the bitterly fought general election of 1826 was greeted with 'immense cheering'. (fn. 65) In 1827 the Independents brought further quo warranto proceedings against leading members of the Grosvenor party in the Assembly, including the mayor, John Larden, and the second sheriff, Gabriel Roberts, who were forced from office. (fn. 66) John Fletcher, the Revd. Charles Mytton, and John Walker also had to resign their places, though Walker and Fletcher were back within a year as soon as new vacancies arose. (fn. 67) The Independents followed up their success by nominating four successive 'popular' sheriffs without a contest. (fn. 68) Although the sequence was then broken, it resumed in 1833 and 1834. (fn. 69) The Independent sheriffs were not members of the corporation when elected, and only one was afterwards recruited. (fn. 70) The normal succession to the mayoralty was also suspended in 1826 but resumed in 1830. (fn. 71)

Meanwhile Earl Grosvenor had taken the heat out of parliamentary politics by his announcement in 1829 that he would no longer seek to nominate both of the city's M.P.s. (fn. 72) The enormous expense of conducting elections may not have mattered to a man of his vast and growing wealth - he was the fourth richest man in England even before he began developing the Belgravia estate in London after 1826 (fn. 73) - but the violence and acrimony which attended the general elections of 1820 and 1826 were seen, and rightly, as damaging his interests and influence. An Egerton thus sat for the city amicably alongside a Grosvenor in 1830-1. (fn. 74)

The Independents resumed their attack on the corporation with new quo warranto proceedings in 1829 against the mayor of 1821-2 and an alderman and three councilmen elected since 1822, but the case was abandoned after the Court of Great Sessions was abolished in 1830. (fn. 75)

Another effect of Earl Grosvenor's changed policy was to allow local politics in Chester to realign along the national division between reformers and conservatives. Whereas in December 1830 an attempt to put up a reformist parliamentary candidate in a byelection against Robert Grosvenor failed ignominiously, at the 1831 general election Sir Philip Egerton was dropped by his supporters in Chester for having voted against the Reform Bill, and they brought in the failed candidate of the previous year, Foster Cunliffe Offley, to run unopposed alongside Grosvenor. (fn. 76)

The earl's changed policy also opened up the Assembly to supporters of the opposing party. Recruitment of councilmen remained partisan with one exception until October 1829, (fn. 77) but from 1830 the corporation began to co-opt Independents (mostly not the most prominent ones) as well as some men who had previously taken little or no part in politics, such as the banker William Wardell. (fn. 78)

By then the tide in Chester was moving swiftly towards support for municipal reform. (fn. 79) The usual succession to the mayoralty was again suspended in 1831, the office being held in turn by two former mayors; (fn. 80) the Assembly discontinued official attendance at church on election day and appointed a committee to report on the municipal charities and the state of its finances. In light of the report it declared that there was nothing to hide in the accounts but ordered strict economies in expenditure. (fn. 81) In 1833 some 2,400 residents petitioned parliament for reform of elections to the Assembly, (fn. 82) and in 1834 the Assembly declined to join in plans being made by other municipal corporations to resist the intended reform. (fn. 83)