Liberals divided - Liberal History · ceived official endorsement from the coalition camp Every vote for Llewelyn Williams is a vote against Lloyd George’ Liberals divided Dr J

Liberals dividedLiberals dividedLiberals dividedLiberals dividedLiberals dividedDr J. Graham JonesEvery vote for Llewelyn Williams is a vote against Lloyd George’ Every vote for Llewelyn Williams is a vote against Lloyd George’ Every vote for Llewelyn Williams is a vote against Lloyd George’ Every vote for Llewelyn Williams is a vote against Lloyd George’ Every vote for Llewelyn Williams is a vote against Lloyd George’ Cardiganshire, 1921

Pamela HornThe farm workers’ champion The farm workers’ champion The farm workers’ champion The farm workers’ champion The farm workers’ champion Biography of Joseph Arch

Graham DavisSir Jerom Murch and the ‘civic gospel’ in Victorian BathSir Jerom Murch and the ‘civic gospel’ in Victorian BathSir Jerom Murch and the ‘civic gospel’ in Victorian BathSir Jerom Murch and the ‘civic gospel’ in Victorian BathSir Jerom Murch and the ‘civic gospel’ in Victorian Bath

Tony LittleValue for money Value for money Value for money Value for money Value for money Anthony Trollope’s campaign for Beverley

Violet Bonham CarterHold on, hold out; we are coming’ Hold on, hold out; we are coming’ Hold on, hold out; we are coming’ Hold on, hold out; we are coming’ Hold on, hold out; we are coming’ Speech after the 1920 Paisley by-election

Journal of

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Liberal Democrat History Group

Issue 37 / Winter 2002–03 / £5.00Issue 37 / Winter 2002–03 / £5.00Issue 37 / Winter 2002–03 / £5.00Issue 37 / Winter 2002–03 / £5.00Issue 37 / Winter 2002–03 / £5.00

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2 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 37 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 37 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 37 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 37 Journal of Liberal Democrat History 37 Winter 2002–03

Issue 37: Winter 2002–03

‘Every vote for Llewelyn Williams isa vote against Lloyd George’Dr J. Graham Jones Dr J. Graham Jones Dr J. Graham Jones Dr J. Graham Jones Dr J. Graham Jones examines the 1921 Cardiganshire by-election

The farm workers’ championThe life and career of Joseph Arch (1826–1919), by Pamela HornPamela HornPamela HornPamela HornPamela Horn

Sir Jerom Murch and the ‘civicgospel’ in Victorian BathGraham Davis Graham Davis Graham Davis Graham Davis Graham Davis analyses the record of the leader of Bath’s Victorian Liberals

Value for moneyAnthony Trollope’s campaign for Beverley in 1868, by Tony LittleTony LittleTony LittleTony LittleTony Little

‘Hold on, hold out; we are coming’Ian Hunter Ian Hunter Ian Hunter Ian Hunter Ian Hunter introduces Violet Bonham Carter’s speech after the 1920 Paisley by-election

Report: ‘Old Liberals,New Liberalsand Social Democrats’with Conrad Russell, Shirley Williams and Michael Freeden; report by Ian HunterIan HunterIan HunterIan HunterIan Hunter

Archives: the Thurso papersThe Thurso Papers at the Churchill Archives Centre, by Katharine ThomsonKatharine ThomsonKatharine ThomsonKatharine ThomsonKatharine Thomson

ReviewsCook: A Short History of the Liberal Party 1900–2001, reviewed by Duncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan Brack;Boyle: The Tyranny of Numbers, reviewed by Kiron ReidKiron ReidKiron ReidKiron ReidKiron Reid

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Journal of Liberal Democrat History 37Journal of Liberal Democrat History 37Journal of Liberal Democrat History 37Journal of Liberal Democrat History 37Journal of Liberal Democrat History 37 Winter 2002–03 3

Llewelyn’s opposed to national waste; So work for him with zeal and haste.’

By the s Welsh Liberals proudly referred tothe Cardiganshire constituency as ‘the safest seatheld by a Liberal member’. This remote, predomi-nantly rural division on the western seaboard ofWales, so far removed from the hub of political life atWestminster, and first captured by the Liberals in the‘breaking of the ice’ general election of , washeld continuously by the party from until thedefeat of Roderic Bowen in . But this longtenure was not always characterised by political har-mony, calm and tranquillity. During the early sin particular, intensely bitter political controversybeset Cardiganshire. It was a deep-rooted conflictwhich left indelible scars for a whole generation andlonger. The advent of ‘total war’ after had madea deep impression upon the life of the county. It in-augurated a period of redefinition and a crisis ofdeeply entrenched values caused by the pressures ofworld war, which undermined severely the tradi-tional ethos embodied in nonconformist Liberalism.

The county’s Liberal MP ever since hadbeen Matthew Lewis Vaughan Davies, squire ofTanybwlch mansion near Aberystwyth, justifiablydubbed ‘the silent backbencher’ whose long, undis-tinguished tenure of the constituency had caused‘the most enervating torpor’ to ‘seize’ the local Lib-eral Party. During the later stages of the war per-sistent rumours circulated that the veteran MP wasanxious to ‘retire’ to the upper house, and specula-tion ensued on the identity of his likely successor asCardiganshire’s representative in the House ofCommons.

In October W. Llewelyn Williams, LiberalMP for the Carmarthen Boroughs since , aformer close associate of Lloyd George who haddramatically fallen out with him primarily over theneed to introduce military conscription during, wrote to Harry Rees, the secretary of theCardiganshire Liberals. ‘You will have seen that theCarmarthen Boros are going to be wiped out, &that I shall therefore be looking for a new seat ei-ther in Carm. or elsewhere. I should be glad tohear from you what are the prospects inCardiganshire?’ Williams wrote in the certainknowledge that his own seat was about to disappearin the impending redistribution of parliamentaryconstituencies. In the event no peerage material-ised for Vaughan Davies, and no parliamentary va-cancy arose for Llewelyn Williams. Williams’ fatewas effectively sealed by the course of the famousMaurice Debate in the House of Commons inMay when he was one of the ninety-eightLiberal MPs to enter the opposition lobby. ‘Ll.G. isnow definitely at the head of a ToryGov[ernmen]t’, he wrote defiantly to Harry Rees,‘… Of course the Liberal Party will be split upagain, but I don’t fear the result. I am prepared, ifnecessary, to make an alliance with the LabourParty.’ As the war ran its course speculation per-sisted that Vaughan Davies, who had declared him-self a supporter of Lloyd George in , was likelyto be awarded a peerage.

As it happened Vaughan Davies was returned toparliament unopposed in the ‘coupon’ general elec-tion held on the conclusion of hostilities, having re-ceived official endorsement from the coalition camp

Every vote for LlewelynEvery vote for LlewelynEvery vote for LlewelynEvery vote for LlewelynEvery vote for LlewelynWilliams is a voteWilliams is a voteWilliams is a voteWilliams is a voteWilliams is a voteagainst Lloyd George’against Lloyd George’against Lloyd George’against Lloyd George’against Lloyd George’

Liberals dividedDr J. Graham JonesDr J. Graham JonesDr J. Graham JonesDr J. Graham JonesDr J. Graham Jones examines the February 1921 by-

election in Cardiganshire, where Asquithian and LloydGeorge Liberals engaged in bitter internecine warfare

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as early as the previous July. There wassome disquiet in Cardiganshire as a resultof the MP’s apparent ready endorsementof the coalition government. VaughanDavies attempted to assuage local oppo-sition by declaring his unwillingness tocontinue to support the coalition afterthe signing of the peace treaties if thegovernment violated Liberal principles.

As the election loomed, LlewelynWilliams again doggedly staked his claimin the event of a vacancy:

There is a persistent rumour thatVaughan Davies will be raised to thepeerage at the last moment, & aGeorge man will be rushed in forCardiganshire.

In such a case I want you to makeit known that I should be willing tooffer my services, as a Liberal, pre-pared to give loyal support to theGov[ernmen]t until peace is declared,but prepared to fight them if they willtry (as they declare) to play hanky-panky with Dis[establishmen]t & Im-perial Preference, & try to perpetuateConscription &c.

Should they run the thing veryfine (they are capable of anything!) Icould wire the £ required to bedeposited at nomination.

In the event no vacancy arose andVaughan Davies continued to representthe county in parliament for a little

over two years longer. In the autumn of H. H. Asquith was welcomed toAberystwyth amidst scenes of great ju-bilation and enthusiasm.

At long last, in the early days of ,the peerage anticipated for several yearsfinally materialised: M. L. VaughanDavies became Baron Ystwyth in theNew Year’s Honours List. Alreadyeighty years of age, with nigh ontwenty-six years of continuous servicein the Commons and recently electedas chairman of the Welsh ParliamentaryParty, he was hailed in some circles asthe ‘doyen of Welsh political life’ whose‘promotion’ was ‘rather overdue’. Thelocal Asquithian camp was less im-pressed. The Prime Minister was atonce reminded that, as a reforming,radical Chancellor of the Exchequerback in , intent on carrying his‘People’s Budget’, he had dismissed theupper chamber as ‘purely a branch ofthe Tory organisation’. Now he stoodaccused of ‘recklessly throw[ing]Cardiganshire into the turmoil and ex-pense of an election’. It was indeedcontended from the outset that akeenly observed by-election lay inprospect, and it was soon realised thatVaughan Davies’s elevation was prima-rily a device engineered by the PrimeMinister to bring into parliament hisown private secretary, Captain ErnestEvans, himself a native of Aberystwyth,a Welsh speaker, a barrister by profes-sion and an erudite public speaker withextensive local connections.

It was noted, too, that ‘Wee Free’(Asquithian) support was substantialwithin the county. Indeed Asquith hadhimself been considered a possibleLiberal candidate for Cardiganshireonly a short time earlier, before his re-turn for Paisley in . Local passionsran high against the notion that LloydGeorge should consider the countyLiberal Association the mere ‘hand-maiden’ of an administration compris-ing mainly Unionist MPs whose goodname had been tainted beyond hopeof recovery by the atrocities of theBlack and Tans in Ireland.

Resentment increased as it becameever more apparent that the course ofevents had long been manipulated bythe Prime Minister. When his wife MrsMargaret Lloyd George had visited the

county in , she had been accompa-nied pointedly by Captain ErnestEvans. Evans had already avidly soughtthe Liberal nomination for the Univer-sity of Wales constituency in , buthad been persuaded to withdraw hisname (probably due to pressure fromLloyd George) in favour of veteranWelsh Liberal Sir John Herbert Lewis, aclose political associate of the PrimeMinister’s for fully thirty years. The fa-vour now needed to be repaid.

Evans had already addressed severalpolitical meetings in the county duringthe spring and summer of . On thevery day that Vaughan Davies’s peeragewas announced, Captain Evans arrivedat Aberystwyth fresh from DowningStreet, and within four short days hadalready canvassed the electors of the keytowns of Aberaeron, Aberystwyth andTregaron. It was widely felt throughoutCardiganshire that such underhand tac-tics should not be allowed to go un-challenged. The coalition ‘nominee’ wascertainly not to be granted a ‘walk-over’. There was also a growing senti-ment that some protest should be madeagainst the increasingly lavish expendi-ture of the coalition government, andplans to put up an ‘anti-waste’ candidatewere well received within the countyboroughs of Aberystwyth, Lampeterand Cardigan.

It was widely felt that the fledglingcounty Labour Party, set up in Decem-ber , was not yet sufficiently wellestablished to put up its own parlia-mentary candidate, but its supporterswere strongly attracted by the prospectof an ‘anti-waste’, ‘anti-coalition’ aspir-ant. Some Labourites from the southof the county favoured a socialist candi-date, but ‘wiser counsels in the Aberyst-wyth district and the Labour men inthe North were loath to spend time andenergy on a fight which did not holdout a fair prospect of success’. It wasconsidered that left-wing supporterswere likely to vote for an independentLiberal candidate.

As the post-war coalition govern-ment ran its course, resentment hadgrown apace at the apparent betrayal oftraditional Liberal principles, now al-legedly ‘sacrificed to the Moloch of po-litical opportunity’. In some quartersoutrage had followed the decision to

Matthew Vaughan Davies (later BaronYstwyth), MP for Cardiganshire 1895–1920


make a grant of £,, from theTreasury to the disestablished Welsh na-tional church. Demands for devolu-tionary concessions to Wales – even themodest call for a Secretary of State forWales – were heard no longer, it was ar-gued, because Lloyd George now ‘heldand always will hold his great Office onthe servile tenure of subjection to Torydomination’.

Speculation soon began to focus onthe identity of likely Liberal candi-dates. Five names were mentioned,two of whom – local Aldermen J. M.Howell and D. C. Roberts – soonwithdrew, mainly because they tendedto support Lloyd George. Threenames remained: Captain ErnestEvans, W. Llewelyn Williams and SirLewes Loveden Pryce. Interest and ex-citement increased throughout thecounty. There was much uncertaintyconcerning the political complexionof Cardiganshire as no contested par-liamentary election had taken place inthe county since January . Womenhad never previously been able to casttheir votes. An independent Liberalcandidate was considered ‘essential tothe essence of Welsh Liberalism. Oth-erwise we might as well admit at oncethat all Welsh seats are at the disposal ofthe Prime Minister to allocate towhom he will.’

The final selection meeting was tobe held at the Victoria Hall, Lampeteron January . By this time SirLewes Loveden Pryce had withdrawnhis name and local opinion crystallisedand polarised sharply behind the tworemaining candidates for the nomina-tion. The two highly influential countynewspapers – the Cambrian News andthe Welsh Gazette – had very firm po-litical allegiances. The former had comeout stoutly in support of Captain Evansfrom the outset of the pre-electioncampaign at the beginning of January:

[He] comes to Cardiganshire as aCardiganshire man knowing thecounty and its people, understandingits peculiar needs in agriculture andlocal government – a man reared inits atmosphere and yet broadened bycontact with a wider sphere. It is un-fair to describe Mr. Evans, as is beingdone, as ‘the Premier’s nominee’. As a

member of the secretariat at Down-ing-Street, Mr Evans came into con-tact and close contact with Mr LloydGeorge, but he comes to the electorsof Cardiganshire free from any bond,spoken or written. Even his enemiesknow the Premier too well to accusehim of attempting to curtail the free-dom of another man. Mr Evans sup-ports the Coalition and has as muchright to that view as Mr LlewelynWilliams has to support Mr Asquith.He has not disguised his ambition torepresent his native county in the leg-islative chamber, and he has made nosecret of the fact that when a vacancyarose he would submit himself to theAssociation for their consideration.

Equally predictably the Welsh Gazette,dismissing Evans as ‘an opportunist’whose ‘sole ambition is not to serveCardiganshire, but to get a seat in Par-liament’, hailed Llewelyn Williams as‘the man for Cardiganshire … He isindependent and will be free to criti-cise the wicked waste and extrava-gance of the Government; free tostand up for the small farmers andfree to demand Temperance forWales.’ The ever-spiralling politicalenthusiasm and partisanship displayedthroughout the county was paralleledby intense interest at Westminster,above all at Coalition Liberal head-quarters. It was recognised from theoutset that Lloyd George could notpersonally participate in the cam-paign, but it soon became known thathis wife Margaret intended to speakwidely on behalf of Captain Evans.

By the standards of the age strict se-curity surrounded the January selec-tion meeting when no fewer than

delegates out of a possible attended.In the graphic description of the ‘Spe-cial Correspondent’ of The Times, ‘Thejourney to the conference at Lampeter,thirty miles south of Aberystwyth, wasreminiscent of a football cup-tie trip.There was the same excitement, thesame animated discussion of chancesand the same keen partisanship.’

Following a notably turbulent politi-cal meeting, where on occasion ‘pande-monium reigned supreme’, in thewords of the Cambrian News corre-spondent, Llewelyn Williams polled

votes and Captain Ernest Evans .

On the day of the fateful selectionmeeting Williams had asserted, ‘I amcoming out as a strong “anti-waste”candidate, because of the extravaganceof the Government, which has squan-dered in Mesopotamia hundreds ofmillions which ought to have beenused to build houses in this country’.

In response to the voting figures, in anevangelical speech he proclaimed to hisfollowers that Lloyd George had ‘goneastray like a prodigal son’ by abandon-ing his Liberalism to assume the leader-ship of a Tory-dominated coalition. Inthe wake of the selection meeting, thecoalitionists convened their own meet-ing at Lampeter town hall, unani-mously selecting Captain Evans as theirown candidate. The scene was set for acivil war by-election.

The rival candidates contrastedsharply. W. Llewelyn Williams had beenborn in Carmarthenshire’s Towy valleyin , the son of a tenant farmer, andeducated at the celebrated LlandoveryCollege and Brasenose College, Oxford,where he had made the acquaintance ofan array of patriotic Welshmen. He hadspent his early career as a journalist andhad played an important role in theCymru Fydd (‘Young Wales’) movementof the late nineteenth century when hehad formed some rapport with theyouthful David Lloyd George. Closelyassociated with the New Liberal ethos of

W. Llewelyn Williams, independent Liberalcandidate in the by-election


these years, he had been seriously con-sidered as a possible party candidate forCardiganshire in place of M. L. VaughanDavies in .

In January he had begun a sec-ond career when he was called to thebar from Lincoln’s Inn. Each time a va-cancy arose in a Welsh Liberal seat dur-ing subsequent years Williams’s namewas mentioned as a likely candidate.Eventually, strongly supported by LloydGeorge (then the novice President ofthe Board of Trade), he had enteredparliament as MP for the CarmarthenBoroughs in . The two men thenbecame bitter enemies over the con-scription bills introduced in , therift deepened as the war ran its course,and Williams soon found himself politi-cally isolated, refusing offers of non-political posts – ‘My soul is not for sale’– and predictably failing to secure theLiberal nomination for a Welsh con-stituency in .

Williams’s relationship with LloydGeorge came to the fore during the by-election campaign which co-incided with the establishment of theWelsh Liberal Federation as anAsquithian power base within Wales.Llewelyn Williams (together with EllisW. Davies, Rhys Hopkin Morris andJudge J. Bryn Roberts) was one of itsfounders, all of them taking the linethat Lloyd George as premier hadshamelessly betrayed Welsh interestsover temperance, land legislation, ad-ministrative devolution and the termsof disendowment. To some extentWilliams’s appeal tended to be nostalgicin the world of , as his speechesconcerned the ‘betrayal’ of the Welshover the terms of disendowment, thefailure to act over the ‘Speaker’s Con-ference’ on devolution, and thedecision to abandon the Welsh Li-censing Bill. Yet early in the campaign,in a speech at Llandysul, he was at painsto refer to his erstwhile friendship withthe Prime Minister:

The Prime Minister was a Welshman– the most noted Welshman everborn, the finest boy he (Mr Williams)had ever come in contact with. Fur-ther the Premier was an old friend ofhis. There never were no two broth-ers who loved each other so faithfully

than Mr Lloyd George and himself.Whenever either was in trouble theyalways helped each other. He did nothate Mr. Lloyd George. The most bit-ter hour in his history was when hehad to part from him.

The only thing he had againstCaptain Ernest Evans was that he wastied to the Coalition. What was thegood of sending a Prime Minister’sPrivate Secretary to Parliament? He(Mr Williams) knew something aboutprivate secretaries – they dare not calltheir souls their own. (Laughter)

When he addressed a group of uproari-ous students at the University Collegeof Wales, Aberystwyth, Williams facedconstant heckling in support of LloydGeorge, the candidate disclaiming ‘anyhostility to the Prime Minister whom,he said, he would be the first to wel-come back to the Liberal ranks whenhe got rid of the Curzons, Carsons,Balfours, and Bonar Laws, who a fewyears ago tried to cut his throat over theMarconi case’. In his election addresshe denounced the ‘insensate extrava-gance of the most reckless and improvi-dent Administration that has ever heldoffice in a Democratic country’.

Captain Ernest Evans, born in ,was fully eighteen years Williams’ jun-ior. Like his rival, he too had been edu-cated at Llandovery College and hadbeen called to the bar. He was wellknown in Cardiganshire where his fa-ther was clerk to the county council.During the previous few years he hadremained at the hub of political life as amember of Lloyd George’s ‘GardenSuburb’ in Downing Street. As al-ready noted, he had hoped to becomethe Liberal candidate for the Universityof Wales in .

As the by-election campaign devel-oped it became clear that support forthe two candidates was fairly equallymatched. At the height of the campaignThe Times’ correspondent wrote, ‘In Ab-erystwyth I was assured this morningthat friends who never quarrelled be-fore are at daggers drawn over thepresent contest … The fight is betweenMr Lloyd George and Welsh Liberalismas represented by Mr. LlewelynWilliams. Every day brings fresh evi-dence of the bitterness with which the

struggle is being waged.’ Politicalpundits were notably reluctant to in-dulge in prophecy. Quite apart from theuncertainty created by the lack of a par-liamentary election in the county forfully eleven years, and the unknownimpact of the women’s vote for the firsttime, the physical diversity ofCardiganshire made prediction diffi-cult. Its coastal rim extended fifty miles,and at its widest point inland it ran tofully thirty-five miles. With the excep-tion of the small towns, most of thepopulace was engaged in agriculture,many residing twelve miles away fromthe nearest polling station. At the heightof the campaign as many as coali-tion organisers were at work at strategicpoints in the constituency, desperatelyanxious to poll every possible vote forCaptain Evans. The county electoralregister for – contained ,

men and , women. Many of thelatter were thought to be diehard LloydGeorge devotees, but others, alarmedby repeated reports of governmentalextravagance and waste, had resolved tocast their votes for Llewelyn Williams. Afurther consideration was the solid pha-lanx of between , and , trueblue Tory supporters in the division,most (but not all) of whom were sure tosupport Captain Evans.

Yet another crucial factor was thereligious complexion of the Cardigan-shire electorate. It was notable fromthe beginning of the campaign thatthe Welsh church question, finally set-tled the previous year, was an electoraldamp squib. At Aberystwyth on

February Asquith’s daughter Lady Vio-let Bonham-Carter, who addressed nofewer than eleven campaign meetings,told her audience, ‘He [Lloyd George]re-endowed the Church with taxpay-ers’ money’, but her impassionedwords made little impression. Yet thecampaign more generally was col-oured by denominational cross-cur-rents; Lloyd George was well known asa Campbellite Baptist, Captain ErnestEvans as a Calvinistic Methodist andLlewelyn Williams as a Congrega-tionalist. The sizeable body of Unitar-ians within Cardiganshire inclined toWilliams. Veteran Liberal Sir JohnHerbert Lewis, who had addressed


packed meetings at Aberystwyth,Cardigan and Lampeter in support ofCaptain Evans, recorded in his diary,‘The coast towns are strong for theCoalition, the Upland districts against;Unitarians against, Methodists & In-dependents said to be against; Baptists& Church for’. Some chapels indeedexperienced a deep-rooted split whichhad long-lasting repercussions. Thepastor and elders powerfully supportedLloyd George, while the rank and fileof their congregations flocked indroves behind the banner of LlewelynWilliams, who, it was expected, wouldalso win the votes of some , La-bourites in the county.

The acrimony intensified as thecampaign ran its course. Many promi-nent politicians from both sides spokein the election meetings when mes-sages of support were read out to large,enthusiastic audiences. Strong, impas-sioned language was employed on bothsides. Lady Violet told the county’s WeeFree Liberals that they were ‘fightingnot merely for a man, but for a creed, afaith’, urging them to remain true totheir ‘fathers’ sacrifices in ’.

Mrs Lloyd George was equally com-pelling on behalf of the coalition camp.Urged by her husband, ‘They are verybitter outside Wales & if we lost, alltheir speakers & newspapers would say,“Lloyd George spurned & rejected byhis own countrymen”’, (he then wenton, ‘I am overwhelmed with greatworld affairs’), she had spared no ef-fort in support of Captain Evans, ad-dressing no fewer than sixty electionmeetings. She was at pains to assure thecounty’s farmers that the Prime Minis-ter fully comprehended their difficul-ties, proclaiming at Cardigan that defeatfor the coalition at the by-electionwould be nothing less than ‘stabbing[Lloyd George] in the back’.

Her perorations were a potent fillipto the coalition campaign and un-doubtedly helped to woo the newwomen’s vote, sometimes by stressingthe drink question. On the eve of thepoll Sir J. Herbert Lewis noted in hisdiary that Margaret Lloyd George ‘hadaddressed about fifteen or twentymeetings, but she looked perfectlyfresh & was as placid & serene as usual.

Whatever the result of the election,she will have made an immense con-tribution to the forces of the Coali-tion’. Shortly before, The Times’ Spe-cial Correspondent concluded thatMrs Lloyd George had indeed ‘exer-cised a far more potent influence uponthe contest than any other individualon either side’.

Although some observers venturedthe belief that Llewelyn Williams stoodan outside chance of success if hepolled solidly in the rural areas, wheredissatisfaction with the tenor of coali-tion politics was highest, and wherestories and memories (more especiallyfolk memories) of remained verymuch alive, most commentators pre-dicted victory for Captain Evans. Inter-est was stimulated by the fact that twoLiberals were vying for victory in astraight fight without the distraction ofa Labour or other candidate. The by-election was also viewed as ‘the first or-ganised and sustained attack deliveredby the Independent Liberals upon thegreat political influence wielded by thePrime Minister in Wales. The “WeeFrees” – the “Wee” may soon be inac-curate – are waging in Cardiganshirethe strongest fight in which they haveengaged since Mr Asquith was returnedfor Paisley.’

More than per cent of theCardiganshire electorate, a record high,turned out to vote. Captain ErnestEvans polled , votes and LlewelynWilliams ,. The majority of justover , votes exceeded expectationssomewhat and led exuberant coalitionsupporters to light beacons on the hill-tops from Aberystwyth to Cardigan.

Lloyd George was positively over-joyed at the outcome. Before the pollhe had proclaimed that he would‘rather lose a whole general electionthan one seat in Wales. TheCardiganshire people are the cutest inthe world. It would not do for me togo down there.’ Hence his unre-strained exuberance when the resultwas announced to him at Chequers on February; as Lord Riddell noted inhis diary:

th Feb. – To Chequers. Long talkwith L. G.. Much excited over theCardigan election. Result expectedevery minute when I arrived. Mrs. L.G. has been working like a Trojan inthe constituency, delivering

speeches in a fortnight. While L. G.and I were walking in the park shecame running out breathless to tellhim that Evans had won by a major-ity of ,. He was delighted andsaid that if the result had been the

How the press saw the Liberal fight over Cardiganshire


other way it would have been a seri-ous setback. He warmly embracedMrs. L. G. bestowing several heartykisses upon her and telling her thatshe had won the election … Forsome time he spoke of little else butthe election.

But in many ways the result was a Pyr-rhic victory for the ailing coalition ma-chine. It was clear that Williams hadpolled more Liberal votes and thatEvans’s success could be attributed pri-marily to Tory transport and Tory sup-port. Indeed, as many as coalitionvehicles were in evidence in the countyon polling day, commandeered from asfar afield as Cardiff, Swansea, London,Manchester and Stockport, to conveyvoters to the sixty scattered polling sta-tions. The Wee Free camp mustered nomore than fifty. ‘Beaten by Tory votes’was the justifiable catch-phrase of thedefeated Asquithians, while LlewelynWilliams himself interpreted the ver-dict of the poll as ‘the first Tory victorysince ’ in Cardiganshire.

On reflection, in response to a mes-sage of congratulations, he wrote, ‘N.B.() We polled to of the Liberals. () Tories (not ) polled. () Theclergy canvassed for Ll.G. egged on bythe Bishop of St. D[avids]. () TheCalvin[istic Methodist]s were splen-didly loyal. Only a few inAber[ystwyth] voted for Ernest. I gotpractically all the Noncon[formist]vote except the Baptists. () Ll.G. is nolonger, even seemingly, the nationalleader. He is the chief of a faction,mainly Tory.’ He evidently inter-preted the voting figures as a signifi-cant chink in the armour of the coali-tion government machine.

It was indeed possible to interpretthe substantial poll achieved byWilliams as firm evidence of dissatisfac-tion in Wales with the tenor of coali-tion government. The same sentimentswere voiced by Welsh Gazette columnistMiss Lilian Winstanley, an Aberystwythuniversity lecturer and local Liberal or-ganiser, who saw Captain Evans’s suc-cess as simply ‘a temporary victorysince it was a victory for material powerover spiritual power. The coalition had ontheir side the immense wealth of thisGovernment for profiteers; money was

poured out like water in organising vic-tory; Cardiganshire has never seen suchlavishness. A whole fleet of motor carscame on polling day to bring voters tothe polling booths, wealthy men’s mo-tor cars which they lent because theywished to keep in power the coalition,and the coalition candidate was notlikely to do anything to disturb theirreign.’ Lloyd George had wonthrough, agreed her newspaper, ‘but at aterrible loss to his political prestige’.

On all sides it was agreed that some, Conservative votes had clinchedvictory for Captain Evans who, whenhe took his seat in the House of Com-mons the following week, had LloydGeorge as one of his two sponsors, aprivilege not bestowed upon a newmember since Lady Astor, the firstwoman MP, in . WithinCardiganshire profound feelings oftension and dissension persisted along-side a conviction that further battleslay ahead. As the president of thecounty Liberal Association wrote afew days after the by-election, ‘Thepresent position of parties even in theHouses of Parliament is undergoingdisintegration … Even in this littletown of Cardigan the Tories say andsay rightly that they put Capt. Evans infor the County’. In spite of its successin Cardiganshire, the strength of thecoalition was ebbing fast. At the be-ginning of March it lost to Labour inthree crucial by-elections – at Dudley,Kirkcaldy and Penistone – and had bythen chalked up a net loss of fourteenseats since the coupon general elec-tion.

At his speech following the countLlewelyn Williams announced his in-tention to stand again in Cardiganshireat the next general election. His solid, votes represented ‘the heart andsoul of Liberalism’ in the county.

Rather ironically, however, he was notgiven the opportunity to contest an-other election, as he fell victim to dou-ble pneumonia and died prematurely atthe age of fifty-five on April .During his last days he was preoccupiedwith thoughts of securing a reconcilia-tion with Lloyd George for whosefriendship he still yearned.

In the general election which fol-

lowed the collapse of the coalition gov-ernment in the autumn Captain Evanswas challenged by an independent Lib-eral, Rhys Hopkin Morris, a barristerfrom Maesteg in south Wales, and sawhis majority slashed to votes. Forthe coalitionists the writing really wason the wall. When yet another generalelection ensued in December ,Liberal reunion, so flamboyantly trum-peted throughout the country, failed toreach Cardiganshire which was one ofonly two constituencies nationwidewhere the Liberal civil war persisted(the other was Camborne in Cornwall).Now the intervention of a Conserva-tive contender in the person of LordLisburne proved decisive, dramaticallyunseating Captain Evans and bringingMorris to Westminster. In he wasreturned unopposed, and in fact sat asthe county’s MP until his appointmentas a metropolitan magistrate in . Yetthe schism in the ranks of the county’sLiberals remained.

The experiences of the years – were critical in the history ofCardiganshire Liberalism. The party’straditional ascendancy had been some-how revitalised, underlining a powerfulpolitical continuity and creating ahomespun dynamism which helped topostpone the local Labour Party’s fullcoming of age – demonstrated by thefact that it did not nominate a parlia-mentary candidate until the ‘doctor’smandate’ general election of October was held swiftly upon the heels ofthe formation of the so-called NationalGovernment. The deep-rooted, endur-ing cleavage was neatly symbolised bythe setting up of two rival Liberal clubsat opposite ends of the main street inAberystwyth. (Today the Asquithianclub remains functional and flourishing;the Lloyd Georgian premises have beenconverted, perhaps fittingly enough,into an auction room.) When RodericBowen became Liberal MP forCardiganshire in July he consid-ered that one of his most pressing taskswas to attempt to heal the rift in his fol-lowers’ ranks which had lasted for a fullquarter-century.

In the wake of the by-electionAlderman J. M. Howell, a prominentcoalitionist who had refused to allowhis name to be considered for the va-


cancy, wrote on reflection:

It was a civil war between group andgroup.

And more still it was a tug of warbetween the chief antagonists in Lon-don. Left to ourselves, as in all previ-ous elections, we could never haveworked up the fire that burned.

It was not an unmixed evil, assome think.

It is a salutary discipline thatwhich compels an individual tochoose and to act for himself.

It is good for time; it is good foreternity.

An election oftener than once inten years is something to be wishedfor.

His comments were uncommonly pro-phetic.

The course and outcome of the by-election have a wider significance. The, votes polled by LlewelynWilliams, a sworn enemy of the primeminister in a predominantly Welsh-speaking, Methodist-dominated con-stituency in the very heartland of LloydGeorge’s own personal patrimony, waseloquent testimony to the groundswellof popular feeling against the coalitiongovernment. Even within Wales, itseemed, free churchmen, notably theIndependents, ‘the most political andrepublican of the sects’, were in openrebellion against the government.

Were it not for the urban voters,Williams might even have won the day.In industrial constituencies generally,many Anglicans and free churchmenwere beginning to voice support forthe Labour Party in an attempt to exerttheir spiritual authority to retain work-ing class men and women within thechurch. Generally the influence ofnonconformists in the press and in by-elections was being eroded by theschism in the ranks of the Liberal Party.

There had been only one Asquithianvictory in a by-election during ;there were to be none at all during .As the year ran its course, it became in-creasingly apparent that the Independ-ent Liberals were suffering at the handsof Labour. Penistone in Yorkshire waslost in March . Generally, too, theprospects of the Coalition Liberalslooked distinctly gloomy. In March,

Lloyd George was warned by the femaleorganiser of the North Wales CoalitionLiberals that ‘Ireland is being run for allit’s worth against you’.

The Welsh Liberal Council, estab-lished in by Llewelyn Williamsand others as an Asquithian power-house within Wales, proved somethingof a damp squib, as it called, ratherhalf-heartedly, for a re-negotiation ofthe disendowment clauses of the WelshChurch Act, , for further temper-ance legislation and for the setting upof an elected council for Wales. De-moralised by the result inCardiganshire in , Watkin Davies(Lloyd George’s early biographer)wrote in his diary, ‘We must look toEngland and Scotland to deliver usfrom autocracy. Poor Wales!’ Onceagain the electoral weakness ofAsquithian Liberalism had been un-derlined. No longer could it pose aneffective challenge to the coalitiongovernment.

Dr J. Graham Jones is an assistant archivistof the Welsh Political Archive at the Depart-ment of Manuscripts and Records, the Na-tional Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.

1 Cambrian News, 15 February 1921.2 Welsh Gazette, 3 February 1921.3 The phrase is that used in the National Library of

Wales (NLW), Cardiganshire Liberal Associa-tion Records, file 56, J. Ellis Jones, hon. secre-tary of the South Wales Liberal Federation, toEben Jones, 11 February 1959.

4 On Cardiganshire politics, see Kenneth O.Morgan, ‘Cardiganshire Politics: the Liberal as-cendancy, 1885-1923’, Ceredigion, Vol. V, no. 4(1967), 311–46; and J. Graham Jones,‘Cardiganshire Politics, 1885–1974’ in Geraint H.Jenkins and Ieuan Gwynedd Jones (eds.),Cardiganshire County History, Vol. 3,Cardiganshire in Modern Times (Cardiff, 1998),pp. 407–29. There is also some material of valuein P. J. Madgwick et al (eds.), The Politics of RuralWales: a Study of Cardiganshire (London, 1973).

5 Morgan, loc. cit., p. 328; Cambrian News, 19October 1900.

6 NLW, Cardiganshire Liberal AssociationRecords 144/8, W. Llewelyn Williams to HarryRees, 14 October 1917 (‘Confidential’). OnWilliams the fullest account is now J. GrahamJones, ‘The Journalist as Politician: W. LlewelynWilliams MP (1867–1922)’, CarmarthenshireAntiquary, Vol. XXXVII (2001), 79-98.

7 NLW, Cardiganshire Liberal AssociationRecords 144/49, Williams to Rees, 12 May1918.

8 Parliamentary Archive, House of Lords RecordOffice, Lloyd George Papers F/21/2/56, F. E.Guest to D. Lloyd George, 20 July 1918;Cambrian News, 29 November 1918.

9 South Wales Daily News, 23 November 1918.

10 NLW MS 22,016E, (Cardiganshire Liberal Asso-ciation Papers), f. 4, Williams to Harry Rees, 27November 1918 (‘Private’).

11 NLW, J. M. Howell Papers 28/1, Asquith toHowell, 4 November 1919.

12 Cambrian News, 7 January 1921.13 Ibid.14 Welsh Gazette, 6 January 1921.15 NLW, J. M. Howell Papers 27/49, J. Puleston

Jones to Howell, 3 February 1921.16 See Howard C. Jones, ‘The Labour Party in

Cardiganshire’, Ceredigion, Vol. IX, no. 2(1981), 150–61.

17 Cited ibid., p. 154.18 Welsh Gazette, 13 January 1921.19 NLW MS 22,016E, ff. 7 and 9, telegrams from

D. C. Roberts, 7 January 1921, and J. M.Howell, 8 January 1921, to Harry Rees.

20 Welsh Gazette, 13 January 1921.21 Cambrian News, 7 January 1921.22 Welsh Gazette, 20 January 1921.23 The Times, 26 January 1921, p. 10, col. e.24 Cambrian News, 28 January 1921.25 The Times, 25 January 1921, p. 12, col. c.26 South Wales Daily News, 10 January 1921.27 Cambrian News, 4 February 1921.28 The Times, 31 January 1921, p. 11, col. d.29 Election address of W. Llewelyn Williams, Feb-

ruary 1921.30 The Times, 11 February 1921, p. 10, col. e.31 Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, speech at Aberyst-

wyth, 19 February 1921: ibid., 20 February1921, p. 12, col. b.

32 NLW, Sir John Herbert Lewis Papers B35, diaryentry for 18 February 1921.

33 See NLW, E. Morgan Humphreys PapersA2033, T. Gwynn Jones, Aberystwyth, toHumphreys, 26 January 1921.

34 See the South Wales Daily News, 16 February1921.

35 NLW MS 22,823C, ff. 74-75, D. Lloyd Georgeto Margaret Lloyd George, 9 February 1921.

36 Cardigan and Tivy-Side Advertiser, 11 February1921.

37 NLW, Sir John Herbert Lewis Papers B35, diaryentry for 18 February 1921.

38 The Times, 16 February 1921, p. 11.39 Ibid.40 Keith Middlemas (ed.), Thomas Jones White-

hall Diary, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1969), pp. 129–30.41 NLW MS 19,483E, unlabelled press cutting.42 Cambrian News, 25 February 1921; NLW, E.

Morgan Humphreys Papers A3712, Williams toHumphreys, 22 February 1921.

43 Welsh Gazette, 24 February 1921. The empha-sis is mine.

44 Ibid.45 Lady Astor’s two sponsors had been D. Lloyd

George and former Conservative leader A. J.Balfour.

46 NLW MS 22,016E, f. 17, D. Davies, Cardigan, toHarry Rees, 25 February 1921 (incomplete).

47 Cambrian News, 25 February 1921.48 Notes of an interview with Dr Roderic Bowen,

26 July 1995, very generously placed at my dis-posal by Dr Mark Egan.

49 Cambrian News, 4 March 1921.50 Kenneth O. Morgan, Consensus and Disunity:

the Lloyd George Coalition Government, 1918–1922, revised edition (Oxford, 1986), p. 162.

51 Parliamentary Archive, House of Lords RecordOffice, Lloyd George Papers F/96/1/15, MrsPrice White to Mrs Winifred Coombe Tennant.

52 NLW, W. Watkin Davies Papers, diary entry for19 February 1921.


Joseph Arch (–) was both a pioneeringagricultural trade union leader and one of the first

working men to be elected to Parliament, when heserved as Liberal MP for North-West Norfolk from to and again from until his retire-ment from political life in .

Arch was born on November , in thesouth Warwickshire village of Barford. He was thefourth child and only surviving son of John Arch, alocal farm worker, and his redoubtable wife,Hannah. Hannah was ten years older than her hus-band and this was her second marriage, her first hus-band having died in . It was from his motherthat Arch inherited his early interest in religiousnonconformity and his independent attitude. Helater claimed she was the most important influenceon his life.

After briefly attending the village school be-tween the ages of six and nine, Arch began work asa bird scarer in the mid-s. Other land workfollowed and by the s he had become a prize-winning hedger and ditcher, taking contract jobs asfar afield as Herefordshire, Gloucestershire andWales. As early as the s he had become aPrimitive Methodist local preacher, thereby servingan apprenticeship in the difficult art of publicspeaking. In the middle of that decade he spentprecious pennies earned running errands and do-ing odd jobs on the purchase of newspapers, so thathe could read the speeches of William Gladstoneand John Bright. From these he formed his life-long political opinions.

By the early s Arch’s strong and deter-mined character was recognised by his fellow landworkers, at a time when pressure was growing foran improvement in their living conditions. Thesewere years of rising food prices and of trade unionagitation among many workers, including those inthe building and engineering industries who were

BiographyPamela Horn Pamela Horn Pamela Horn Pamela Horn Pamela Horn tells the story of one of the first working men

to be elected to Parliament, Joseph Arch (1826–1919)

The farm workers’The farm workers’The farm workers’The farm workers’The farm workers’championchampionchampionchampionchampion

demanding a reduction in the length of theirworking day. A new Trade Union Act passed in, which explicitly legalised registered unionsand provided security for their funds, also gaveadded impetus to the labour movement. Yet, de-spite sporadic attempts at organisation amongfarm workers in Herefordshire, Leicestershire anda few other areas, the agricultural labourers – thelargest single sector of the work force – seemedunable to combine effectively. In April theIllustrated London News commented dismissivelythat they had been ‘hitherto looked upon as thelowermost stratum of the industrial classes’.

It was in these circumstances that early in Febru-ary some local labourers went to Arch’s Barfordhome to ask him to hold a meeting in nearbyWellesbourne to highlight their grievances and topress for the formation of a trade union for landworkers. The vigour and self-confidence of Arch’sspeech on that occasion, demanding higher pay anda reduction in the length of the working day, wonthe support of those present and led to the holdingof many meetings elsewhere. Night after night Archtramped to neighbouring villages addressing enthu-siastic audiences. Soon the message was taken up inother parts of the country, aided by the support of asympathetic newspaper proprietor, J. E. MatthewVincent. He not only publicised the movement inhis Royal Leamington Chronicle but thereby alertedthe national press to the agitation. Later in the yearhe established the Labourers’ Union Chronicle, to act asa link for members throughout the country. It con-tinued publication, with some changes in name, un-til .

Years later the novelist Thomas Hardy paid trib-ute to Arch’s skill as a leader and effective publicspeaker. Hardy listened to him in Dorset, andwrote that:


Nobody who saw and heard Mr.Arch in his early tours throughDorsetshire will ever forget him andthe influence his presence exercisedover the crowds he drew … The pic-ture he drew of a comfortable cottagelife as it should be was so cosy, so wellwithin the grasp of his listeners’ im-agination, that an old labourer in thecrowd held up a coin between hisfinger and thumb exclaiming, ‘Here’szixpence towards that, please God!’‘Towards what?’ said a bystander.‘Faith, I don’t know that I can spakthe name o’t, but I know ‘tis a goodthing.’

Arch’s efforts and the activities of other,less prominent, leaders, led in lateMarch to the formation of theNational Agricultural Labourers’ Un-ion, with himself as president. The ini-tiative won the enthusiastic backing ofa number of sympathetic outsiders, es-pecially Liberal Party members fromBirmingham. They included JesseCollings, a close political ally and friendof Joseph Chamberlain. Within a yearmembership had reached about ,,concentrated particularly in the mid-land counties and in East Anglia.

The fledgling movement soon en-countered bitter opposition from farm-ers and landowners, not only to its de-mands for higher pay but over the fun-damental issue of workers’ right tocombine. Lock-outs and strikes fol-lowed, culminating in a major disputeearly in , affecting , – ,

unionists, mainly in East Anglia, one ofthe Union’s strongholds. Arch was atthe forefront of the resistance to theemployers, addressing meetings in theaffected areas and also undertakingfund-raising tours to the North of Eng-land to win support from urban tradeunionists and others.

Arch realised that if the bargainingposition of the workers vis-à-vis thefarmers was to be strengthened theymust encourage some members toemigrate. At the same time there was agrowing demand for labour in NewZealand, Australia and Canada. Indeed,in Arch had directly involvedhimself in the emigration movementby visiting Canada in order to investi-gate conditions for himself. Yet, despite

emigration and attempts at mediation,in the end the lock-out was a de-feat for the Union.

This led not only to disillusionwithin the membership but to splitsand divisions among the leaders, someof whom resented Arch’s autocraticstyle of leadership. They favoured afederal structure with more autonomyfor individual union districts, ratherthan the centralised approach favouredby Arch. In the long run most of theseregional bodies faded away. Only theKent and Sussex Union carried oninto the s, placing particular em-phasis on emigration to solve labourdisputes. Overall, however, theseevents seriously weakened the Na-tional Union and its membership fellfrom the , it achieved in to, a year later. The onset of agri-cultural depression, as cheap food im-ports combined with bad harvests inBritain undermined the prosperity ofmost agriculturists, further stiffenedemployers’ resistance to the Union andits president. Cash wages on the landfell from the peak achieved in –, although living standards were stillrising because of the cheaper food andmanufactured goods now coming onthe market.

Arch himself, meanwhile, continuedto spearhead the struggle to maintainand improve workers’ employmentconditions. In the political sphere hepressed for the vote to be given to ruralhouseholders, to match rights given tomale householders in towns in .He also gave unstinting support to hishero, William Gladstone, and to theLiberal Party. That included an en-dorsement of Gladstone’s powerfulcampaign against Turkish atrocities inBulgaria in –. Arch also took upthe cause of international peace, attend-ing a Workmen’s Peace Associationconference in Paris during . Headopted this pacifist stance despite thefact that his eldest son, John, was a ser-geant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

In the franchise was finally ex-tended to country householders. Thenext year, despite stiff opposition fromthe Conservative candidate, LordHenry Bentinck, Arch was elected Lib-eral MP for North-West Norfolk.

Some Liberal leaders, rather patronis-ingly, saw him as a valuable instrumentfor mobilising the newly-enfranchisedrural voters in favour of their party inthe vital county constituencies. Underthe Union’s aegis, for example, in theweeks leading up to the election, mockballots were held to instruct the labour-ers in the basic mechanics of voting.Significantly, too, Chamberlain andCollings promoted a so-called ‘unau-thorised’ political programme designedto appeal to rural workers, a key ele-ment of this being land reform to givethe labourer ‘a stake in the soil’. It wascaricatured by opponents under theslogan of ‘three acres and a cow’, but itproved popular with many labourers.The success of these joint efforts wassuch that for the only time in their his-tory the Conservatives did worse in ru-ral constituencies than in urban areas. Itwas doubtless in recognition of Arch’scontribution to this that the NationalLiberal Club organised a banquet in hishonour in January . Joseph Cham-berlain presided.

Arch’s electoral triumph provedshort-lived. When the Liberal Govern-ment split over the issue of HomeRule for Ireland, he lost his seat at the general election. This was despitea letter from William Gladstone urgingvoters in the constituency to continueto support him. The next few yearswere ones of considerable difficulty.The Union was very weak, withmembership standing at just over, by the end of . In additionthere were allegations of corruptionfrom opponents within the move-ment, as well as hostility to his au-thoritarian leadership. As regards theformer charge, surviving accountsmake clear that there was no financialmalpractice. The latter complaint hadmore validity in that he often failed tolisten to the views of critics or to makeconcessions to them.

At the end of the decade two eventsrevived Arch’s fortunes. The first was hiselection to Warwickshire CountyCouncil in . The second was anupsurge in trade unionism amongmany unskilled or poorly-paid workersas a result of the successful Londondock strike of August and an


accompanying brief general improve-ment in trade and employment pros-pects. This movement, usually labelled‘new unionism’, was largely socialist-led, however, and Arch had little sympa-thy with such political views or withthose promoting them. He remainedcommitted to old-style Lib-Lab poli-cies, like many other established unionleaders. He was wary of urban union-ists, fearing they wanted to influence‘his’ organisation for their own ends.

Nevertheless, the revival came at anopportune time for him, and in the gen-eral election of he was returnedonce more as MP for North-West Nor-folk. Membership of the NationalUnion, too, had risen again, reaching

around , by late , of whomover , had been recruited in Nor-folk. But the revival quickly faded andthe end came in October when theUnion was finally dissolved. Its demiseplaced Arch in financial difficulty andshortly before the dissolution LiberalParty friends organised a fund to providehim with an annuity. About £, wascollected, and an annuity of £ pur-chased; among the contributors was theformer Liberal Prime Minister, LordRosebery.

Arch remained an MP until ,when he retired to his cottage atBarford. He added little to his reputa-tion during this second parliamentarystint, rarely contributing to debates. He

found the late hours and the rituals androutine of the Commons uncongenial,especially as he was now well into hissixties. There is no evidence that LiberalParty leaders tried to keep him in hisplace or discouraged him from speak-ing in the Chamber. Indeed in –

he was asked to serve on the RoyalCommission on the Aged Poor. One ofhis fellow Commissioners was thePrince of Wales and Arch was proud ofthis link and of the fact that Sandring-ham lay within his constituency. In his autobiography was published,edited by the Countess of Warwick,who in a new-found enthusiasm forleft-wing politics began to take an in-terest in the old trade unionist wholived so near to Warwick Castle, andwhose grandparents and mother hadbeen Castle servants.

Arch was married twice. His firstwife, Mary Ann, was a domestic servantand the daughter of Isaac Mills, a car-penter from Wellesbourne Mountford.The marriage took place on February, and the couple returned to live inthe cottage where Arch had been born.It had been purchased by his maternalgrandfather and it was to be his homefor the rest of his long life. The Archeshad seven children, four boys and threegirls, of whom only the youngest girl,Elizabeth, failed to reach adulthood.Mrs Arch was a good mother and an ef-ficient manager of the household butshe played little part in her husband’strade union and political career. Some-what unfairly he blamed her for herlimited education, rather than blamingthe society in which she had grown up,declaring she ‘was not the woman mymother was … She … was no compan-ion in my aspirations’. Nevertheless, ifshe had no intellectual ambitions of herown, she certainly encouraged him toadd to his knowledge and his stock ofbooks, and she gave solid unobtrusivesupport to him in his later parliamen-tary career. Mary Ann died after a longillness on March , aged .

On December , Arch mar-ried again, his bride being MiriamBlomfield, the daughter of a Norfolksadler, about fifteen years his junior. Shehad been his housekeeper for sometime before his wedding.


After his retirement from Parlia-ment, Arch played little part in politics,although he did apparently make anunsuccessful attempt to set up a small-scale co-operative society. Neither didhe take any further role in agriculturaltrade unionism, even when a new or-ganisation was set up in Norfolk in. As he sadly commented to one ofthe leaders who visited him in , hiswork was ‘all done now’. He was simplytoo old. Even his support for PrimitiveMethodism had faded away.

Yet, when he died on February, his important contribution to theemancipation of farm workers was rec-ognised. His funeral service was con-ducted at Barford by the Bishop ofCoventry, and a message from DavidLloyd George, then Prime Minister,was read at the graveside by the Liberalcandidate for the Rugby constituency.The press, too, paid tribute. The Bir-mingham Daily Post in a ‘SpecialMemoir’ declared that as a union activ-ist ‘he was a more commanding figurethan any industrial agitator of recenttimes’. The Manchester Guardian of

February called him ‘one of themost remarkable leaders that the Eng-lish village labourers ever produced’.

At a time when class divisions werestrong and agricultural workers were de-spised and disregarded, Joseph Arch gavethem a sense of hope and self-confidence.His leadership embodied that spirit of so-cial protest and, by his focus on workers’

ills, he achieved a clear improvement intheir conditions. If this proved less sweep-ing and less permanent that he desired,nonetheless it meant they were neveragain dismissed as mere ‘clodhoppers’ or‘Johnny Raws’ as they had been beforehis advent and that of the ‘Revolt ofthe Field’ which he led.

Pamela Horn lectured at Oxford Polytechnic(now Oxford Brookes University) in eco-nomic and social history between and. She has since been a freelance lecturer.She has also written a number of books onBritish social history from the eighteenth tothe twentieth centuries, including a biogra-phy of Joseph Arch in . Her most recentbooks are Pleasures and Pastimes in Vic-torian Britain () and Life BelowStairs in the th Century ().

1 The Kent and Sussex Union was led by AlfredSimmons, editor of the radical Kent Messengerand Maidstone Telegraph. It was founded as a di-rect result of news of Arch’s movement in War-wickshire. It continued to be a strong union dur-ing the 1880s, changing its name to become theLondon and Southern Counties Labour Leagueand entering the next decade as one of the coun-try’s nine major unions. It was dissolved in 1895with a membership of 13,000 but it was alwayssympathetic to urban unionists in a way that Archnever was. See Rollo Arnold, ‘The “Revolt of theField” in Kent 1872–1879’ in Past and Present,No. 64 (1974), 71, 75 and 92–93

2 Arch unsuccessfully contested the Wilton con-stituency as a Liberal candidate in 1880. Duringthe late 1870s he addressed many Liberal Partymeetings as well as Union gatherings. PamelaHorn, Joseph Arch (1826–1919). The FarmWorkers’ Leader (Kineton, 1971) pp. 122–126and 152–156.

Liberator Liberator Liberator Liberator Liberator is the only independent magazine published for radical liberals. It acts as a forum for debatefor radicals in the Liberal Democrats and includes a mixture of opinion, news, gossip, book reviews andreaders' letters, not forgetting the legendary 'Lord Bonkers' Diary'. Founded in 1970 and run by avoluntary editorial collective, it is published eight times a year.

Annual subscriptions cost £20 per year. Send a cheque (payable to 'Liberator Publications') toLiberatorLiberatorLiberatorLiberatorLiberator, Flat 1, 24 Alexandra Grove, London, N1 2LF. For a sample copy of the latest issue, send acheque for £2.50.

Further reading:

Joseph Arch, The Story of His Life Told byHimself, edited by the Countess ofWarwick (London, 1898). This hasbeen reissued over the years,including in 1986, when it appeared asJoseph Arch, From Ploughtail toParliament (London: Cresset Libraryedn., 1986)

Alan Armstrong, Farmworkers. A Socialand Economic History 1770–1980(London, 1988)

Rollo Arnold, The Farthest PromisedLand (Victoria University Press withPrice Milburn, Wellington, NewZealand, 1981)

George R. Boyer and Timothy J. Hatton,‘Did Joseph Arch raise agriculturalwages?: Rural trade unions and thelabour market in late nineteenth-century England’, Economic HistoryReview, 2nd series, 47 (1994), pp.310–34.

Reg Groves, Sharpen the Sickle! TheHistory of the Farm Workers’ Union(London, 1949)

Pamela Horn, Joseph Arch (1826–1919).The Farm Workers’ Leader (Kineton,1971)

Alun Howkins, Poor Labouring Men.Rural Radicalism in Norfolk 1870–1923 (London, 1985)


The defeat of the Conservative Party Chairmanand Member of Parliament for Bath, Chris

Patten, in the general election was a surprise tomany people in the country at the time. The victoryof the Liberal Democrat, Don Foster, was, in addi-tion to being a personal triumph over a formidableopponent, a reaffirmation of Liberal strength in thecity. While the Conservatives held sway in Bath formost of the twentieth century, the Liberal Party wasdominant there for the greater part of the Victorianperiod. From the time of the Great Reform Act in and of municipal reform in , Bath in-creased its constituency from thirty to , voters,with a quarter drawn from the working class. Thecity had two MPs, often one Conservative and oneLiberal, and forty-two councillors, six in each of theseven wards. Liberal domination of the Town Coun-cil was sustained not merely through a majority ofcouncil seats, but also through partisan use of thealdermanic system.

By the s, Bath was no longer the resort of thefashionable elite who had departed to Brighton andBiarritz, and the city was cultivating a new genteelimage to attract middle-class visitors and residents ina bid to restore its fortunes. Bath had grown remark-ably during the eighteenth century, from , to, inhabitants, when it became the premier re-sort in Europe. By , the city had , peopleand shared with other Victorian cities a host of socialproblems: poverty, crime and, most embarrassing fora health resort, epidemic diseases such as cholera andtyphoid in and . An obvious tension ex-isted between the urge to lay on amenities to attractvisitors and the urgent need to address such prob-lems as the inadequate sanitary provision in the city.

Municipal LiberalismGraham Davis Graham Davis Graham Davis Graham Davis Graham Davis looks at the municipal record of the leader of

Bath’s Victorian Liberals

Sir Jerom Murch andSir Jerom Murch andSir Jerom Murch andSir Jerom Murch andSir Jerom Murch andthe ‘civic gospel’ inthe ‘civic gospel’ inthe ‘civic gospel’ inthe ‘civic gospel’ inthe ‘civic gospel’ inVictorian BathVictorian BathVictorian BathVictorian BathVictorian Bath

Enter Jerom Murch (–), a descendant of aHuguenot family that settled in England in theseventeenth century and of one of , noncon-formist ministers ejected from the Church of Eng-land in .

Murch was educated at University College Lon-don. He spent his early career as a Unitarian ministerin Norfolk before settling in Bath in , where hewas appointed minister of Trim Street Chapel in apoor part of the city. He became a supporter of theRadical MP J.A. Roebuck, but lacked his enthusi-asm for invective, and on Roebuck’s defeat by theTory Lord Ashley in , was singled out as chiefamongst his betrayers. He combined a preacher’soratorical skills with a politician’s ability to reachagreement in smoke-filled rooms.

Murch took a great interest in educational andphilanthropic institutions and established a politicalpresence through assiduous networking. His mar-riage to Anne Meadows brought him in due course£,, which enabled him to sustain a politicalcareer that extended over sixty years in Bath. Hehad a long association with the Bath Board ofGuardians, the Bath Literary and Philosophical As-sociation, the Bath Mineral Water Hospital, theTheatre Royal Company and the Grand PumpRoom Hotel Company, and was involved in im-provements to Victoria Park and the restoration ofBath Abbey. In total, these organisations had themerit of extending across class, political and reli-gious allegiances. Murch built a broad political basethrough personal contacts.

He became a member of the Town Council in and was elected Mayor of Bath in andagain in . In all he was mayor on seven occasions,


twice in successive years, stood for Par-liament unsuccessfully as a GladstonianLiberal in , and at the end of a dis-tinguished career he was knighted. Hewas the author of several works of reli-gious history and wrote about Bath’srole in relation to art, science, literatureand education. If there was one manwho could be said to be the leading fig-ure of Victorian Bath, it was assuredlyJerom Murch.

For all his successful ventures,Murch’s political philosophy in actionwas best represented by one major fail-ure in his municipal career – his per-sonal defeat over the Corporation Wa-ter question. Murch’s politics weregrounded in that dissenting traditionthat held a moral mission to be the im-pelling force of politics. Like fellow dis-senters George Dawson, and laterJoseph Chamberlain in Birmingham,Murch saw the potential for localcouncils to raise the moral conditionsof the people. It was certainly a pater-nalistic philosophy. Enlightened leadersproclaimed that what was good for thepeople was equally good for the com-mercial interests of the city. The rheto-ric of what became known as the ‘civicgospel’ sought to cut across class linesand vested and parochial interests, andto unite all citizens in a common pur-pose, so that they would all gain fromthe increased prosperity of the city.

The civic gospel was founded on abelief in a common moral purposethat incorporated the responsibilitiesof the social elite and the needs of thepoorest in society, and reconciledthem through the agency of municipalgovernment. Yet in Bath, a city seen asa place where social harmony charac-terised class relationships, the civicgospel failed to override the frag-mented social structure that so oftenthwarted proposed improvementmeasures during the s. One of theobstacles to achieving support for im-provement measures, such as in thecity’s water supply, was the continua-tion of old powers for each of the cityparishes. This state of affairs perpetu-ated a narrow, parochial mentality atthe expense of schemes for the im-provement of the whole city.

A fear of adding a burden to the rateslimited the progress of public health

provision. The city’s response to thePublic Health Act promised more thanwas delivered when the Bath City Actwas passed in . The corporationbecame the local board of health, estab-lishing its own powerful subcommittee,the City Act Committee, but most of itspowers, such as the right to appoint aMedical Officer of Health (MOH), andto register slaughterhouses, were notinvoked directly. It was not until ,under the leadership of Murch, that thecity began a civic programme of im-provement that prompted the revival ofthe city’s prosperity but also provided acomprehensive corporation water sup-ply, the appointment of a qualifiedMOH, extensive street improvements,the building of the Grand Pump RoomHotel, and the acquisition of the RoyalVictoria Park. Over the next fifteenyears, the civic gospel was increasinglyin evidence in Bath, with the corpora-tion endeavouring to provide a unity ofpurpose, investing in greater amenitiesto achieve prosperity for all its citizens.

But beneath the lofty tone of moral im-provement, sectional, class and paro-chial interests set limits on what thecorporation could achieve.

By the s, the increased demandfor water once more raised the issue ofimproving the supply. Between

and , the number of water tenantshad risen from , to , and aver-age supply per head per day had risenfrom six gallons to thirteen, although asufficiency was reckoned to be twenty-five gallons. Additional sources of sup-ply were needed to meet the growingdemand for water. Amidst widespreaddissatisfaction at the shortage of water,especially in the dry summers of

and , the council prepared a majorscheme to extend the municipal watersupply. The visit of the British Associa-tion to Bath added a new sense of ur-gency. The authorities were clearly anx-ious that nothing should impair Bath’sreputation as a health resort. A letterfrom ‘Civis’ to the Bath Chronicle pokedfun at the council’s past neglect:

Sir Jerom Murch: bronze bust by Sir Thomas Brock RA, presented by the citizens of Bathto the corporation in 1895.


It is quite delightful to see the state oftrepidation into which our compla-cent Corporation has been thrownby the thoughts of the approachingvisit of the British Association. It re-minds one strongly of boys at schoolwho have been idle, and are at lastfrightened at the near prospect of asound whipping … Let us look at theBath Railway Station, the public flysand carriages, the pavements, thebotched Market, and many otherthings, and ask ourselves how thesewill look in the eyes of travelled men– whether they are as they ought tobe in . Let us no longer live upona reputation made for us sixty oreighty years ago, and almost if notquite worn out, but let us set about inright earnest to earn one for our-selves worthy of the present day.

As pressure for public health improve-ments grew, investigation revealed newevidence of inadequate sanitary provi-sion and a deficient water supply. Animprovement scheme was duly pre-pared by Murch and submitted to thecouncil. The proposal failed to secure amajority and was sent for approval to apublic meeting in the Guildhall in April. In a stormy confrontation the di-visions within the council and amongstthe public were all too evident. Murchand his colleagues were defeated.

The central objection was thescheme’s estimated cost of £,,

which alarmed both the wealthy resi-dents of Lansdown and the pettyshopkeepers of the city. Lansdown hadits own private water supply and itsresidents were unwilling to pay addi-tional rates without receiving any ben-efit themselves. The shopkeepersfeared that an increase in rates wouldthreaten their business interests. Thepoor, identified as the main beneficiar-ies of the scheme in receiving a watersupply for the first time, were largelyunrepresented in the council.

After the defeat of the Water Bill in Murch acknowledged thestrength of opposition but still pro-claimed his faith in a civic gospel of im-provement:

With all my heart, sir, I trust that fu-ture efforts may be made, and that inevery respect they may succeed. For Ido not abate one jot of the principlewith which I started – that no greaterduty devolves on those in power thanthat of seeing the city well suppliedwith water. And of this who candoubt, that, although Bath may, forreasons seeming good to her, delaythe great work, she will ere long doit? She will not let heathen cities inancient times put her to shame; shewill remember what her neighbourBristol is doing, how Glasgow hasgone to Loch Katrine for water, andhow London will probably go to themountains of Wales; she will grumble

a little more, and then trusting thather debts will be diminished, and hercoffers replenished, she will enablesome future Mayor to boast thatevery house in the beautiful city overwhich he reigns – every house, eventhe poorest – has its stream of pureand healthy water.

Despite the ratepayers’ rejection of thescheme, the impetus for reform wasmaintained. Murch withdrew from thecampaign but a new champion arose inthe figure of Samuel Sneade Brown, theself-styled scourge of the council onsanitary matters. In a series of blisteringpamphlets written in , Brown de-nounced the neglect of public healthprovision in Bath. His impact on pub-lic opinion was strengthened with theappointment of Bath’s first MOH, Dr.C. S. Barter in , who investigatedand reported on the sanitary conditionof the city in and . His find-ings, published in , confirmedBrown’s previous indictment of pastneglect. He naturally supported thecampaign to increase the water supply,making the telling point that every in-dividual in Manchester had ‘more thanten times the quantity of water’ thanthe citizens of Bath.

In , after a decade of discussions,a fairly comprehensive municipal watersupply was established in Bath. Follow-ing the Act, virtually all the citi-zens of Bath enjoyed the benefits of agood water supply. By , ,

houses and , inhabitants weresupplied with a daily average approach-ing thirty gallons per head. A major ad-vance had been accomplished in boththe quantity and quality of water.

The key point about the events anddebates on the water question is theunpredictability of the situation.Council policy was not frustratedmerely by the permanent oppositionof a few vested interests. Instead, eventswere influenced by chance happen-ings, by individual personalities, and bythe volatility of the public mood. Itwas the shifting alliances among theelected councillors, and the changingperception of the voters in Bath thatdictated the defeat of the council wa-ter scheme in and the passing ofthe Bath Waterworks Act in . The

Bath: the eighteenth-century Guildhall with late Victorian extension, one of themonuments to the work of Jerom Murch.


latter was a compromise reached as aresult of the conflicts of the s. Lo-cal landowner Mr. Gore-Langton, ofNewton St. Loe, had demanded£, in for seven acres ofland on which the vital spring waterneeded to supply Bath was located.This level of compensation was seen asoutrageous by the citizens of Bath andstoked up class resentment against thescheme itself.

The hostile mood against the coun-cil was compounded by a spirited cam-paign for extending the parliamentaryfranchise which chose as its target Lib-eral leaders, such as Murch, who wereseen as unwilling to include workingmen within the party organisation. Inthe different climate of opinion afterMurch’s departure and Sneade Brown’scampaign, Gore-Langton had to settlefor £, compensation. Brown’s in-vestigations found that the private wa-ter supplied to Lansdown was suspectand in he was able to turn thesupport of the wealthy Lansdown lobby,who had successfully opposed the

plans, in favour of the Corporationscheme. Ironically, suburban Lansdownwas the least well-served part of the cityfor some time to come.

Murch came back for several morestints as mayor and his last political actwas to steer through council the ex-tensions to the Guildhall in the s.There were many fine obituary no-tices following his death in . In the Bath Year Book observed that‘almost every local institution whichcould claim to exist for the publicgood had to place on record its grate-ful recognition of services which hehad rendered’. He also left a legacy tobuild a municipal art gallery, a cause hehad advocated for many years prior tohis death.

Proposals for a gallery revived anongoing debate over the question of amunicipal lending library. The acquisi-tion of cultural amenities such as li-braries gave expression to civic pride,but also encompassed the wider issueof the city’s economic prosperity.Some councillors argued that theywere a sound investment, pulling inpotential visitors and new residents.Others believed that any rise in the

rates would only antagonise existingratepayers and deter prospectiveincomers. The art gallery was eventu-ally commissioned as a memorial toQueen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in, in conjunction with a referencelibrary which would house the Guild-hall collection of local books. The totalcost was met by the legacies of Murchand Mrs. Roxborough, supplementedby additional subscriptions fromprominent citizens and residents. This‘municipal charity’ saved on the ratesand provided an opportunity to dem-onstrate a commitment to the civicgood through publicly acknowledgeddonations.

The spirit of civic union was popu-larised by leading citizens and clergy-men such as the rector of Bath, who as-serted in a speech of : ‘We arelearning to set aside our differences, tothrow away the scum of religious dis-like and partisan jealousy and hatred …valuing our fellow citizens only as theylive together in amity and peace, andare fellow labourers in the cause of thecivic good.’

The concept of the civic good in thes was the successor to the civicgospel of the s. That this kind ofpolitics endured was testimony to theneed to overcome the protracted wran-gles in the council chamber and to at-tempt to reconcile the conflicting in-terests of all sections of society beyondthe Guildhall. Beneath the veneer ofsocial harmony in genteel Bath, classand sectional interests competed withthe moral purpose of Jerom Murch andthe civic gospel. Today, local authorities

are heavily dependent on the financialsupport and political direction of cen-tral government, which limits the en-trepreneurial activity of civic leaders.Yet the civic gospel, stripped of itsmoral earnestness, has certain echoes ofmodern ‘third way’ politics, combiningbusiness enterprise with social amelio-ration. While the state of public servicesdominates national politics, in the re-generation of cities such as Birming-ham and Manchester there is an his-torical continuity with the ideas ofJerom Murch and Victorian Bath.

Dr. Graham Davis is Course Director of theMA in Local and Regional History and theMA in Irish Studies at Bath Spa Univer-sity College, and is co-author, with PennyBonsall, of Bath: A New History (KeeleUniversity Press, ).

1 For a more detailed view, see G.P. Davis, ‘Imageand Reality in a Victorian provincial city: a work-ing class area of Bath, 1830–1900’, unpublishedPhD thesis, University of Bath (1981), ch. 8, pp.503–92.

2 Liberal Leaders of Somerset, A. M. Press(1890), pp. 125–28.

3 Alex Kolaczkowski, ‘Jerom Murch and Bath Poli-tics, 1833–1879’, in Bath History, vol VI (1996),pp. 155–73.

4 Bath Chronicle, 11 August 1864.5 Letter from J. Murch, Bath Chronicle, 26 April

1866.6 S. Sneade Brown, The Wants of Bath (1867);

How We are Governed (1867); What can bedone (1867).

7 C. S. Barter, Report on the Sanitary Condition ofthe City and Borough of Bath during the years1867 and 1868 (1869), p. 14.

8 Rev. CM. Shickle, authorship attributed, Historyof the Bath Waterworks, published by order ofthe Council, Bath (1878).

9 Bath Yearbook, 1896.10 Bath Chronicle, 13 December 1890.

Bath: Bathforum House, the original design for the Grand Pump Room Hotel by Wilsonand Willcox, 1865.


When the time came I went down to canvass,and spent, I think, the most wretched fort-

night of my manhood.’ As an unsuccessful candidatemyself, I sympathise with this heartfelt epitaphpassed by Anthony Trollope on his attempt towin a Parliamentary seat, but what went wrong andwhy did it scar his subsequent writing?

After an unsure start in life, Anthony Trollope hadbuilt a successful career in the Post Office – heclaimed responsibility for the invention of the postbox. For a while, he combined the civil service withwriting, but success as an author allowed him to re-tire from official life. His first novel made only £,but in he was paid more than £, for OrleyFarm and continued to make substantial sums for hisregular output of one to two novels a year through-out the s. His most famous works, the BarsetshireChronicles, were published in the period –,and the Palliser series, which capture so much of theatmosphere of mid-Victorian politics, was publishedbetween and .

From his youth Trollope had nurtured a dream –‘I have always thought that to sit in the British Par-liament should be the highest object of ambition toevery educated Englishman’. Political authors are nonovelty, as Disraeli’s well-known success illustrates,but fewer realise that Thackeray stood unsuccessfullyfor the Liberals in Oxford (City) and that Dickenswas tempted by an invitation to stand for the party.Trollope’s ambitions were not unusual.

Trollope had hoped for a safe Liberal seat in Essexbut, beaten at the selection stage, he went on a missionto the US for the Post Office. While he was away,Disraeli secured a dissolution for the first election onthe franchise recently broadened by the second Re-form Act, through which he hoped to ‘dish theWhigs’. As might be expected, by the time Trollopereturned, his choice of constituency was limited. Hesettled on Beverley, a two-member borough in York-shire, which had grown rapidly in the IndustrialRevolution. Between and , its populationhad increased from , to ,, while its elector-ate increased from , in to , in .Beverley was one of only eight constituencies in the

country where artisans were a majority of the elector-ate. Trollope was joined by the Hon. MarmadukeMaxwell, the eldest son of Lord Herries, a Scottishpeer with a recently restored title who was a substan-tial Yorkshire landowner. His Conservative opponentswere Sir Henry Edwards, a local businessman and MPsince , and Captain Edward Kennard, ‘a youngman of fortune in quest of a seat’.

‘My political ideas were leatherand prunella’When Trollope arrived on October, his agentcheerfully greeted him, ‘You don’t expect to get in!’An optimist, like all candidates, Trollope respondedthat while not ‘sanguine,’ nevertheless he was ‘dis-posed to hope for the best’. The campaign began inearnest. As Trollope recalls in An Autobiography, ‘In thefirst place, I was subject to a bitter tyranny fromgrinding vulgar tyrants. They were doing what theycould, or said that they were doing so, to secure me aseat in Parliament, and I was to be in their hands forat any rate the period of my candidature.’ Well, that isone way to describe your campaign team.

From morning to evening every day I was takenround the lanes and byeways of that uninterestingtown, canvassing every voter, exposed to the rain, upto my knees in slush, and utterly unable to assumethat air of triumphant joy with which a jolly, suc-cessful candidate should be invested … At night,every night, I had to speak somewhere, – which wasbad; and to listen to the speaking of others, – whichwas much worse.

His disdain was not universally shared and campaignmeetings collected audiences of up to , in anarea with a population of around , and anelectorate of ,.

Trollope’s election address, dated October, was published in the Beverley Recorder on

November. It contained three key pledges:

• Loyalty to the leader, Gladstone. (Liberal disunityhad put a minority Tory government into powerin .)

CampaigningTony Little Tony Little Tony Little Tony Little Tony Little examines novelist Anthony Trollope’s campaign

for Beverley in Yorkshire in 1868.

Value for moneyValue for moneyValue for moneyValue for moneyValue for money‘


• Disestablishment of the Church ofIreland. (This was the issueGladstone had used to reunite theparty. As Trollope said, ‘The Protes-tant Church as it now stands estab-lished in Ireland means the ascend-ancy of the rich over the poor, of thegreat over the little, of the high overthe low’.)

• Free universal education. ‘I am ofopinion that every poor man shouldhave brought within his reach themeans of educating his children, andthat those means should be providedby the State.’ This more radical pro-posal took many years to achieve, buta start was made with the Edu-cation Act.

Trollope feared that his messages wereunpalatable to local Liberals. ‘But per-haps my strongest sense of discomfortarose from the conviction that my po-litical ideas were leather and prunella tothe men whose votes I was soliciting.’In particular, the local working menwanted the secret ballot, whichTrollope rejected as ‘unworthy of agreat people’ while the nonconformistswanted more control over the sale of al-cohol; Trollope preferred ‘moral teach-ing and education’. He was probably

unduly modest about his oratory, as thelocal paper recorded the cheers thatgreeted his attack on an Irish Churchthat ‘looks upon the state as its support’.Certainly the Conservatives offeredonly weak opposition on the platform,with Sir Henry Edwards reduced tocalling Gladstone not just a RomanCatholic but, worse, a Jesuit – accusa-tions so heinous (and so erroneous) thathe was still embarrassed by themmonths later. The Conservatives offeredthe Liberals a deal. If they withdrewTrollope’s candidacy, the Conservativeswould ask Kennard to step down, guar-anteeing each party a seat and savingboth sides’ election expenses. Trollope’ssupporters refused.

‘They haven’t won fair’Under the law, fully supported byTrollope, voters discharged ‘their dutyopenly’ at the hustings. Open votinghad many advantages for party workers– there were no modern inconven-iences such as inaccurate box samplingat the count and waiting for the out-come, while ‘knocking up’ could becorrectly targeted and canvassingrecords properly maintained. For voters,the picture was more mixed. Voting for

the wrong side might bring brickbatsfrom the crowd and tended to lay thevoter open to intimidation, either im-mediate and physical or more subtle (aswhen an employer later gave an em-ployee notice). Voting for the right sidecould, and frequently did, bring imme-diate financial benefit with the scale ofthe bribery adjusted to the closeness ofthe anticipated result. For those requir-ing extra courage or anaesthetic, drinkwas frequently and plentifully availableat the candidates’ expense.

At the final public meeting, the strawpoll had favoured the Liberals. This wasa strong indicator of popular sentiment,but was not always reliable since noth-ing prevented non-electors from par-ticipating. The local newspaper recordsthat at a.m. on November (elec-tion day) the Liberals led, but by a.m.the parties were neck and neck. Bynoon the Conservatives had begun topull ahead. The final results were:

Sir Henry Edwards (Con) ,

ElectedCaptain Edward Kennard (Con)

ElectedHon. Marmaduke Maxwell (Lib)

Mr. Anthony Trollope (Lib)

The mayor’s attempts to declare the re-sults were drowned out by cries of‘bribery’ and ‘They haven’t won fair’from the , strong crowd while ‘halfbricks and other missiles were thrownwith great force towards the Conserva-tive side of the hustings’. Protectivebarricades were pulled down and an at-tempt was made to destroy the hustings.According to the Hull News, Liberalsympathisers ‘forced an entrance into[the] Tory committee room and tookpossession of a money bag and somedocuments.’ As Dickens’ description ofthe Eatanswill election in Pickwick Pa-pers suggests, Beverley’s was not unusualfor an early nineteenth century electionand positively tame by contemporaryIrish standards. However by cus-toms were changing and a bribery peti-tion was instigated.

‘They meant to carryboth events’Trollope’s Autobiography draws a discreetveil over the proceedings at this point


but what had happened? Reports inThe Times suggest, that, while corrup-tion preceded the arrival of Sir HenryEdwards and tainted both parties, SirHenry’s team, led by Mr Wreghitt, adraper, introduced both system and ef-ficiency. Naturally, as Chairman of theBeverley Waggon Company, Sir Henryexpected loyalty from his staff. Theother senior managers were Conserva-tive councillors and were accused of‘having actively intervened in promot-ing the system of bribery which pre-vailed’. Three workmen were dismissedfor voting Liberal.

Secondly, the Conservatives set outto capture all the borough’s majorsources of patronage. Even the electionof churchwardens was perverted forparty purposes to control the dispersionof their funds. Sir Henry was a memberof the United Ancient Order of Druids,though his subscription was paid by Mr.Wreghitt. He enjoyed a reputation forgenerosity to local charities, thoughthat was commonplace when MPswere drawn from among the wealthyand there was little or no state welfare.

More important, from its promi-nence in the petitioner’s case, was thepatronage arising from an Actregulating Beverley’s pastures. Initially,the twelve ‘pasture masters’ elected by‘pasture freemen’ were divided be-tween the parties, but throughWreghitt’s ministrations themasterships all came under Conserva-tive sway. Freemen were entitled tovote at parliamentary elections with-out other property qualifications and

claim on the charitable funds adminis-tered by the masters. Consequently,there was little surprise that that loyalConservatives had their freemen feespaid from party funds and receivedmoney from a charity established in under the will of a Mr. Walker.Walker’s bounty was to compensatepoor freemen for the death of theirsheep or pigs but to freemen votingthe right way money was paid withoutevidence of the loss of livestock while

little compensation was paid to free-men known to back the ‘Yellows’.There was even less surprise that thethirty-one tradesmen and twenty-twoworkers supplying the pasture mastersoverwhelmingly backed the Tories.

Finally, there was the town council.Recognising the changing climate, itappears that the Conservatives did notbribe directly during the general elec-tion but concentrated on the earliermunicipal election fought on No-vember. Wreghitt set up base in theGolden Ball using Mr Watson, an auc-tioneer, as paymaster. Their plan was topay twice the going rate in the expecta-tion that the venal voters supportedthem at both elections. In the face ofsuch Conservative generosity, the Lib-erals withdrew from the council con-test. As an example, the inquiry heardthat Mr. Vernon, a Conservative can-vasser, promised Thomas Duffill, aworker at the Grove Hill ManureWorks, shillings (p) despite thefact that the Tories were already – votes ahead, because they ‘meant tocarry ‘both events’ on that day’. Duffillrushed off to the Golden Ball, as hefeared ‘all the money would be gone’.

Gladstone speaks to the crowd at Greenwich. Note the table of pressmen at the front.

At the rear of the hustings, the candidate arrives. Gladstone at Greenwich.


We all know that all politicalparties indulge in stealing each

other’s policies from time to time –indeed, the party’s opponents mightallege that Liberal Democrats havebecome quite accomplished at it overthe years! But now it’s the Conserva-tives’ turn. So impressed have theTories apparently been by the activitiesof the LDHG that they are forming aConservative History Group.

Its aims are the same as those of theLDHG – to promote discussion andknowledge about the history of theparty. In addition to holding speakermeetings and debates, the CHG willalso be publishing a ConservativeHistory Journal, initially twice a year.

There may also be proposals to holdjoint events with the Liberal DemocratHistory Group, and indeed, the LabourHistory Group, which has also recentlybeen formed. The first of these isexpected to be in May , on thesubject of ‘The Fall of the LloydGeorge Coalition’.

The driving force behind the CHGis Iain Dale, the owner of Politico’s,who has just been added to theConservatives’ approved list of Parlia-mentary candidates. He says: ‘Politico’shas had a long association with theLDHG and I have admired its activi-ties, albeit from over the political fence.It is odd that a Tory equivalent hasnever been formed, so I wanted to

right an historical wrong! The reactionso far has been highly encouraging andif current recruitment is any guide, weexpect to have well over membersby the end of the year. I am delightedthat Keith Simpson MP has agreed tobe the inaugural chairman. We havelots of ideas for exciting events overthe next twelve months and I hope towelcome many friends from theLDHG to them.’

If you are interested in joining theConservative History Group, pleaseemail:

[email protected] visit:

www.conservativehistory.org.uk

Other voters were offered as little as

shillings (p) or as much as s d(Hp). Ten shillings could easily repre-sent a week’s wage or more at that time.In total the Conservatives had £

available on November. Evidencegiven to the judge and reported in TheTimes suggested that a normal councilelection cost around £ and that themost previously paid for a contestedelection had been £.

‘A great success’The judge found that, in total, around, men had been bribed. This jus-tified voiding the election. Subse-quently a parliamentary commissionwas established in which tookup the long history of bribery in theseat. Beverley had an unusual recordof being contested in all but five elec-tions between and . All theelections between and

were contested, but Beverley neverreturned the same pair of MPs twicerunning. It is suggested that this wasbecause of the cost of the induce-ments, which were paid by both sidesaccording to a well-established tariff.Between and , there had

been five legal petitions seeking tooverturn the election results. One ofthese even alleged impropriety by areturning officer and another suc-ceeded in unseating E. A. Glover, whostood as a Liberal Conservative (usu-ally called a free trade Conservativeor Peelite). It was the subsequent by-election in that brought CaptainEdwards to the constituency. As wasinevitable, once all the facts werewidely known, the constituency wasdisenfranchised.

But ‘no corrupt practices had beenproved to have been committed withthe knowledge’ of the Conservativecandidates, who, of course, remainedgentlemen. Sir Henry Edwards re-turned to Halifax to resume the chair-manship of the bench of magistratesand, in , Kennard, by then Lieu-tenant Colonel, won Lymington forthe Conservatives. In October,Trollope’s jovial agent had concludedhis initial conversation by saying ‘Ohno! You won’t get in. I don’t supposeyou really expect it. But there is a finecareer open to you. You will spend£,, and lose the election. Thenyou will petition, and spend another£,. You will throw out the elected

members. There will be a commission,and the borough will be disenfran-chised. For a beginner such as you are,that will be a great success.’

Trollope only paid £; he did notfund the petition, but drew little satis-faction from the prophesied success. Henever put himself forward again buttook his revenge in his barely disguiseddescriptions of Beverley and its elec-toral process in two subsequent novels,Ralph the Heir and Phineas Redux.

Tony Little is Chair of the Liberal DemocratHistory Group and stood for Hayes andHarlington in the general elections of and .

Further reading:

J. Halperin, Trollope and Politics(Macmillan, 1977).

H. J. Hanham, Elections and PartyManagement, Politics in the Time ofDisraeli and Gladstone (Longmans, 1959).

The Times, 10–12 March 1869.

A. Trollope An Autobiography (1883;available as an Oxford Paperback).

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery ...


Violet Bonham Carter was born in London on April , the daughter of Herbert Henry

Asquith and his first wife Helen Melland. Despite alack of formal education, she possessed a formidableintellect, and used it on behalf of the Liberal Partyand her father. She was devoted to Asquith –Churchill described her as his ‘champion redoubt-able’ – and to defending his reputation and beliefs.Through her efforts, she kept the standard ofAsquithian Liberalism flying well into the secondhalf of the twentieth century.

Bonham Carter was an active and effective publicspeaker for Liberalism, making her first politicalspeech in at the age of twenty-two and her lastin January in the House of Lords at the age ofeighty-one, just a few weeks before her death. Sheinherited her father’s gift for public speaking; articu-late and forceful, she projected her strong personalitythrough her deep melodious voice and quick pace.She could dominate any meeting with her rhetoricalskills, and, especially in later life, was much in de-mand as a speaker on both radio and television.

In Great Liberal Speeches, we included one of herlast speeches, against the Commonwealth Im-migration Act introduced by the Labour Govern-ment to stem the influx of Kenyan Asians fleeingKenya as result of President Kenyatta’s discrimina-tory ‘Africanisation’ policy.

Here we reprint a much earlier speech, given tothe National Liberal Club on March fol-lowing her father’s return to the House of Com-mons at the Paisley by-election the month before.Defeated along with most of the Liberal leadershipat the ‘coupon election’ of , Asquith’s victory atPaisley marked a major setback for the Lloyd GeorgeCoalition. At the age of sixty-six, Asquith resumedhis post of Liberal Leader in the Commons (takingover from Donald MacLean), a position he was tohold for a further five and half years. Despite a long

political career, his daughter Violet was never herselfto win a seat in the Commons, but was created a lifepeer in , entering the Lords as Baroness Asquithof Yarnbury.

The message of PaisleyI don’t know how to thank you for this wonderfulreception, nor to tell you what a great honour, whata tremendous privilege I feel it is, to be the very firstwoman who has ever addressed a fortnightly lunch.The only shadow on my happiness is the hauntingfear that I may be not only the first but, owing to thepoor quality of my performance here this afternoon,the last also. But I don’t mean to let these misgivingsspoil what is, after all, my treat. I’m determined toenjoy myself, even at the expense of my poor hosts:in fact, I’ve begun already.

If anything could have added to my pride andpleasure in being your guest here to-day, it is the factthat I have been introduced to you by Sir DonaldMaclean. Sir Donald Maclean has held our standardhigh and held it steady all through these, the darkestdays that Liberalism has ever known. But for him,there could have been no Paisley, and but for himthe Liberal Party, as a Party, to-day might not exist.

Bewildering popularitySir Donald has said far too kind and far too generousthings about me. I hope you will discount them. In fact,I want to begin by asking you to discount most of thethings you have heard about me lately. I have been thevictim, the happy victim, the lucky victim, at the handsof the Press, of a process which I believe is known in fi-nancial circles as ‘inflation’. It’s a thing which happensto the currency sometimes. But whether it is applied tomoney or whether it is applied to reputations, its aim

SpeechIan Hunter Ian Hunter Ian Hunter Ian Hunter Ian Hunter introduces the speech made by Violet Bonham

Carter on her father’s return to Parliament in 1920.

Hold on, hold out; weHold on, hold out; weHold on, hold out; weHold on, hold out; weHold on, hold out; weare coming’are coming’are coming’are coming’are coming’

‘‘‘‘‘


and its result are the same: that is, to makethings appear to be worth a great dealmore than they actually are. Well, that’swhat has happened to me. Don’t imaginethat I didn’t enjoy it. Of course I did. Itwas a curious and bewildering experi-ence for a child of the Old Gang to findherself honourably mentioned in theWeekly Dispatch; and when I read that myfather was a great statesman, and even agreat patriot, I felt just like Alice in Wonder-land and Alice Though the Looking Glassrolled into one.

A glorious themeI have chosen as my subject here this af-ternoon ‘Paisley’, partly because I knowthat it is due to the fact that I was oneof the troupers of the Paisley stage that Iowe my invitation here to-day; partlybecause it is the only subject in theworld on which I could trust myself toaddress you for twenty-five minutes,which, I understand, is the prescribedtime, without getting hopelessly out ofmy depth; and partly because it is atheme so glorious that it needs no helpfrom me – it plays itself.

I don’t know where to begin – Icould talk to you about it for ever. Idon’t know whether to tell you aboutits little incidents, intimate and subtle;whether to dwell on the vast issues wefelt to be at stake, the immense resultsthat we feel have been achieved forLiberalism – for this country and forthe world; or whether to describe toyou the drama of our own hearts – thedoubt, the hope, the fear, the nightmareof uncertainty, the ecstasy of fulfillment.There’s not an inch of Paisley that isn’thallowed ground to me.

First, I would like you to realise, andto put to my father’s credit, the fact thatit was a very gallant adventure. It was anenterprise, undertaken at the eleventhhour, in unknown territory, in a con-stituency which was held by a bare hun-dred at the last general election, under-taken in response to an invitation se-cured by a narrow majority of twenty-five in a divided Association – half ofwhich were, or thought they were, Coa-lition Liberals. Within a week of his ar-rival, there wasn’t a Coalition Liberal leftin Paisley. Coalition Liberalism collapsedlike a house of cards. It proved to have

been a mirage – a hallucination – whichperished at the first contact with reality.Within a week we were standing onfirm ground with the loyal, solid backingof the finest fighting force of Liberalsyou could find in this or any othercountry.

Labour reinforcementsWe were fighting on two fronts. We hadon our left a strong Labour candidate –strong because he was so moderate, aclean fighter, backed by a magnificentorganisation, a man who knew everycrease in the ground – for he had beenover the course a year ago. He washelped – I’m not sure whether helped isquite the right word – by various mani-festos and demonstrations from outside.There was one manifesto signed by cer-tain members of the Club. It didn’t dous any harm; on the contrary, I think itdrove some birds over our guns. Therewere demonstrations in the distancefrom Comrade Haldane and ComradeWarwick. We poor Liberals had nothingas gaudy to show as their red flags andtheir blue blood; but there again we no-ticed no ugly rush, no stampede to thestandard of Revolution when theirmanifestos appeared. I think, perhaps,that between them they have made thebarricade almost too safe for democracy.So much for our left.

The half couponOn our right we had a particularlycrude manifestation of Coalition Tory-ism, armed with half a coupon and afew handfuls of mud. Was the otherhalf of that coupon withheld from agenuine desire for our success? Or wasit withheld because the Prime Ministeris no willing godfather to forlornhopes? He is rarely to be found on

the burning deck,Whence all but he had fled.

The part of Casabianca – that noble butungrateful role – was left on this occa-sion, as it has been on others, to Mr.Bonar Law.

The coalition caseAfter reading Mr. McKean’s speechesthere were only two courses open to

me – either to laugh, or to feel verysick. As you may have heard, at one mo-ment there was a desperate attempt tomake my father’s ties the real issue ofthe election. This caused me greatalarm, because he wore during the con-test a series of ties that would easilyhave lost him the safest seat in Scotland;and I had to explain that he had neverused this ties as vehicles of his politicalopinions – having (thank Heaven for it)other ways of expressing himself.

Then there was my ‘German hus-band’. I was accused, not, I must say, byMr. McKean himself, but by his can-vassers, of having a German husband,and this put me in rather a hole as I wasnever throughout the contest able toproduce the one and only bit of con-crete evidence I possessed to the con-trary. No doubt you will say all this wasbroad farce – but it was not intended tobe. There was a very disgraceful and avery carefully organised campaign ofcalumny on foot. Mr. McKean accusedmy father of pampering German pris-oners at home, whilst our prisonersabroad were tortured; of wringing withcongratulatory fervour the blood-stained hands of Sinn Feiners; and a Mr.Lane Mitchell, speaking for Mr.McKean and in his presence, said in somany words that my father was a friendof Germany.

These were not only the main, butthe only planks in the Coalition plat-form. If you examine them you will findthat they are a reductio ad absurdum of theGovernment programme at the last gen-eral election. They swept the countrywith it then. They pay the ‘freak’ fine forit now. The reason I quote them, at whatmay seem to you such unnecessary andtiresome length, is that I was amazed toread in Mr. Bonar Law’s recent speech atGlasgow that ‘he had followed the con-test closely, and that as far as he could see,Mr. McKean had put up a plucky fightfor which he deserved the congratula-tions of all Conservatives’. I can onlyhope Mr. Bonar Law is inaccurate insaying that he followed the contestclosely. If I were a Conservative I shouldfeel undying shame that the great andhistoric party to which I belongedshould, on a great and historic occasionlike that of the Paisley by-election, havehad a representative who fought with


such contemptible and such ridiculousweapons.

But, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. BonarLaw, who begins by saying that Mr.McKean deserves the congratulations ofevery Conservative, goes on to say thatthere is no doubt that in the end Mr.Asquith was returned by Conservativevotes. So, it appears, the Conservativeswho voted for my father are to congratu-late Mr. McKean! All I can say is that ifPaisley is in reality a Tory victory, a fewmore Tory victories like it would makethe leader of the Tory Party look ratherout of place in his present position. Theymight reduce him, as well as his politicalgodchildren, to the status of a freak. Andwhat about the Government of which heis one of the two accredited leaders? Whatdoes it now pretend to represent? NotLabour, and not Liberalism – that weknow. Apparently not even Toryism – ifthe Tory vote has just returned to powerits most avowed, its most determined, andits most formidable opponent. No, thetotally unrepresentative character of thepresent Coalition – the fact that it ex-presses neither the principles of any party,nor the will of the nation, the fact that itexpresses nothing but the passionate in-stinct for self-preservation of its own au-thors, is one of the plainest messages ofthe Paisley result.

The women’s voteMay I say just one word here about thewomen electors of Paisley, to whom Ifeel we owe our victory in so large ameasure. ‘How did your father get the

women’s vote?’ is a question I am askedover and over again, and I think there isno doubt whatever that we did get it.Our opponents would be the first to ad-mit that. I think my father got the wom-en’s vote largely by treating the womenvoters with intellectual respect. I wasamused to see some of the London pa-pers holding up to derision what theydescribed as his ‘Treasury Bench mannerwith the mill girls’. It is the greatest mis-take to imagine that the best way ofreaching women is by bad sentimentand worse jokes. How often have I seenthem approached on these lines, poorthings! It is called the ‘human touch’.

Woman’s place in politicsThere is another more ambitious butequally offensive line of attack. This is torelegate them entirely to what a manimagines to be ‘women’s subjects’. I re-member once, at a Committee onwhich I was working, seeing writtendown on the agenda paper, ‘Women’sSubjects – Vice and Drink’. Well, ladiesand gentlemen, I don’t wish to appear tospeak with levity or disrespect of eitherof these subjects – I am fully aware oftheir gravity and of their importance, butI can’t help rather resenting the sugges-tion that I and my sex generally shouldspecialise in them. Women should sharewith men the limitless horizon which isopen to us all alike. This is the only wayto sanity, to breadth of vision, to a rightbalance of social and political forces. Ithink women, once aroused, are naturalLiberals. Everyone is a Tory before hewakes up. Women are certainly individu-alists; and they are certainly Parliamen-tarians, as against Direct Actionists. Theybelieve in settlement by discussion ratherthan by any arbitrament of violence –whether it takes the form of war or ofgeneral strikes.

One more thing. Women are said –and this is sometimes used as an argumentagainst them, and as a demonstration ofthe danger of the women’s vote – womenare said to be very much influenced bypersonality. I think this is true; but if it istrue that they are very much influencedby personality, it is also true that they arevery good judges of character. As one ofour Paisley women said, in recommend-ing my father to her fellow-electors, ‘We

women have been at this business of siz-ing up men for many thousands of years;and is it likely that now we won’t knowthe right one out of three?’

Brightening skiesLadies and gentlemen, do forgive me forkeeping you so long. There is moreground than I can possibly cover. Youdon’t know how wonderful it was to seemy father – and all that I felt he stood for– daily gaining ground; you don’t knowwhat it was to see the little spark we hadkindled in Paisley spreading far and widelike a heath-fire, till the whole countrywas alight, so that if we looked north orsouth or east or west, everywhere thoseskies that have been dark above us for solong were reddened by the glow of Lib-eralism – alive again, awake, aflame. Weknow we were fighting for more thanPaisley. We were fighting for the soul ofLiberalism itself. That soul has beensaved; and with it the great message ofhope which I believe Liberalism, aloneof all political creeds, can bring – not tothis country alone, but to Ireland, to Eu-rope, to a distracted and suffering world.

A great wrong rightedMay I add one personal word, and that isthat I feel that Paisley has righted a greatwrong. I was with my father in Decem-ber , when he saw the party, towhose service he had given his life, shat-tered before his eyes, not by a frontal at-tack from without – that it could neverhave been – but by a betrayal fromwithin. He saw himself deserted by menwho owed him their political existence,by men whom he had never failed, bymen whom he had led from victory tovictory. He saw – and this was the hard-est thing of all for him to bear – he sawthose who stood by him go under. Thechoice of Paisley, the welcome of thewhole nation – for it is nothing less – hasmade some amends to a heart which wastoo great to be broken.

Sounds of victoryOne last scene – the closing scene of thedrama of Paisley. Let us remember it to-gether, for you have shared it with me. Itwill always be indelibly graven on my

Violet Bonham Carter in later life


mind: the sight of those great cheeringcrowds that thronged Whitehall and Par-liament Square the day that he took hisseat. When I went in out of the noise,into the silence of the House – theHouse in which I had seen him leadgreat armies to great triumphs; when Isaw that little gallant handful of menwhich is all his following now, and heardtheir thin cheer raised, for a moment Ifelt – is this all, are these all he has behind

him? But then I remembered the greatvoice of the crowd – it rang in my ears;and I knew that this, this was the voice ofEngland – not the drilled cheers of thoseconscript ranks on the Coalitionbenches. And I knew that our small forcethat day was like the little gallant garri-son of a beleaguered city that hears forthe first time the great shout of the re-lieving forces – ‘Hold on, hold out; weare coming’. And they are.

1 Labour’s candidate, J. M. Biggar, was endorsedby nine former Liberal MPs: A. V. Rutherford,Joseph King, R. C. Lambert, Hastings Lees-Smith, Charles Trevelyan, Charles RodenBuxton, Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, ArthurPonsonby and R. S. Outhwaite signed a letterappearing in the Daily Herald on 27 January,urging ex-Liberals to vote against Asquith.

2 The Conservative candidate, J. A. D. MacKean,was described by Asquith as a ‘foul-mouthedTory’.

The letters of Richard Cobden (1804–65). The letters of Richard Cobden (1804–65). The letters of Richard Cobden (1804–65). The letters of Richard Cobden (1804–65). The letters of Richard Cobden (1804–65). Knowledge of thewhereabouts of any letters written by Cobden in private hands,autograph collections, and obscure locations in the UK and abroadfor a complete edition of his letters. Dr A. Howe, Department ofInternational History, London School of Economics, HoughtonStreet, London WC2A 2AE; [email protected]. (For further detailsof the Cobden Letters Project, see www.lse.ac.uk/collections/cobdenLetters/)

The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. The party agent and English electoral culture, c.1880 – c.1906. Thedevelopment of political agency as a profession, the role of theelection agent in managing election campaigns during this period,and the changing nature of elections, as increased use was made ofthe press and the platform. Kathryn Rix, Christ's College,Cambridge, CB2 2BU; [email protected].

Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. Liberal policy towards Austria-Hungary, 1905–16. AndrewGardner, 22 Birdbrook House, Popham Road, Islington, London N18TA; [email protected].

The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). The Hon H. G. Beaumont (MP for Eastbourne 1906–10). Anyinformation welcome, particularly on his political views (he stood asa Radical). Tim Beaumont, 40 Elms Road, London SW4 9EX.

Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Edmund Lamb (Liberal MP for Leominster 1906–10). Anyinformation on his election and period as MP; wanted for biographyof his daughter, Winfred Lamb. Dr David Gill,[email protected].

Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War).Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War).Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War).Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War).Joseph King (Liberal MP for North Somerset during the Great War).Any information welcome, particularly on his links with the Unionof Democratic Control and other opponents of the war (includinghis friend George Raffalovich). Colin Houlding;[email protected]

The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. The political life and times of Josiah Wedgwood MP. Study of thepolitical life of this radical MP, hoping to shed light on the questionof why the Labour Party replaced the Liberals as the primarypopular representatives of radicalism in the 1920s.Paul Mulvey, 112 Richmond Avenue, London N1 0LS;[email protected].

Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935.Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935.Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935.Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935.Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, 1906–1935.Aims to suggest reasons for defections of individuals and developan understanding of changes in electoral alignment. Sourcesinclude personal papers and newspapers; suggestions about howto get hold of the papers of more obscure Liberal defectors

Research in progressIf you can help any of the individuals listed below with sources, contacts, or any other information — or if you know anyone who can —please pass on details to them. Details of other research projects in progress should be sent to the Editor (see page 2) for inclusion here.

welcome. Cllr Nick Cott, 1a Henry Street, Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE3 1DQ; [email protected].

Cornish Methodism and Cornish political identity, 1918–1960s.Cornish Methodism and Cornish political identity, 1918–1960s.Cornish Methodism and Cornish political identity, 1918–1960s.Cornish Methodism and Cornish political identity, 1918–1960s.Cornish Methodism and Cornish political identity, 1918–1960s.Researching the relationship through oral history. Kayleigh Milden,Institute of Cornish Studies, Hayne Corfe Centre, Sunningdale,Truro TR1 3ND; [email protected].

Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Liberals and the local government of London 1919–39. Chris Fox,173 Worplesdon Road, Guildford GU2 6XD;[email protected].

Crouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in theCrouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in theCrouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in theCrouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in theCrouch End or Hornsey Liberal Association or Young Liberals in the1920s and 1930s;1920s and 1930s;1920s and 1930s;1920s and 1930s;1920s and 1930s; especially any details of James Gleeson or PatrickMoir, who are believed to have been Chairmen. Tony Marriott, FlatA, 13 Coleridge Road, Crouch End, London N8 8EH.

Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Liberal foreign policy in the 1930s. Focussing particularly on Liberalanti-appeasers. Michael Kelly, 12 Collinbridge Road, Whitewell,Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim BT36 7SN

The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. The Liberal Party and the wartime coalition 1940–45. Sources,particularly on Sinclair as Air Minister, and on Harcourt Johnstone,Dingle Foot, Lord Sherwood and Sir Geoffrey Maunder (Sinclair'sPPS) particularly welcome. Ian Hunter, 9 Defoe Avenue, Kew,Richmond TW9 4DL; [email protected].

The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. The Unservile State Group, 1953–1970s. Dr Peter Barberis, 24Lime Avenue, Flixton, Manchester M41 5DE.

The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; The Young Liberal Movement 1959–1985; including in particularrelations with the leadership, and between NLYL and ULS. CarriePark, 89 Coombe Lane, Bristol BS9 2AR;[email protected].

The revival of the Liberal Party in the 1960s and ‘70s; The revival of the Liberal Party in the 1960s and ‘70s; The revival of the Liberal Party in the 1960s and ‘70s; The revival of the Liberal Party in the 1960s and ‘70s; The revival of the Liberal Party in the 1960s and ‘70s; including therelationships between local and parliamentary electoralperformance. Access to party records (constituency- and ward-level) relating to local activity in London and Birmingham, andinterviews with key activists of particular interest. Paul Lambe,University of Plymouth; [email protected].

The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79.The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79.The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79.The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79.The political and electoral strategy of the Liberal Party 1970–79.Individual constituency papers, and contact with members of theParty’s policy committees and/or the Party Council, particularlywelcome. Ruth Fox, 7 Mulberry Court, Bishop’s Stortford, HertsCM23 3JW.


Conrad Russell opened themeeting by stressing the party’s

commitment to pluralism. He observedthat both the Social Democratic andLiberal wings of the party had signifi-cant philosophical roots in commonand that as many good Liberal ideascame into the party from the SDP asfrom its traditional Liberal roots.

The seventeenth-century roots ofLiberalism had been built around acommon tradition of giant-killing.During – and the attempt toexclude James II and VII from thethrone, the forebears of the LiberalParty had been motivated by a com-mitment to an ascending theory ofpower. This asserted that power comesup from the people to those they elect,rather than coming down, like anavalanche, the other way. Although thiswas a seventeenth-century idea itremained a vital one. With it came acommitment to intellectual pluralismand the theories of Locke. Lockedistinguished between religion, whichhe thought was not the state’s business,and the enforcement of a commoncode of morality, which he thoughtwas exactly the state’s business.

In Russell’s opinion it was not untilJ. S. Mill that political thought wentbeyond that. And it was not until RoyJenkins became Home Secretary in themid-s that the country had aHome Secretary who was fully com-mitted to Mill’s principles. Russell

argued that the party’s commitment toMill’s principles was not completeuntil the policy paper on civil libertiesat the Liberal Democrat conference inspring closed the circle byincorporating the far-reaching ideathat the only reason for which a statemay interfere with the liberty of one ofits number was to prevent harm toothers. Concern about what would bebest for the individual’s own physicalor moral good was not sufficientjustification. ‘Now with the LiberalDemocrats’ commitment to pluralismgoes a long-standing commitment tothe rule of law, and the commit-ment to the security of judges and theindependence of the judiciary remainamong our key beliefs.’

Russell went on to argue that theLiberal Democrats are most regularlymisunderstood or misrepresented bytheir political opponents as being aparty that believes in a singular laissezfaire approach to the economy. Hequoted Mill’s statement that ‘trade is asocial act; whoever undertakes to sellany description of goods to the publicdoes but affect the interest of otherpersons and of society in general, andthus his conduct in principle comeswithin the jurisdiction of society.Accordingly, it was once held to be theduty of governments in all cases consid-ered to be of importance to fix pricesand regulate the process of manufacture.But it is now recognised, though not

until after a long struggle, that thecheapness and good quality of com-modities are most effectively providedfor by leaving the producers and sellersperfectly free, under the sole check ofequal freedom for the buyers to supplythemselves elsewhere.’ By this statementMill showed that his commitment toliberty and free trade were not logicallyinterdependent, and that his commit-ment to free trade only went as far aswas practical. This distinction openedthe door to the rise of New Liberalismat the start of the twentieth century.Russell stressed that it is the party’scommitment to ensuring the levelplaying field in economic policybetween buyers and sellers that separatesit from its political competitors.

Professor Michael Freeden, whospoke next, began with Hobhouse, oneof the principal philosophers of NewLiberalism. In Hobhouse arguedin Liberalism that freedom was only oneside of social life, and that mutual aidwas not less important than mutualforbearance. Freeden argued that thereis no such thing as Liberalism; rather,that there were many liberalisms –variations on a set of themes that maycontain family resemblances but whichcan mutate over time and space intodifferent patterns. Individuality, liberty,progress, well-being and reason may becontained within any liberal text, butnot necessarily in the same order ineach one. The core of Liberalism isconstantly reinterpreted and reappliedto changing circumstances.

Freeden views the New Liberalismas part of a seismic shift in WesternEuropean thought from the eighteenthcentury onwards, which occurred asfreedom came to mean removing thebarriers to natural growth and theopening up of individual choice.Individuals came to be seen as notbeing solely responsible for obstaclessuch as ill health and poverty and it wasrecognised that people would needhelp from friends and strangers toovercome such obstacles to growth.

Freeden argued that the NewLiberalism was a response to thesudden shock of the discovery of thehuman costs of the industrial revolu-tion. It was also a response to theemerging perception that capitalism

ReportReportReportReportReportOld Liberals, New Liberals andSocial Democrats: the LiberalDemocrats’ political heritageEvening meeting, July 2002 , with Earl (Conrad)

Russell, Baroness (Shirley) Williams and ProfessorMichael Freeden

Report by Ian HunterIan HunterIan HunterIan HunterIan Hunter


had not sufficiently delivered the goodlife to the majority of people. Liberalssuch as Hobhouse and Hobson arguedthat the increasing human interde-pendence of people generated a newneed for an enlightened society. Socialjustice became a goal in itself, as thewhole could not survive unless all itsconstituent parts were looked after.

Freeden summarised the philo-sophical heritage which contempo-rary Liberals can draw on as stemmingfrom two main areas. First, a set ofprinciples and policies developed inthe first two decades of the twentiethcentury that can be called the pursuitof welfare. Second, the inevitabledrawing in of the state to the Liberalorbit. Freeden argued that these twotrends met in the ideology of thewelfare state and its construct that theconcept of modern citizenshipentitles individuals to a share of thegoods of that society. The emergenceof these concepts of mutual supportand mutual vulnerability remainimportant to liberal thinking today.

The state’s accrual of the roles ofoverseeing and executing centraleconomic functions and of providingemotional and physical sustenance forits citizens in the early part of thetwentieth century enabled Liberals toplay a key role in humanising the state.The New Liberals believed in thebenevolent agency of the state sup-ported by democratic procedures.Liberals worked to harness the state asa major partner in social activity,working alongside individuals andemployers.

Shirley Williams spoke on thephilosophical underpinnings of theSDP and what its common threadswere with the Liberal Party. The SDPsaw itself originally as the new LabourParty. Since the Second World War thepredominance of Keynesian thinkinghad made people believe that the statecould match demand to supply andtherefore assist in the maintenance offull employment. This ability to‘manage’ capitalism and free marketsseriously undermined the attractionsof Marxism to many on the left bymaking capitalism manageable.

In the s the German SocialDemocratic Party buried its Marxist

tradition and practice and opened thedoor for European social democracy tomove away from centralisation andnationalisation towards more progres-sive views, similar in many ways to thoseof Grimond’s Liberal Party. It was thedesire to create a non-Marxist LabourParty, similar to the German example,that motivated at least some of thefigures who formed the SDP in .

The central influence on theformation of the SDP was the figureof Tawney and his approach toequality and open education. JohnStuart Mill was also an iconic figureto the SDP founders and his influencecan be seen in the joint Alliancemanifesto written in , with itsemphasis on constitutional reform,devolution for Wales and Scotland,devolution of power to regionalassemblies, human rights legislationand freedom of information. Theprinciples behind these proposalshighlighted the areas where bothtraditions could come together intotal amity.

Williams went on to argue that thehuge constitutional reform agenda thathas been achieved since the early sreflects great credit on the LiberalDemocrats and compares favourablywith the historic peaks of Gladstone’sHome Rule and disestablishmentagenda and with Lord Russell’s mid-nineteenth century Reform Act.Further common ground between theLiberal and Social Democratic wingsof the party could also be found in thecommon commitment to the princi-ples of a decentralised welfare state.

In considering economic power andthe tradition of the free market whichstemmed from the work of AdamSmith, Williams reminded the audi-ence that the author of the Wealth ofNations had been writing from withinEdinburgh’s small, extremely moraland well-educated society. Smith wasable to make assumptions aboutrelationships between people in societybeing based on fundamental trust. Itwas impossible to make such assump-tions today. The outcome of exportingfree market principles to societieswhere a sufficient degree of trust didnot exist were apparent in the chaos tobe found in much of modern Russia,

where the basic rules and regulationsupon which an efficient free marketdepended failed to exist. The SDP hadcome from a tradition that was con-cerned with how a society adapted andregulated the free market so that itworked efficiently. This was not atradition that Williams felt had oftentroubled the Liberal Party prior to. However, this had not hinderedthe relationship between the twoparties, as Liberalism had made the‘managerialism’ of the SDP look muchmore humane and attractive.

Williams said that the key challengefacing the Social Democratic andLiberal philosophies was the phenom-enon of different kinds of fundamen-talism, which spoke to deep emotionscreated by concern about inequality,and was not satisfied by traditionalpolitical processes, which were increas-ingly seen as remote and meaningless.Williams also found it curious thathistorically neither Social Democracynor Liberalism had fully taken onboard the significance of the women’smovement or the rise of inter-racial-ism. The Liberal Democrats had beenvery slow to recognise the power ofthese two movements, which hadmade huge changes to society withoutbeing very visible.

In summing up the dilemmas thatLiberal Democracy faces Williamsemphasised three main challenges:• How can Liberal Democrats think

through philosophically what adecentralised welfare state mightlook like?

• How far do we ensure that, withouta structure of law and regulation, thepowerful in a society do not con-tinue to determine the economy,shape and colour of that society?

• How far do we believe we shouldtake regulation, which at a certainpoint can shrivel the soul, butwithout which fair chances cannotbe guaranteed to the less privilegedparts of society?

The meeting spent some time discuss-ing the distinction between Liberalismand libertarianism. Professor Freedenargued strongly that liberty is a part ofLiberalism but is not the only part. Thepresence of the notion of liberty in apolitical philosophy does not mean that


it is a Liberal philosophy. Liberalism isan enormously complex philosophy ofwhich liberty is just one element. Inlibertarianism, liberty has been exagger-ated and blown up to eclipse the othercore components, such as a belief in thepower of progress.

There was also a question concern-ing to what extent the panel thoughtthat the current government was asocial democratic one? ‘Decreasingly’was the simple answer. Shirley Williams

member of the Empire MarketingBoard (–).

Thurso’s growing standing in theLiberal Party was shown when he wasmade Liberal Chief Whip in , andin he received his first ministerialposition when he became Secretary ofState for Scotland, a post which heheld for just over a year. By ,Thurso had become Leader of theLiberal Parliamentary Party, and was toremain so for the next ten years untilthe end of the war. During the waryears, he also returned to government,serving as Secretary of State for Airfrom –. Lord Thurso died on June .

Within the Thurso Papers, there is aconsiderable amount of official,political and constituency correspond-ence, also some speeches, and roughlytwenty boxes of material on the LiberalParty and Scottish Liberal organisation.There is virtually no wartime material,but Section IV of the papers doescontain correspondence (arrangedalphabetically by correspondents’names) and press cuttings from

on into the s. A section of papers

transferred from the Scottish RecordOffice form a separate and coherentgroup, consisting of papers of –

relating to the Scottish Office, theScottish Board of Health and Thurso’speriod as Secretary of State for Scot-land. The papers in the first box ofSection I are also particularly notewor-thy as they include Thurso’s corre-spondence with Winston Churchillfrom to .

The papers came into ChurchillArchives Centre through the goodoffices of the nd Viscount, in severalbatches between April andSeptember . The collection hadincurred two major misfortunes beforeits transfer to Cambridge. During thewar, the bulk of the Thurso papers thatwere being stored in Liberal Partyheadquarters in London were de-stroyed by an incendiary bomb. Afterthe war, a large portion of the remain-ing papers were destroyed in a fire thatbroke out at Thurso East Mains wherethey were being kept in a room abovethe laundry. Most of the papers thatwere rescued from this second blazewere severely damaged both by theflames and by water from the firemen’shoses. Section VI of the collectioncontains the charred remains of thisaccident which are too fragile tohandle, whilst those damaged fileswhich have already been repaired bythe Conservator have been placed intheir appropriate places within thecollection.

argued that Blair’s government had nodetermination to narrow the gaps insociety, and could not be considered aLiberal government either, as it had nocommitment to liberty, as demon-strated by its profound centralisingtendencies. Conrad Russell remindedthe meeting that the Liberal Demo-crats’ commitment to creating a levelplaying field was also a powerful toolto help deliver equality and to preserveliberty and should not be undervalued.

The papers of Archibald HenryMacdonald Sinclair, st Viscount

Thurso of Ulbster (–)broadly consist of boxes of con-stituency, parliamentary and LiberalParty correspondence of the s ands. Overall the papers date from to .

Lord Thurso, or Archie Sinclair, ashe was generally known, was born on October , the son ofClarence Granville Sinclair. Afterbeing educated at Eton and Sand-hurst, he entered the Army in ,but began his political career in ,when he became Personal MilitarySecretary to Winston Churchill, theSecretary of State for War. WhenChurchill moved to the ColonialOffice as Secretary of State for theColonies, Thurso went with him, ashis Private Secretary, from –,and in became the Liberal MPfor Caithness and Sutherland, a seatwhich he was to hold until .Later in the s Thurso held thepost of Temporary Chairman ofCommittees, House of Commons(–) and also worked as a

Archive sourcesArchive sourcesArchive sourcesArchive sourcesArchive sourcesThe Thurso papers at the ChurchillArchives Centreby Katharine ThomsonKatharine ThomsonKatharine ThomsonKatharine ThomsonKatharine Thomson

Archie Sinclair (Lord Thurso)


In Viscount Thurso’s own lifetime, hewas asked by the Scottish RecordOffice (in ) if he would depositthere the papers relating to his tenure ofthe office of Secretary of State and thesepapers were consequently deposited inEdinburgh early in . At the sametime, Viscount Thurso’s son began thetransfer of the residue of his late father’spapers (the st Viscount had died inJune ) to Churchill College. Thesepapers are now Sections I and II.

In January the Scottish RecordOffice agreed to transfer their Thursopapers, relating to his time as Secretary ofState for Scotland, to Churchill College,having first xeroxed them. This collectionwas catalogued in the National Registerof Archives (Scotland) Survey

(Additional) and comprises Section V ofthe Thurso collection.

By the spring of , ViscountThurso’s secretary, Miss Cynthia

Metcalf, was sorting and listing thepapers that were to be deposited atChurchill College in May and Sep-tember that year as Sections III and IV.

An online catalogue to the ThursoPapers is available on the AA web-siteat www.aa.pro.gov.uk/. The collec-tion itself is open for consultation byresearchers using Churchill ArchivesCentre, Churchill College, Cambridge:individual closures of files are indicatedin the catalogue. Churchill ArchivesCentre is open from Monday to Friday,am – pm. A prior appointment andtwo forms of identification are re-quired. Please see our website atwww.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/ forfurther details, including a list offurther collections relating to theLiberal Party, such as the papers of theDilke family, Sir Dingle Foot, LordGladwyn, Reginald McKenna and SirEdward Spears.

The best thing one can say aboutthe latest edition – the sixth – of

Chris Cook’s A Short History of theLiberal Party is that it exists. There is noother up-to-date history of the LiberalDemocrats and its predecessors(despite the title, the book actuallycovers Liberals, SDP and LiberalDemocrats) apart from JohnStevenson’s rather thin, frequentlyinaccurate and now dated Third PartyPolitics Since (Blackwell, ).Chris Cook and his publishers are tobe congratulated on bringing outsuccessive editions at increasinglyfrequent intervals (three editions in thelast ten years).

But I can’t help wishing it wasrather better. A good party history, itseems to me, ought to include adescription of the party’s leadingpersonalities, its internal structures andways of functioning, key elements of itsstrategy (or lack of one) at crucialmoments, and party philosophy andpolicy. It should show how it related tothe outside world (i.e. what differenceit made), its underlying bases ofsupport in the electorate, and, ofcourse, its electoral record.

This book really only scores wellon the last point, Liberal psephology,where it provides a comprehensiverecord of local, by- and general

election achievements. If it hadcovered all the other elements asthoroughly as this, it would be anexcellent source – and also, of course,a good deal longer. As it is, it is reallyquite unbalanced, lacking, in particu-lar, any real consideration of Liberalpolicy and ideology (although this isrectified a little in its material onrecent years).

The choice of the book’s startingdate is puzzling, as is in no way asignificant date in Liberal history. Infact, this is rather misleading, as the firsttwo and a bit chapters (out of twenty)cover the events of the nineteenthcentury, mainly starting in June

with the famous meeting in Willis’Rooms which saw Whigs, Radicalsand Peelites combining to bring downDerby’s Government. That date isnormally held to mark the origin ofthe modern party. In fact, although it israther short on what Liberals stood forand what Liberal governments actuallydid, this part of the book provides apretty decent summary of pre-twenti-eth century Liberal history.

But as the book gets more detailed,more and more errors and irritationscreep in. Events and people are men-tioned without any explanation ofwhat or who they were – for example,the Lloyd George Fund is referred toseveral times without us being toldwhere it originated (the sale of politi-cal honours); Violet Bonham Carter

ReviewsReviewsReviewsReviewsReviewsToo short a historyChris Cook: A Short History of the Liberal Party 1900

– 2001 (Palgrave, 2002, 288 pp.)Reviewed by Duncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan BrackDuncan Brack


makes an appearance without us beingtold she was Asquith’s daughter; in (though from the context you’dthink it was ), we are told thatCyril Smith seemed about to resign,but not what post he was thinking ofresigning from (actually, Chief Whip);and so on. One paragraph of theanalysis of the October electionresults is written in the present tense,having presumably remained uncor-rected since the book’s first edition in. Peter Knowlson, a member ofthe Liberal negotiating team overmerger with the SDP, has strangelymorphed into someone called AndyMillson. And the post-merger name ofthe party is given wrongly (it wasSocial and Liberal Democrats, neverSocial and Liberal Democratic Party),though it has to be said that Cookjoins legions of journalists in thatparticular error.

More seriously, Liberal thought iscontinuously sidelined. The chapter onJo Grimond’s period as leader refers tohis important policy innovations, suchas Liberal support for UK entry toEurope, and industrial democracy, inless than half a sentence, whereas theparty’s opinion poll and electoralrecord is examined in painstakingdetail. The defence debate at theEastbourne Assembly – the occasionwhen the Liberal-SDP Alliance beganto fall apart – is referred to with no

explanation of the background what-soever, while, once again, the samechapter looks at the Alliance’s electoralrecord in impressive detail. Pleasingly,however, the vote at Eastbourneis not represented as Liberal adoptionof unilateral nuclear disarmament(another common mistake), thoughthe vote at Llandudno againstCruise missiles (on a motion moved bya certain P. Ashdown), wrongly, is.

Palgrave, Chris Cook’s publishers,have done the book no favours. Itsuffers from several typos, poorpunctuation, blurry typography,erratic paragraph spacing and exces-sively narrow inside margins. Thereare no pictures except on the cover,and the index is too skimpy andfrequently wrong.

If you want a thorough and com-prehensive examination of Liberal,SDP and Liberal Democratpsephology, this book is for you. If youwant a fairly concise run-through ofthe key events in party history, it’s notat all bad. But if you want a more in-depth look at Liberal thinking, Liberalpolicies, Liberal people, and whatdifference they all made, I’m afraid tosay that this book is a disappointment.Now how about a seventh – com-pletely revised – edition?

A shorter version of this review originallyappeared in Liberal Democrat News.

Council; reading a reminder about a taxreturn from the Inland Revenue;compiling Government FundingCouncil time sheets; carrying outResearch Assessment Exercise adminis-tration in the University; dealing withHome Office statistics of numbers ofanti-social behaviour orders granted;and with Criminal Cases ReviewCommission figures for the numbers ofconvictions quashed by the Court ofAppeal. Numbers and compilingnumbers dominate all of our lives in thefirst years of the st Century. DavidBoyle’s book is an antidote to this.

Just because we all know somethingdoes not remove the benefit we gainfrom someone setting it out and tellingus what has actually happened andhow we got here. We all know that costor accountant’s reporting is not theonly or the most important way tomeasure what is valuable to us or insociety. Even though we all know this,it is still important that someoneactually sets out the state we are in andhow we got here. David Boyle hasdone that, and in doing so has pro-duced a very valuable piece of research.

David makes his critique of theover-reliance on statistics and account-ing by telling a story. The story islargely historical, with most of thechapters dealing with historicalmatters. It includes chapters onBentham and Mill and on Keynes. Thelink between Bentham, Mill, BertrandRussell and our very own ConradRussell are well known. I never knewbefore that there was a connectionbetween Keynes and the environmen-tal economist E. F. Schumacher. Theauthor is critical at times of the utilitar-ians but is always reasonably sympa-thetic to our political heroes. He is fairthroughout. His chapter on ‘theFeelgood Factor’ is even fair to politi-cians and manufacturers, suggestingthat they can’t (always) be held respon-sible for people not being happy (seepp. – ).

Other chapters which have a politicaledge are on the origins of the census,and on the growing modern acceptanceof sustainable investment strategies(chapter ). The chapter on the census isabout the th and th centuries,Chadwick and the development of the

Too many numbersDavid Boyle: The Tyranny of Numbers: Why counting

can’t make us happy (Harper Collins, 2001, 236 pp.)Reviewed by Kiron ReidKiron ReidKiron ReidKiron ReidKiron Reid

I can’t make up my mind whetherDavid Boyle is being revolutionary

or whether he is just saying somethingthat we all know already. His latestbook denounces the dominance ofaccounting and lambasts the obsessionwith statistics in modern times.

In everything that we do countingplays a major role. For example, I spent

today at a seminar by Her Majesty’sInspectorate of Constabulary about thecapital costs in a Best Value Review ofCleaning; discussing the budget at aconsultation meeting with NCIS andthe National Crime Squad; learning thecost of domiciliary care being consid-ered in a report by the ‘Cabinet’ (orExecutive Board) of Liverpool City


Poor Law, and therefore doesn’t includethe Young Liberal objections to thecensus of the s. It does include lotsof interesting pictures of the times andhighlights the messianic and ratherilliberal zeal of some of the utilitarians.The chapter on Charles Booth containsmore background on the early Fabianmovement and the Liberal critique oftheir approach is visible here.

Like David’s previous book, hisLiberal political background isapparent throughout the text but isnowhere explicit. This presumablycomes of getting a book contractfrom a major international publisherabout a topic which is still fairlyalternative. Presumably, pointing outthat he was formerly editor of LiberalDemocrat News and a policy-maker ona Federal committee might make theauthor seem a little bit too eccentric.He does mention the Liberal Demo-crats’ famous ‘penny on income taxfor education’ of the generalelection (pp. – ). The very topicalcritique of economic growth inChapter mirrors the approach ofLiberal Party figures like LordBeaumont and Felix Dodds in thes and s. It is stated thateconomic growth was only intro-duced as an idea in British politics atthe Conservative Party Conference in. That sounds surprising. TheLiberal Party Assembly of courserejected the conventional adherenceto growth in .

The counting paradoxes set out byBoyle at pp. – are excellent.‘Counting paradox : the more wecount, the less we can compare thefigures.’ Illustrated by reference tocrime statistics, this shows in a coupleof pages the same lesson of the workson the law and order debate byPearson, Chibnall and Cohen. Thecoincidence of ideas is shown by thefact that leading Professor DavidGarland, in his newest book, is writingabout the fashions in law and order ofthe last thirty years and telling us howwe got here.

David Boyle’s book is scholarly butit may infuriate academics due to thelack of referencing and sources formany points. In my review of his firstbook I said: ‘Boyle has carried off animpressive feat, getting a big interna-tional mainstream publisher to publisha book on alternative economics’(Liberator, October ). Two in a rowis very impressive; his very readablestory-telling style contains highlyintellectual content but, presumably inorder not to put off the generalist,referencing is left to two pages offurther reading. The index is fine butnot very comprehensive.

A great quote from Keynes wouldencourage any young political activistto challenge the establishment:

Over against us, standing in the path,there is nothing but a few oldgentlemen tightly buttoned-up intheir frock coats, who only need tobe treated with a little friendlydisrespect and bowled over likeninepins. Quite likely, they will enjoyit themselves, once they have gotover the shock. (p. .)

Very reminiscent of Bob Dylan and‘the times they are a-changing’, Ithink.

At Bristol University in the lates the ambition of most of thebrightest students appeared to be tobecome accountants. Accountants andstatisticians are no doubt as muchconcerned about many of the issueshighlighted as everybody else. Whilereading the book I twice sat next tofemale postgraduate mathematicianson planes (one Indian/English womanon the way back from Bosnia, one

German on the way from Los Angelesto New Zealand). Both were auto-matically interested in the argument inBoyle’s work.

David Boyle is political and in hishumorous style he puts across politicalpoints. The historical accounts leadingto the present day are used to makethose political points. This secondbook should confirm him as a writerand as an influential contributor topolicy debate. For the Liberal Demo-crats it illustrates that we are infortunate times. Conrad Russell isundoubtedly the greatest Liberal partypolitical philosopher of a generation.To have a thinking leader, and peoplelike Boyle around as well, all of whomunderstand the importance of histori-cal context to modern ideas, is a greatasset to our ability to get our policyideas put into practice.

1 Boyle D., Funny Money: In Search ofAlternative Cash, Harper Collins (2000)

2 Pearson G., Hooligan: A history of respectablefears, Macmillan, London (1983); Chibnall S.,Law and Order News, Tavistock, London(1977): an analysis of crime reporting in theBritish press; and Cohen S., Folk Devils andMoral Panics, 3rd ed, Blackwell, Oxford (1987).

3 Garland D., The Culture of Control: Crime andSocial Order in Contemporary Society, OUP,2001.

Young LiberalhistoryLiberal Democrat Youth and Students(LDYS) are aiming to produce a book tocelebrate A Century of Young Liberals /Ten Years of LDYS (working title!).

If anyone has any anecdotes, informationand/or literature relating to the YoungLiberals/LDYS or any of its predecessors,over the last 100 years (especially fromthe early part of the twentieth century),LDYS would like to hear from you.

They would also like to hear from anyonewho would like to get involved with aworking group which will be puttingtogether the book and other eventsthroughout 2003.

Please contact the LDYS Office: tel: 0207227 1387 / 7227 1388; email:[email protected].

MeetingThe next LDHG discussion meeting will takeplace at 7.00pm on Monday 3 February 2003Monday 3 February 2003Monday 3 February 2003Monday 3 February 2003Monday 3 February 2003,in the National Liberal Club, 1 WhitehallPlace, London SW1.

Speakers will include the well-knownpsephologist David Butler; other speakers,and the topic of the meeting, is still beingfinalised and will be notified to all LDHGmembers in the New Year.

The meeting will be preceded by the AGM ofthe History Group, at 6.30pm.

Liberal history books for Christmas!Available from:

Politico’s Political Bookstore, Politico’s Political Bookstore, Politico’s Political Bookstore, Politico’s Political Bookstore, Politico’s Political Bookstore, 8 Artillery Row, Westminster, London SW1P 1RZ Tel: 020 7828 0010

Note: prices do not include postage; please ring Politico’s to order

Special offer £8.998.998.998.998.99 (normally£9.99)



Special offer – all three books for £40.00

Email mailing listThe History Group has started a new emailmailing list, which we will use to send outdetails of forthcoming meetings and newpublications to anyone who wishes to sign up(whether or not they are a member of theGroup). This will be your fastest way offinding out about meeting dates and details.

If you would like to join the list, log on to ourwebsite at www.liberalhistory.org.uk and clickon ‘want to join our mailing list?’ in thenavigation bar.

Documents

Liberals divided - Liberal History · ceived official endorsement from the coalition camp Every vote for Llewelyn Williams is a vote against Lloyd George’ Liberals divided Dr J