Establishing the county commission

In contrast with the English borough commission, which had begun in August 1831, work did not start on dividing the counties until the end of November 1831, a fortnight before the planned introduction of the government’s third reform bill. Following the rejection of the second reform bill by the Lords in October 1831, the division of counties had been identified by Grey, Althorp and Russell as a potential bargaining chip in their negotiations with the Waverers.⁶ The Waverers, led by Lord Wharncliffe, were sceptical of the supposed aristocratic benefits of the measure, the mechanisms by which it was to be accomplished and the opportunity it provided for Whig gerrymandering.⁷ Their position was strengthened by opposition to the division of counties during November in the City of London and at several county meetings from October.⁸ By the middle of November, Littleton, a member of the borough boundary commission’s sitting committee, had also applied pressure to the cabinet to abolish the division of counties. He feared that the borough commissioners’ boundary proposals, and the potential the government might concede to the Waverers’ separate demand to remove borough freeholders from the county franchise, would remove all town influence from reformed county elections.⁹ It was not until a farcical breakdown in the City of London’s attempts at agreeing to a final resolution in favour of reform on 22 November, Wharncliffe’s sudden ambivalence to the issue on 23 November, and the return of the lord chancellor, Brougham, to London following the parliamentary recess on 25 November, that the government agreed not to ‘sacrifice a tittle of our principle’.¹⁰ Following this, the division of counties was delegated to Lefevre.

Lefevre was the second son of Charles Shaw Lefevre, a reforming MP for Reading between 1802 and 1820.¹¹ Lefevre was educated at Eton and graduated as senior wrangler from Cambridge in 1818. Less than enthused with life as a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1819, he entered London’s scientific and political intellectual circles as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1820 and was one of the first ten members elected to the Political Economy Club in 1821.¹² In 1822 he completed a grand tour with his boyhood friend George Spencer (Althorp’s brother, and third son of the second Earl Spencer) before entering Inner Temple in 1822 and being called to the bar in 1825.¹³ In 1826 he became the legal and financial auditor for the Spencer family’s estates.¹⁴ Lefevre had worked closely with the Spencer family from 1826 and also assumed an active role in the financial management of the family’s constituencies, assisting Althorp when he was re-elected as a member for Northamptonshire in December 1830. His conveyancing commitments forced his resignation from the Political Economy Club in 1831, though he remained a member of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (which he had joined in 1828), and his own political ambitions were confirmed when he stood for election at Petersfield in 1832. His career as an MP was short-lived as he was unseated on petition in 1833. By contrast, his role as commissioner for dividing the counties in 1831 was the first in an extensive list of senior administrative positions that he assumed for the British state through to the late 1860s.¹⁵

The government had outlined the basic principles that they intended to guide the division of counties in August 1831, when Russell informed the Commons that most counties were to be divided into districts as equal in population and area as possible. These principles were to be discounted in cases where readily available ‘recognised boundaries, separating one part of a county from another’ existed.¹⁶ This was consistent with the clauses in the government’s reform bill that Yorkshire be provided with six seats, two for each of its three historic ridings, and that Lincolnshire be divided via its historic Lindsey, Kesteven and Holland districts.¹⁷ As Salmon has observed, this pledge was intended to appease anti-reformers, who were wary that the division of counties would destroy historic county communities.¹⁸

When he commenced his work for the commission in late November 1831, Lefevre extended this latter principle, resolving that boundaries would not be drawn through pre-existing administrative divisions, such as hundreds or petty sessional divisions – a pragmatic decision given the surveying resources necessary to draw arbitrary boundaries across counties. These considerations, rather than a desire to divide counties into agricultural and manufacturing districts (as has been suggested by Moore), lay behind Lefevre’s decision to discount equality of population and area when he discovered ‘districts and places which, from their community of interest and feeling, manifestly ought to be placed in the same division of their county’.¹⁹ As well as seeking to create county divisions that were equal in area and population, Lefevre also hoped to create divisions that were ‘equal in the number of voters’. This was necessary as the presence of large borough electorates in some counties meant that population was not always an accurate indicator when trying to create broadly equal divisions. Within days of taking charge of the commission, then, Lefevre had established that the counties were to be divided, as far as was possible, into two equal districts according to size, population and voters, but that variation in equality was to be allowed to take into account any pre-existing geographic divisions or administrative units that existed in a county.²⁰

In contrast to the borough commission, Lefevre did not have the time or resources to collect data via an individual inspection of each county, meaning that his proposals were based primarily on information collected from existing sources. In terms of demographic data, Lefevre obtained detailed population profiles of the counties from the census office, local records maintained by clerks of the peace relating to the number of persons qualified to serve on juries, and a tailor-made return from Drummond at the borough commission detailing the population of every parliamentary borough according to its most recent proposed boundary.²¹ Although imperfect, Lefevre hoped these sources would allow him to estimate the geographic spread of voters in individual counties.

In terms of cartographic and geographic data, Lefevre had ready access via the borough boundary commission to precise ordnance survey or privately designed maps with hundred and parish boundaries detailed on them. These allowed him to predict the area of his proposed divisions to a tolerable degree of accuracy. He then worked with Robert K. Dawson, the head surveyor on the borough commission, and Richard Creighton, who had recently published small maps of every county for Samuel Lewis’s 1831 edition of A Topographical Dictionary of England, to create illustrative maps for the commission’s published report.²² Lefevre, Dawson and Creighton used this process to create simple county maps with only towns, main roads and hundred divisions marked on them, which made electoral arrangements clear but also saved on production costs (Map 8.1). Lefevre also obtained details of petty sessional divisions (broken down by parish) that had been created in some counties following the passage of permissive legislation in 1828, and which were maintained by clerks of the peace.²³ The final type of data he gathered related to the ‘communities of interest’ that existed in a county. In two instances – Cumberland and Lancashire – Lefevre requested that the borough commissioners who had been working in the region complete an inspection of the economic and social conditions of both counties. For every other county it appears that Lefevre relied on data available in existing topographical dictionaries, and the knowledge of his friends, fellow boundary commissioners and political colleagues.²⁴

Equality in population, area and voters?

Although Lefevre’s data collection process demonstrated considerable initiative, it was hardly the ideal dataset with which to complete the task of ‘statistical geography’ (as he termed it) that had been assigned to him.²⁵ The following two sections analyse the extent to which he achieved his stated intention of proposing county divisions of roughly equal geographic, demographic and electoral extent (when ancient divisions were not readily available), or whether he erred from these principles in favour of a more partisan approach. With the reform bill having stipulated the divisions for Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Lefevre proposed divisions for twenty-five of the twenty-seven counties divided by the English reform legislation. This section provides a statistical analysis of the equality of his published proposals, all of which were enacted by the Boundary Act. It is based on the population data provided by Lefevre in his published reports; acreage data for each county division from the 1831 census; a GIS analysis of county divisions whose size cannot be identified through the 1831 census; and records of registered electors at various intervals between 1832 and 1865.²⁶

Lefevre considered each county on its own basis, seeking to divide it into two electoral districts of broadly equal geographic, demographic and electoral extent. He was provided with no formal guidance regarding the extent to which he was allowed to err from creating districts of an equal 50:50 ratio in terms of size, population and voters, and strict equality was not a possibility, given that pre-existing administrative divisions, such as hundreds, had to be used to divide each county. Lefevre also had the option to divide counties via their ‘community of interest’. In order to identify some form of marker as to what can be considered ‘equal’, a variation of ±10 per cent from an entirely equal division has been settled on. So, if a county was divided into one district that contained 45 per cent of that county’s population, and another that contained 55 per cent, then this could be considered equal – the same marker applies to a division’s area and electors. This is an arbitrary marker, which Lefevre did not apply to his own work. However, it corresponds to the guidelines for constituency ‘equality’ proposed by the 2008 Venice Commission and the 2015 Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. The latter proposed that electoral districts in the UK should be considered equal if their populations were within ±10 per cent of the electoral quota (the total number of electors registered to vote, divided by the number of constituencies).²⁷

When the populations of the twenty-five counties divided by Lefevre are considered, eight were divided into equal districts within a variance of ±10 per cent, and a further six within a variance of ±15 per cent. The most equal was Norfolk, whose east division contained 50.52 per cent of the county’s population (Table 8.1). The remaining eleven counties were divided into districts with a population variance of over ±15 per cent. Surrey was divided into the two most unequal districts – Surrey East contained 83.29 per cent and Surrey West 17.72 per cent of the county’s total population of 485,661. Such a discrepancy could not be avoided, however, as the hundred of Brixton – which contained the parliamentary boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark, and was situated in the very north-east of the county – contained 337,361 persons. Nine of the eleven counties that were divided with a variance of over ±15 per cent contained similar large town or city populations, which made inequality inescapable. The two remaining counties that contained a population discrepancy were Sussex and Somerset, and in these instances Lefevre recommended that existing administrative divisions, or ‘communities of interest’ that were in force at county level for Sussex, or had been in place ‘from time immemorial’ in Somerset were adopted.²⁸

Table 8.1: Variation in population per county division for each county.

Lefevre was more successful in terms of creating county divisions of equal area, a consideration that was vital given that the division of counties had been justified as a means of reducing the expenses and time frames associated with county elections. Fourteen counties were divided into equal districts according to area. A further two counties were divided into areas with a variance between ±10 per cent and ±12.25 per cent. Devon was divided into the two most equal geographic districts – Devonshire North occupied 822,160 acres and Devonshire South 814,370 acres (Table 8.2). Geographic inequality acted as a counter to population inequality in seven of the eleven unequal divisions according to population. For instance, Devon’s geographic equality was in stark contrast to its population inequality: its south division contained 62.11 per cent of the county’s population, due to the positioning of Plymouth and Devonport in the south-west corner of the county. The most spatially unequal division was that proposed for Lancashire, whose population was distributed extremely unevenly in the south-west of the county (Map 8.1). This prevented any possibility of divisions equal in population or geographic extent. Lancashire South, which occupied 21.58 per cent of the county’s area and contained Manchester, Salford, Liverpool and Bolton among other large manufacturing towns, also contained 60.32 per cent of the county’s population. If the division had been extended any further north to make it more geographically equitable, it would have swallowed the hundreds of Leyland and Blackburn, creating an even more unequal division by population (the south division would have contained 1.2 million people, the north just 126,713). An alternative division of Lancashire into east and west districts would have been impractical due to its shape and the positioning of its hundreds.²⁹ Similar difficulties, although not to the same extent, were experienced in five of the remaining nine geographically uneven counties (Surrey, Shropshire, Hampshire, Durham and Cheshire), and in three of the further spatially uneven cases, the county divisions contained equal populations (Norfolk, Gloucestershire and Staffordshire).

Table 8.2: Variation in area per county division for each county.

Lefevre’s third aim was to ensure that the counties were divided into districts with an equitable number of voters. Lefevre did not have access to an independent survey detailing the numbers of eligible freeholders, leaseholders, copyholders and tenants-at-will in each county. This meant that his published statements as to the future equitability of registered voters were the result of educated guesswork – based on a rough triangulation of population data inclusive and exclusive of boroughs, as well as the numbers of persons qualified to serve on juries in each county.³⁰ That said, the ready availability of post-1832 voter registration data does make it possible to evaluate the extent to which Lefevre created equitable county divisions according to voters. This data has been recorded in intervals from 1832; however, the following analysis is based on the annual registration data for 1836 (which was settled in November 1835), as it provides the most accurate indicator of the number of voters in each county in the immediate post-reform period. As well as allowing for a grace period for the reformed electoral system to bed in, as Salmon has demonstrated, the unexpected 1835 election (which had taken place in January and revealed deficiencies in that year’s list of registered voters) prompted a mass of electoral administrative activity to ensure that registration data was maintained regularly and collected in a more methodical manner.³¹

When the 1836 registration data is considered, Lefevre’s county divisions provided for an equal dispersion of voters in ten of the twenty-five counties that he divided, and six further counties were divided into districts with a voter equality of ±12.12 per cent (Table 8.3). The most even division of registered voters occurred in Nottinghamshire, where the south division contained 3,434 electors and the north 3,378. Of the nine counties that were divided into less equal voter districts, seven (Northumberland, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Hampshire, Shropshire, Surrey and Devon) contained dense population groupings, which had precluded the creation of equal divisions according to either, or both, population and area. Of these, Northumberland contained the greatest variation in voters at ±30.9 per cent. Although the county had been divided equally in spatial terms, the presence of Newcastle upon Tyne and Tynemouth meant that the southern division contained 65.45 per cent (5,121) of the county’s electors, while the north contained 34.55 per cent (2,703). This was not the case for two counties, however – the aforementioned Sussex, which was divided unequally but in line with a pre-existing county administrative division, and Wiltshire, which had been divided very equally by area. As a whole, the average variation in the number of registered electors per division attests to the extent to which Lefevre’s proposals delivered county constituencies containing a broadly equal electorate. In 1836 the average variation in electors between divisions was ±12.6 per cent, and when the entire period between 1832 and 1868 is considered, 1836 provided for the most equitable distribution of county voters. Over the following three decades the average variation of county voters between divisions increased gradually to ±16.24 per cent (Table 8.4).

Table 8.3: Variation in registered voters per county division for each county in 1836.

When Lefevre’s county divisions are evaluated on a purely statistical basis, no case failed to meet his stated criteria for equality of division without an adequate explanation. In the cases that were unequal according to population and/or area, the distribution of population in a particular corner of a county genuinely prohibited the creation of equal divisions. And in the case of Sussex (which by 1865 had the most unequal divisions) Lefevre offered parliamentarians a choice of a more equal division or an uneven, historic administrative division. The latter was enacted by the Boundary Act.³² Following 1832, Lefevre’s divisions, unless the county district included a large town or city, contained a remarkably equitable number of registered electors – an achievement that may have had as much to do with luck on Lefevre’s part as it did educated guesswork. This further refutes Moore’s supposition that the Boundary Act sought to create county constituencies with an urban and rural divide, rather than on the basis of equality in numbers. Moore ignored the fact that equality in population had only formed one of Lefevre’s criteria for equality, and that a division’s area and its total number of voters were of equal, if not more, importance. Given that the division of counties was supposed to reduce canvassing costs (which were contingent on how many electors needed to be canvassed) as well as polling costs (a large proportion of which were spent on transporting electors and paying for accommodation and subsistence during nomination and polling), achieving equality in terms of area and voters was no doubt more important than equality in population, if election costs were to be similar in two county divisions.

Table 8.4: Average variation in voters per county division between 1832 and 1865.

County divisions and political influence

Although a quantitative analysis of the county divisions enacted by the 1832 Boundary Act reveals they were divided equitably, this does not preclude that their identification was influenced by political factors. A county might have been divided into both northern and southern divisions, or eastern and western divisions ‘equally’, but one of these may have suited a particular political interest. It is certainly the case that for interested parties, opportunities were presented, and sufficient intelligence was available, to gerrymander a county division. Lefevre’s final recommendations, all of which were enacted by the 1832 Boundary Act, were printed on 16 February 1832.³³ The Cheshire MP, George Wilbraham, confirmed that these proposals had been shared with county members by 27 January, and Lefevre informed Earl Spencer on 28 January that ‘the county members have in general approved of my carving’.³⁴ Following this, it is evident that county divisions were shared with interested borough MPs and peers ahead of their publication.³⁵ Most interested MPs or peers should have known their electoral strongholds in a particular county. Twelve of the twenty-five counties that Lefevre divided had held a contested election in 1826, 1830 or 1831, and in these instances detailed polling data, broken down by a county’s electoral wards was readily available in manuscript or published poll books.³⁶ In the thirteen counties where contests had not taken place since 1820, intelligence derived from canvassing during the previous three elections should have provided county MPs with a good understanding of their electoral strongholds.

The primary difficulty in ascertaining the extent of political influence over the division of counties is the lack of working papers detailing Lefevre’s activities. To counteract this, an evaluation of each of his published reports has been completed alongside poll books, constituency histories, parliamentary and local responses to the boundary bill, and surviving personal correspondence. This analysis needs to be read with one significant proviso regarding the nature of pre-reform partisanship. Although party labels were used in pre-reform electoral politics, party affiliation remained primarily local, rather than national. In large county districts, support for a Whig or Tory candidate in the north of a county did not necessarily translate to support for a similarly labelled candidate from the south. Furthermore, just because a hundred might have polled strongly for one Whig candidate, another candidate standing as a Whig in that same hundred would not necessarily have been able to secure the same level of support. The nature of contemporary electoral intelligence regarding partisan affiliation in the counties was understood primarily in personal, rather than party terms – and it is within this understanding of electoral politics that the extent of partisanship in Lefevre’s proposals has been assessed.

After considering every option for division available to Lefevre in each county, there is only evidence to suggest that partisan considerations influenced his proposals in four cases. The mode and means of effecting boundary change in the counties – dividing an already prescribed existing area in two using pre-existing administrative divisions – provided the primary limiting factor in terms of identifying options for partisan division. Only five counties could have conceivably been divided into both north–south and east–west divisions, and these cases provided the most potential for partisan boundary setting.³⁷ Eighteen further counties could only be divided into either north–south or east–west divisions, meaning that any political negotiation in these cases would have rested on the inclusion of one or two hundreds (or sessional divisions, wards, rapes or wapentakes) positioned along an imaginary x or y axis in a county.³⁸ Due to the shape of their respective wards, two final cases (Cumberland and Durham) could only be divided in one way. And, although it was evident to interested parties at the time that these divisions favoured certain political interests, Lefevre’s inability to draw arbitrary boundaries left no room for negotiation.³⁹ Prior to a discussion of the four instances that erred from Lefevre’s principles, it will be instructive to provide an example of a county division judged to have not been influenced by partisan considerations.

The most obvious county for which a partisan division might have been drawn was Northamptonshire. Lefevre had managed Althorp’s 1830 re-election for the constituency, and a contested election in 1831 – where the pro-reform candidates, Althorp and Viscount Milton, had beaten two anti-reformers, William Ralph Cartwright and Charles Knightley – had been followed by the publication of a poll book detailing individual candidate support in each of Northamptonshire’s hundreds.⁴⁰ Northamptonshire’s shape prohibited the creation of anything but a northern and southern division. Both anti-reform candidates had polled strongest in 1831 in the southern hundreds of the borough, and Althorp and Milton had polled strongest in the central hundreds. This meant that any division would have provided Cartwright and Knightley, whose estates were also in the south of the county, with a position of electoral strength in any southern division – as Lefevre’s proposed boundary did.⁴¹ Lefevre could have proposed an alternative, more partisan division, which would have dispersed Cartwright and Knightley’s support more equally between the northern and southern divisions. However, this proposal would have provided a more unequal population distribution, and only a slightly more equal division according to area, in comparison to Lefevre’s proposed division. This would suggest that if such a division had been a consideration, Lefevre preferred to adhere to his principle of equality in population, rather than create a division that might have marginalised Knightley and Cartwright’s support in the south. An alternative interpretation of Lefevre’s proposed division is that it created the conditions for an electoral stronghold for the Spencer and Cartwright families in the south, and the Milton and Tory Cardigan family in the north, thus splitting the county’s four seats between its four established Whig and Tory families. Such an approach would have reaffirmed a consensus that had existed in the county between Whig and Tory proprietors since 1806, and which had ensured the uncontested return of Althorp and Cartwright at every election between 1807 and 1830.⁴² However, given that the shape of Northampton required a north–south divide, any division of the county that Lefevre could have recommended, including the more partisan option, would also have led to a similar dispersion of power. With the options available to him, then, Lefevre divided Northamptonshire as evenly as possible.

A consideration of polling data, constituency histories and alternative options available for division produces similar conclusions for twenty-one of the twenty-five counties divided by the 1832 Boundary Act. By contrast, it is evident that political considerations undermined Lefevre’s ability to adhere to his principles in four counties – Hampshire, Suffolk, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. As with Northamptonshire, the shape of Hampshire precluded an obvious division of the county into east and west districts. Lefevre’s brother (whose electoral strength lay in the very north of the county) had been elected as MP for Hampshire in 1831, and Grey’s foreign secretary, Palmerston (whose Broadlands estate was in the parish of Romsey Extra), had long been involved in the county’s electoral politics, particularly in the south. Hampshire was one of four cases where Lefevre’s published reports provided two options for division – one based around ancient hundreds, the other around petty sessional divisions.⁴³ The proposal based around sessional divisions was enacted by the Boundary Act, yet it provided for a less equal division of the county according to both area and population. In his report, Lefevre legitimised this decision on the basis of ‘careful investigation, and discussion’ with ‘persons acquainted with the county’, following which he reported that the hundreds of Hampshire were ‘practically inconvenient for the purposes for which they are now used’.⁴⁴ What he did not mention, however, was that the accepted, less equal, boundary placed Palmerston’s Broadlands estate in the southern division, whereas the rejected, more equal boundary did not. Palmerston had strong ties with political families in the south of the county and needed to find a new constituency for when the reform bill passed, as he represented the pocket borough of Bletchingley.⁴⁵ He was subsequently returned for the southern division of Hampshire at the 1832 election, but then roundly defeated in 1835.

Suffolk provides another example of a somewhat anomalous proposal, which contradicted Lefevre’s practice of using pre-existing divisions of a county where available, as in Kent, Somerset and Sussex.⁴⁶ Suffolk had traditionally been divided between the Liberty of Saint Edmund and the rest of the county. As in the case of Sussex, Lefevre provided parliamentarians with the option of two boundaries, one according to its ancient division and one that provided equality of population, area and voters. Whereas Sussex’s ancient boundary was accepted by parliament, Suffolk’s ancient boundary was rejected in favour of the more equal boundary. Suffolk’s more equal division clearly favoured the electoral interests of the sitting MP Charles Tyrell as the ancient boundary divided his property interests. Tyrell had been one of the pro-reform MPs who voted against the division of counties in August 1831, and it is likely the government agreed to appease him ahead of the Commons’ January 1832 vote over the division of counties clause in the third reform bill, by adopting the boundary most favourable to him.⁴⁷

The final two divisions that appear to have been influenced by political considerations were Worcestershire and Warwickshire. Worcestershire’s oddly shaped hundreds meant that sessional divisions were used to split the county into eastern and western divisions. Rather uncharacteristically, however, given that the county’s shape also lent itself to a north–south divide, Lefevre’s published report provided no alternative.⁴⁸ Significantly, Lefevre’s final recommendation was in keeping with the preference of Littleton, the boundary commissioner who was active in parliamentary negotiations over the boundary bill, and the former Whig MP for Worcestershire, Lord Lyttelton. Both had expressed their preference for an east–west division in November 1831. Such a divide promised to contain the county’s long-running aristocratic Whig–Tory seat-sharing arrangement in the western division, while providing Whig landowners with the best chance of challenging both seats in the east.⁴⁹

Warwickshire also lent itself to both a north–south and east–west division, and in this instance Lefevre had outlined both options for parliamentarians (Map 8.2). While equitable in terms of area, the north–south division that Lefevre devised was considerably less equal in terms of population (±51.88 per cent vs ±32.26 per cent). Strictly speaking, he should have adopted this east–west division. However, the north–south division was formally recommended on the basis that it separated ‘the agricultural from the manufacturing population of the county’.⁵⁰ This was in stark contrast to the very similar case of Leicestershire, where a division that separated the agricultural and manufacturing population had been rejected on the basis that a more equal division according to population and area was available.⁵¹ In contradiction to the broad assertion of Moore, Warwickshire appears to be the only case where a desire to separate agricultural and manufacturing populations took precedence over considerations of equality in population, area and voters.⁵² As with Worcestershire, the decision over Warwickshire was influenced by Littleton, who sought to appease the Warwickshire MP, Francis Lawley. Lawley’s support for the division of counties since July 1831 had been contingent on a southern, agricultural division of the county that favoured the ‘landed interest’, free from the influence of the town electorates of Birmingham, Coventry and Nuneaton in the north – a demand that Lefevre’s less equal north–south divide delivered.⁵³

The four cases that erred from Lefevre’s professed principles suggest a level of partisan pragmatism from the government in their negotiations with county members ahead of the publication of their boundary bill. This approach was largely successful, as the only county division that was actively challenged in parliament was Lefevre’s proposal for Surrey. The government’s response demonstrated how Lefevre’s consistent approach in the majority of cases provided a convenient rhetorical defence for the boundary bill, as well as the fact that there were limits to the extent to which his proposals were open to negotiation. On separate occasions during June 1832, Henry Goulburn, the anti-reform MP for Cambridge University and resident of Reigate in Surrey, and John Somers Cocks, the anti-reform MP for Hereford and also resident of Reigate, requested that the government amend Surrey’s division so as to segregate the agricultural population of the county from that associated with the metropolis.⁵⁴ On both occasions, Althorp objected to these grievances on the basis that the same principles had been applied elsewhere and neither of Surrey’s members had raised an objection. He also contended that the proposed division provided for ‘a fair mixture of the rural with the town population’,⁵⁵ which was consistent with the government’s wish to ‘have at least some mixture of both interests’ in each new county division.⁵⁶ Althorp’s final statement was true in so much as that, while Lefevre’s approach to the division of counties did not actively set out to mix the agricultural and manufacturing interests, it never actively sought to divide them – the only exception being Warwickshire.

Aside from the four cases that were subject to parliamentary interference, Lefevre ensured that where available, a county was divided according to its historic division, and when not, pre-existing administrative areas were used to divide each county as equally as possible according to population, area and voters. These principles allowed him to ignore party politics and the landholdings of individual landowners when completing his proposals, and it was only once the government started negotiating with parliamentarians that some partisan influence came to bear on a minority of his proposals. While Lefevre’s divisions did impact the balance of power in counties after 1832, to suggest that he masterminded this impact would be to conflate intention with consequence. Rather, in keeping with the borough commission, Lefevre’s adherence to consistent principles helped to diffuse a politically contentious issue. If during debates a county division was discovered to favour a certain political interest, the government argued that it had not been due to an active attempt to do so. Rather, it had been as a result of trying to provide as equal a division of a county according to population, voters and area as possible. In this sense the division of counties was as functional in its approach as the government had suggested when they introduced their reform bill – equally sized county constituencies, it was hoped, would make elections cheaper and more manageable for landed proprietors, whom the Whigs had always presumed would play an active role in reformed county politics.

Places of election and polling places

Prior to 1832 the nomination and polling for county elections took place at one location. If a candidate demanded a contest, several polling booths were erected at that location and polling was allowed to remain open for fifteen days – at considerable expense to candidates who were expected to fund the transportation, accommodation and refreshment of their supporters.⁵⁷ Along with the division of counties, the Grey ministry sought to reduce election expenses by allowing up to fifteen polling places in every county and limiting polling to two days. The nomination and declaration were still to take place in a constituency’s ‘principal place of election’ (or nomination town), but electors were not to be required to travel any further than fifteen miles to vote.⁵⁸ Lefevre proposed a principal place of election for every county he divided, and only three of these recommendations were modified prior to the passage of the 1832 Boundary Act. Lefevre played no role in the subsequent identification of polling places, as the government had only agreed that its boundary bill would stipulate these on 11 February 1832.⁵⁹ An initial list of polling places was compiled by Drummond and the borough commission and was published on 25 May 1832.⁶⁰ These lists were amended for twenty-nine of the sixty-nine reformed English counties prior to the passage of the Boundary Act.⁶¹

Apart from three cases, the fifty principal places of election recommended by Lefevre were identified for historic, legal and functional reasons. A county’s traditional election venue was recommended for the new division that it fell into in all but four instances. While these towns were not always centrally located, they tended to have good pre-existing transport links, and Lefevre was reluctant to deprive existing county towns of their historic ‘species of privilege’. Of the four existing county towns that he recommended should be deprived of this privilege, plausible reasons were provided in three cases. The limited jurisdiction of county law officers in the towns of Chester and Nottingham prompted Lefevre to identify alternative locations for Cheshire South and Nottinghamshire North (Chester would later be reinstated by the Commons). Taunton was identified over Somerset’s existing place of election, Ilchester, due to its location and status as an assize venue (and although not stated, probably due to Ilchester’s pending disfranchisement).⁶²

By contrast, Lefevre’s recommendation that the iron manufacturing district of Walsall should supplant Lichfield as Staffordshire South’s place of election received no explanation. The subsequent dispute over Walsall’s recommendation revealed that contemporaries ascribed considerable importance to the electoral influence of a county’s nomination town. Lefevre had originally intended to identify Lichfield (the county’s traditional election venue) as Staffordshire South’s nomination town until Littleton, the county’s MP, had convinced him, for self-serving reasons, to recommend Walsall in the first draft of the boundary bill. Littleton had been preoccupied since November with ensuring some manufacturing influence in the midland counties, and intended to stand for the southern division of the county at the first reformed election, having recently championed Walsall’s separate claims for borough enfranchisement.⁶³ Following the boundary bill’s publication, the government received private objections to Walsall’s selection due to Lichfield’s historic status as a place of election and concern for the maintenance of law and order during elections, given that nearby Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Dudley were to be enfranchised. Complaints were also made that the presence of Walsall’s non-county voting inhabitants at the nomination would be likely to secure the uncontested election of manufacturing candidates for the county.⁶⁴

Littleton backtracked following these protests and coalesced with Peel, the Tamworth MP whose Drayton Hall estate was in the Staffordshire South division, to replace Walsall with Lichfield during the third Commons reading of the boundary bill on 22 June. When proposing this amendment, Peel stated that he still expected the ‘southern iron districts’ to sway Staffordshire South’s future elections, but that ‘if we can, by changing the place of nomination, add some little influence to the agricultural interests, I think that we ought to do so’.⁶⁵ Peel’s amendment prompted a furious response from Staffordshire’s southern iron districts, and on 27 June, a meeting called at Walsall’s town hall to petition against the change ‘was crowded to excess’. Over the following days, the towns of Wolverhampton, Bilston, Willenhall and Darlaston joined the protest, and by early July five petitions had been submitted to the Lords requesting that Walsall be reinstated.⁶⁶ However, as no-one in the Lords took up the petitioners’ cause, Lichfield became Staffordshire South’s principal place of election.

The identification of places of election for the remaining divided counties was completed in a similarly historico-legal manner. Lefevre’s first preference was to assign the principal place of election to an assize venue, and if one of these was not available, a quarter sessions venue – both had the advantage of being established centres in a county, with established transport links. Twelve counties were assigned places of election in this manner, and in only two instances was a quarter sessions or assize town not chosen if available – both of which were probably the result of parliamentary interference. In Derbyshire North, Bakewell was proposed over Chesterfield, and the local Tory press were probably correct in their speculation that the recommendation favoured the attorney general and prospective candidate, Thomas Denman, whose property was in Bakewell.⁶⁷ In Warwickshire North (Map 8.2), the market town of Coleshill was chosen over Coventry (an assize and quarter sessions venue). As was the case with the design of Warwickshire’s boundaries, the selection of Coleshill over Coventry, or even Birmingham (which was not centrally located), was probably intended to appease the MP for Warwickshire, Francis Lawley, as well as the agricultural interest in the county. In the eleven remaining cases, where no established county venue was available, Lefevre used his discretion to propose the most central and well-connected town as that division’s place of election. These proposals proved particularly susceptible to challenge, and the two cases discussed below – Lancashire South and Gloucestershire West – further demonstrate the import placed on nomination towns by contemporaries.⁶⁸

Although multiple venues were available, Wigan had originally been recommended as Lancashire South’s place of election due to its centrality and transport connections.⁶⁹ This recommendation was overturned on 7 June 1832 in favour of Newton – a ‘former market town’ and parliamentary borough due to be disfranchised by the reform bill (Map 8.1).⁷⁰ Russell had proposed this amendment on behalf of the government, much to the disbelief of the radical MP for Wigan, Ralph Thicknesse, who described Newton as a ‘mere village’, with no town hall and little accommodation.⁷¹ Unbeknown to Thicknesse, the government’s amendment had been made to appease the county’s MP, Lord Stanley, who had expressed concern that dividing Lancashire would throw it ‘too much out of the landed scale’.⁷² This rationale was kept private and Stanley publicly defended Newton’s selection on the basis that it was more central to the division than Wigan; the newly opened Warrington–Newton railway ran through the town; places of election in reformed counties did not require accommodation due to the new two-day limit for elections; and the town had demonstrated its ability to host large crowds at its regular race-meets. The government’s concession was popular, and in a late night Commons sitting only five members, including Thicknesse, voted against it.⁷³ While Stanley’s functional argument had grounds, the government’s willingness to appease the agricultural lobby, as they had with Warwickshire and Staffordshire, is telling when it is considered that electors from Liverpool, Manchester, Bolton, Wigan, Warrington, Oldham, Bury and Rochdale all had to travel to Newton to participate in the nomination and declaration in England’s most manufacturing-centric county division.

The proposal that Dursley should be the principal place of election for Gloucestershire West provoked the kind of bitter local dispute, writ large over a parliamentary stage, that the boundary commission and the government had worked hard to avoid when settling the details of the boundary bill. Lefevre’s initial recommendation of Dursley was amended four times by parliament, to Wotton-under-Edge on 25 May, to Thornbury on 7 June, back to Wotton-under-Edge on 22 June, and then back again to Dursley on 9 July.⁷⁴ These changes were prompted by a familial battle between Gloucestershire’s major landowners, the Tory Beauforts and the Whig Berkeleys. Although it is unclear what prompted the government’s decision to amend Lefevre’s initial recommendation to Wotton-under-Edge, Lord Granville Somerset, son of the sixth Duke of Beaufort, successfully advocated for Thornbury on 7 June, arguing that the town had better transport links, and that its agricultural character would allow for more ‘freedom of discussion’ at the nomination.⁷⁵ While he publicly declared that his recommendation had been made for functional reasons, in private he conceded the selection of Thornbury was beneficial to the Beaufort interest.⁷⁶ After Somerset had successfully amended Gloucestershire West’s polling place to Thornbury, parliamentary advocates of the Beaufort and Berkeley families exchanged claim and counterclaim over ferry services across the Severn, accommodation, horse stalls, town hall sizes, roads and beer shops, before the Commons divided 83 to 54 in favour of reverting back to Wotton-under-Edge on 22 June.⁷⁷ With the issue seemingly settled, the Lords received three petitions from the inhabitants ‘of the Western Side of the Severn’, the hundred of Berkeley and the entire ‘Western division’ of Gloucestershire, opposing the change to Wotton-under-Edge, and requesting that Dursley, Lefevre’s initial recommendation, be reinstated.⁷⁸ In response, the government sent a commissioner to investigate the towns in early July. His recommendation that Dursley was the most suitable town ‘in point of geographical position, population, and accommodation’ was adopted.⁷⁹ In this instance, the government skilfully used the independence of the commissioners to resolve a local feud that had occupied several hours of parliamentary time.

With the principal election towns mostly settled, Drummond and his borough commissioners identified satellite polling towns for each reformed county between February and May 1832. They did so in a similarly functional manner, by seeking to ensure that no county elector had to travel further than fifteen miles to vote. Locations were selected due to their accessibility by road and their placement within the topography of a county, to ensure electors were not required to travel over hills, or across rivers.⁸⁰ An initial list of polling places was published for all sixty-nine of England’s reformed county constituencies on 25 May 1832, and by the time the Boundary Act passed into law on 11 July, twenty-nine amendments had been made to these lists. Although a large number of additions (and some subtractions) were made to the commissioners’ selections, parliamentary debate over the issue occupied little time. This was because each reformed county was allowed up to fifteen polling places, enabling most requests for inclusion to be accommodated. The government did not concede to every request, however, and some suspicious appeals for the transfer of polling places from one location to another were rejected.⁸¹

As with the selection of the principal places of election, the identification of polling places prompted some local animosity, since it was perceived that the partisan allegiance of a polling town might influence the votes of electors and provide opportunities for patronage during elections. A letter in the Whig Morning Chronicle complained that ‘a hocus pocus manoeuvre’ by the anti-reform Berkshire MP, Robert Palmer, had led to the pro-Tory town of Wokingham replacing nearby Bracknell, and the addition of three further pro-Tory towns as polling places for the county.⁸² In another instance, the postmaster general, the Duke of Richmond, advised the Lords that he had received a threat from the mayor of Arundel that ‘his brother [Lord John Lennox, MP for Sussex] should hear of it at the next election’ if Arundel was not selected as a polling place for Sussex West. In response, Richmond summed up the government’s conciliatory position by agreeing to the amendment, not because of the mayor of Arundel’s threat, but because ‘he thought it a matter of no importance whether there were four polling places or five’ in the division.⁸³ This conciliatory, almost indifferent, approach to parliamentary negotiations over polling places helped to ensure their parliamentary enactment with little trouble.

While parliamentary discussion over principal places of election and polling places was inherently parochial, it was significant for two reasons. First, the government’s acceptance of agricultural nomination towns in the manufacturing-centric constituencies of Warwickshire North, Staffordshire South and Lancashire South demonstrated their willingness to appease the landed interest as they had also done with the creation of rural boroughs (see Chapter 6). These cases were consistent with the parliamentary statements made by Althorp, discussed above, regarding the government’s intention to mix the agricultural with the manufacturing interests in reformed county constituencies wherever possible. Second, the debates demonstrated a level of local interaction, and tension over the fine details of the reformed constituency system, which have generally been ignored by historians of the 1832 reform legislation.⁸⁴ Contemporaries placed great stead on the cities, towns and villages selected to host the events of their reformed county elections, as they believed these selections were integral to their county’s electoral identities. That the government successfully utilised the commission to distance itself from these local disputes revealed the value of legitimising, and implementing, reform within a framework of bureaucratic disinterestedness.

Parliamentary, electoral and political outcomes

The 1832 Boundary Act, for the most part, reconstructed England’s reformed county map in an equitable and indiscriminate manner. Aside from in four cases, the counties were divided consistently with the principle of adhering to either historic divisions, or equality in population, area and voters. Similarly, the vast majority of nomination towns for England’s divided counties were identified for historico-legal and functional reasons, and the selection of polling places genuinely sought to ensure that every elector could poll at a convenient location. The generally unpartisan manner in which England’s reformed county map had been redrawn in 1832 was underlined by its electoral outcomes (Tables 8.5 and 8.6). The 1831 election had represented a high watermark in terms of pro-Whig or pro-reform county representation. However, by 1841 the counties were dominated by Conservative, protectionist representatives. In 1831, fifty-one (91 per cent) of the fifty-six MPs elected to the twenty-seven counties divided in 1832 had termed themselves as either Whig, liberal-Whig or radical, and a further two termed themselves liberal-Tory.⁸⁵ In 1832, the same counties returned 110 MPs, 74 per cent of whom were identified as either Whigs, reformers or radicals. Remarkably, by 1841 86 per cent of MPs returned for these divided counties classified themselves as Conservatives or moderate reformers. Conservative candidates continued to maintain their electoral hegemony over the divided counties from 1847, but support for Whig or Liberal candidates increased to 38 per cent by 1857, before reducing to 29 per cent in 1859 and recovering to 37 per cent in 1865. These electoral shifts were generally consistent with county constituencies that were not divided or became three-member counties in 1832 (Tables C.12 and 8.5).

The party labelling ascribed to county MPs was consistent with their behaviour in major parliamentary votes through to 1868 (Graph C.2 and Table C.4). After providing slim majorities in favour of the Peel administration in 1835, support among county MPs for Conservative oppositions or governments increased gradually to nine in ten MPs by 1842, when the second Peel ministry introduced its key proposal to introduce the income tax. County MPs split evenly in the division over the Irish coercion bill that brought down the Peel ministry in 1846, before gradually regrouping around the Derby–Disraeli leadership during the 1852 Parliament, when at least eight in ten supported the short-lived 1852 Conservative government and voted against the Aberdeen ministry’s management of the Crimean War in 1855. The impact of increasing county urbanisation and Liberal registration drives during the 1850s, as discussed below, meant that county MPs became slightly more tolerant of Liberal governments during the 1859 and 1865 Parliaments, when support for Conservative oppositions and administrations had declined to around seven in ten county MPs. This still represented a marked contrast to English borough MPs who provided an almost inverse level of support for Liberal governments by 1868.

On policy (Graphs C.4, C.6 and C.8 and Tables C.6, C.8 and C.10), county MPs consistently opposed free trade during the first decade of the reformed Parliament, reaching a climax in 1843 when only one county MP was willing to consider a repeal of the corn laws. Only two in ten MPs representing divided counties supported repealing the corn laws in 1846, which increased marginally to three in ten MPs by 1850. It was only after the 1852 election, when the Conservative leadership jettisoned its support for protection in favour of a policy of agricultural relief, that a majority of county MPs were willing to endorse free trade. County MPs proved even more consistent in their opposition to further parliamentary reform, and from the 1840s fewer than one in ten were willing to support proposals for secret voting at parliamentary elections. Support for the abolition of church rates fared only slightly better, with support for the issue among all county MPs fluctuating between 20 and 30 per cent from the mid-1850s. This consistent opposition to the ballot and church reform was bolstered by the fact that county MPs using the Liberal label were more likely to sit on the small ‘c’ conservative side of the political spectrum than their borough counterparts. For instance, in 1861, 61 per cent of county MPs using the Liberal label opposed the ballot. The same figure for Liberal MPs representing English boroughs was 22 per cent.

Table 8.5: Election results in the twenty-seven divided counties, 1832–65.

Table 8.6: Election results in every county, 1832–65.

The short-term electoral experiences of the four MPs who had successfully engineered a preferable county division revealed that an increased focus on electoral organisation following 1832 was necessary to retain any of the initial benefits that a favourable county division provided. Palmerston was elected to Hampshire South with a moderate reformer in 1832, but both were unseated by a resurgent Conservative interest by 1835.⁸⁶ In Suffolk West, Charles Tyrell retained his seat in 1832, but retired prior to the 1835 election, and by 1837, Henry Bunbury, Tyrell’s former Whig ally, failed to prevent the election of two Conservatives.⁸⁷ Two Whig candidates were returned with the support of Lord Lyttelton and his allies for Worcestershire East in 1832 and 1835, but by 1837 their influence had failed to prevent the election of two Conservatives.⁸⁸ And, Francis Lawley’s desire to secure representation for the agricultural interest in Warwickshire South was temporarily stalled by the return of an anti-corn law campaigner, the Lancashire cotton manufacturer and local landowner George Philips, in 1832. It took until the 1836 by-election for the county, perhaps not as the Whig Lawley had quite intended, for the county to fall under the control of the highly organised pro-agricultural, Conservative interest, where it would remain until 1880.⁸⁹

As voter registration, the corn laws and the ‘church in danger’ cry took centre-stage in English politics between 1832 and 1852, the division of counties provided the ideal conditions for the co-ordinated efforts of locally organised Conservative associations to thrive across England’s reformed county map. The removal of many of the discrepancies that had existed between the unreformed counties, in terms of voter numbers and geographic size, were also crucial in placing these new structures of reformed county politics within the financial reach of the country gentry. This type of politics would not have been sustainable in larger, four-member constituencies – as had briefly been the case in the undivided, four-member constituency of Yorkshire from 1826.⁹⁰ The government’s decision in November 1831 to persevere with the division of counties, rather than create four-member counties, was crucial in terms of stalling the development of cheaper means of caucus-like party organisation, reliant on national frameworks, central party organisation and based around a national press. Instead, divided counties ensured that the development of locally based registration societies and party associations became the most practicable, and financially effective, means of securing electoral success.⁹¹

Suffolk East, and the aforementioned Western division, witnessed some of the earliest division-based organisational efforts of the period, which were quickly replicated across the country. By 1837 all four of Suffolk’s seats were in Conservative hands, a huge turnaround from 1831 when the undivided county had returned two reformers. Prominent Conservative landowners led their respective East and West Suffolk Agricultural Societies from 1832, whose division-focused registration drives and promotion of agricultural issues, such as the corn laws and the malt tax, secured control of both counties for the next two decades.⁹² The spread of similar division-based associations across England during the 1830s was also significant in establishing a new generation of Conservative country gentlemen, as figures within the local gentry used the opportunities provided by constituency dinners, hustings speeches and committee meetings to establish themselves within local party hierarchies. For example, John Yarde Buller sat as a Conservative MP for Devonshire South between 1835 and 1858, and Lewis William Buck represented Devonshire North between 1839 and 1857. While both had started their political careers during the 1820s, the opportunities provided by co-ordinating local registration drives, and delivering repeated, staunch anti-Whig, pro-Anglican and pro-agricultural public speeches during the 1830s placed them at the head of their division’s respective parties and ensured their seats in the Commons for the next two decades.⁹³

While the Conservative revival was the most striking aspect of county politics during the 1830s, political organisation did not evolve evenly. In rare cases such as Somerset East, Staffordshire South and Cornwall West, well organised Whig-Liberal registration efforts proved that seats were winnable, even when agricultural issues dominated politics throughout the 1830s and 1840s.⁹⁴ This contrasted with the internal divisions, and a distaste for organising county politics, that tended to define Whig-Liberal efforts elsewhere. Essex South’s Whig and radical factions, for instance, took over three decades to fully recover from their internal divisions at the 1832 election.⁹⁵ And in Northamptonshire South, Conservative candidates thrived due to the unwillingness of the county’s Whig leaders to imitate their opponents’ ‘unfeeling and ungentlemanly’ approach to registration.⁹⁶

This contributed to a growing sense of defeatism about Whig-Liberal county prospects, and in the aftermath of the 1835 election John Bull was already being pictured by the pro-reform McLean’s Monthly Sheet of Caricatures as being ‘poisoned’ by the division of counties and £50 tenants-at-will (Figure 8.1). Whig-Liberals tended to blame Conservative deployment of illegitimate influence, bribery, the creation of fictional voters and voter intimidation, rather than themselves. While such practices did take place (on both sides of the political spectrum), to accept these excuses as the primary explanation for the Conservative revival in the counties during the 1830s would be to believe contemporary Liberal propaganda. Importantly, it ignores the fact that, as well as their organisational efforts, the Conservatives were helped by the electoral popularity of protection and Protestantism during the 1830s and 1840s.⁹⁷ One poll book analysis of Norfolk East during the 1830s has revealed a Conservative-supporting ‘rural electorate that was relatively free of [landlord] controls’.⁹⁸ And despite the clear territorial influence of major landlords in Shropshire South and North, support for the corn laws and the established Church ensured both divisions in this primarily agricultural and Anglican county remained ‘persistently tory’ for most of the period.⁹⁹

Local economies were also influential in defining a county’s party politics, but they should not be understood within a simple urban-Liberal, rural-Conservative binary. The ruthlessness of organisation, and the genuine popularity of the Conservative message, helped ensure Conservative success in divisions with huge urban electorates during the 1830s, such as Lancashire South, Sussex East, Warwickshire North and Yorkshire’s West Riding.¹⁰⁰ It was only during the 1850s that Whig-Liberal candidates enjoyed wider-spread success, following the decline of protection as a defining political issue, an element of ‘Conservative apathy’, increasing urbanisation in some counties and the revival of Liberal registration efforts.¹⁰¹ This built on some of the county registration efforts of Anti-Corn Law League campaigners during the 1840s, but was also thanks to a new generation of Whig-Liberal leaders, who were not as squeamish about organising electoral politics, and by the early 1860s, were willing to cede local influence to the formative, national Liberal Registration Society.¹⁰²

The legacy of D. C. Moore’s provocative analysis of nineteenth-century electoral politics means that the issue of proprietorial control, and voter deference, needs to be considered in any analyses of reformed county politics, particularly when the impact of the division of counties is considered. However, the extent of aristocratic and gentry landowner influence over county politics after 1832 has to be understood subtly, as intersecting with questions of registration and organisation. Proprietorial influence over a county’s representation was most evident when family pacts or generational changes in aristocratic leadership led to changes in the operation of electoral politics. In Sussex West the conversion of the fifth Duke of Richmond to Conservatism by the late 1830s was crucial in ensuring the division returned two Conservatives by 1841.¹⁰³ And in Staffordshire South an election compromise between the leading Whig and Conservative families following the expensive 1837 election remained in place until Liberal registration efforts successfully challenged the pact at an 1854 by-election.¹⁰⁴

Despite its much-promised cost-cutting benefits, the continued expense of organising politics in some divided counties gave major landowners, such as the Conservative Londonderrys and the Whig-Liberal Lambtons in Durham South, the ability to over-rule the candidate choices of their respective local associations.¹⁰⁵ However, in most counties proprietorial influence needed to be co-ordinated with local party activities, and if MPs did not move in lockstep with registration efforts and increasing levels of partisanship during the 1830s, their influence diminished. This proved to be the case with Gilbert John Heathcote, the largest landed proprietor in Lincolnshire South and the division’s MP since 1832. His insistence on standing as an independent and refusal to engage with the South Lincolnshire Conservative Association or appease the division’s Dissenting Liberal vote by supporting the abolition of church rates forced his retirement by 1841 in the face of an electorate polarised ‘along clear party, rather than proprietorial lines’.¹⁰⁶ Proprietorial influence could also be challenged from within, and by the early 1850s in Cornwall East frequent petitioning and meetings among a range of farmers’ organisations meant ‘it was farmers rather than gentry whose opinions counted’ during the division’s 1852 election.¹⁰⁷ Similar instances of such ‘farmers’ revolts’ against landlord influence were seen in the three-member county of Herefordshire, and the divided counties of Nottinghamshire North and South, and Leicestershire South.¹⁰⁸

The combination of new systems of voter registration after 1832, the division of counties and a proliferation of towns associated with the electoral politics of a county, either as new places of election or polling places, had a clear impact on the wider identity and culture of England’s counties. As the Morning Post had predicted in September 1831, reform politicised localities that had previously been able to escape constant electioneering due to their geographic and institutional distance from their county’s electoral centre:

… every little hamlet is to be the home of electioneering excitement. Parties will gradually form, quarrel will grow upon quarrel, and all the confusion, and ill blood, and angry feeling which now characterise the county town only during the election, will be domesticated with tenfold violence in every peaceful and retired village throughout the United Kingdom.¹⁰⁹

As historians have recognised, parliamentary and local voter registration, as well as the development of poor law administration, led to something of a realisation of the Morning Post’s fears during the 1830s.¹¹⁰ The division of counties, as well as the introduction of new places of election and polling places, contributed to a similar politicisation of county life. Both reforms were also significant in ensuring the survival, proliferation and evolution of pre-reform electoral customs in existing and new county locations.¹¹¹

This was particularly marked in county divisions that were not assigned a county’s historic nomination town and had to develop their own electoral culture in new settings. While Northamptonshire South got to keep the county’s historic nomination town, the unincorporated Kettering became the election town for Northamptonshire North. The reality of county politics shocked Kettering’s unprepared local officials when a violent by-election nomination in 1835 revealed the need for co-ordinated planning of election events, following which the town’s public houses and meeting rooms gradually superseded the parliamentary borough of Peterborough as the central venue for the division’s electoral activity. The town’s increasing political significance meant that by the late 1830s the division’s Chartists made it the focal point for their county-wide activities, and as the period wore on internal divisions within Kettering’s Baptist politics assumed county-wide significance, as their exaggerated influence over county politics split the division’s Liberals into warring factions of respectable and radical Dissenters.¹¹² New polling towns could also be transformed by their formal association with electoral politics. As the Victorian Election Violence project has revealed, the vast majority of recorded instances of violent election incidents in the counties, ranging from fights to riots and deaths, tended to take place in newly established polling towns after 1832. These could be isolated incidents, such as when a local reverend was ‘thrown down and rolled in the mud’ by a crowd during polling for Hampshire North at Basingstoke in December 1832.¹¹³ Or they could relate to widespread violence that spread across an entire county, as happened in Hertfordshire’s polling towns of Hertford, Hitchin, Hemel Hempstead, Hoddesdon, Watford and Great Berkhamsted in 1852.¹¹⁴

The continued relevance of the division of counties in 1832 must also be acknowledged, given that the considerations which guided boundary reform in the counties in 1832 remain remarkably similar to those that guide boundary reform in the United Kingdom today. Most of Lefevre’s county divisions remained in place for over half a century – ten of the counties that Lefevre divided were allocated additional seats and re-divided by the 1868 Boundary Act, but fifteen of his divisions remained in place until the 1885 Redistribution of Seats Act, which divided the counties into 231 single-member districts. The differentiation between the county and borough franchise remained in place until 1918, and the basic means of subdividing the counties used by Lefevre in 1832 was replicated in 1868, 1885 and 1918. On each occasion, boundary commissioners were required to base county divisions around existing administrative areas – hundreds and petty sessional divisions in 1868, and sessional divisions and aggregates of parishes from 1885. The instructions for division in 1868 were very similar to that of 1832 (incidentally, Lefevre’s brother, and former speaker of the Commons, Charles Shaw Lefevre, chaired the 1868 enquiry), but in 1885 and 1918 the boundary commissions were asked to discount equality in area in favour of an explicit request to segregate urban and rural portions of counties.¹¹⁵ On all occasions, as had been the case in 1832, a need to juggle these requirements led to a considerable variety in terms of equality in population between the subdivisions of England’s counties – even when population had become an accepted unit of representation by 1918. Similarly, the redefinition of the United Kingdom’s entire electoral map since 1944, when seat redistribution became based on an electoral quota, has been completed using existing local governmental subdivisions to create as equal a voter distribution as possible while also paying attention to existing community identities. Since 1944, balancing these considerations has continued, and continues, to prevent the creation of truly equal parliamentary districts within the United Kingdom.

Notes

1. 1. Monmouthshire, with its two MPs, has been considered part of Wales in line with M. Cragoe, Culture, Politics and National Identity in Wales 1832–1886 (Oxford, 2004).

2. 2. M. Brock, The Great Reform Act (London, 1973), 222–3, 264; J. Cannon, Parliamentary Reform 1640–1832 (Cambridge, 1973), 247; J. Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (London, 1993), 81.

3. 3. D. C. Moore, The Politics of Deference: A Study of the Mid-Nineteenth Century Political System (New York, 1976), 177–79; D. C. Moore, ‘Concession or Cure: The Sociological Premises of the First Reform Act’, Historical Journal, 9, 1 (1966)’, 39–59; D. C. Moore, ‘The Other Face of Reform’, Victorian Studies, 5, 1 (1961), 7–34; E. P. Hennock and D. C. Moore, ‘The First Reform Act: A Discussion’, Victorian Studies, 14, 3 (1971), 337.

4. 4. P. Salmon, ‘English Reform Legislation, 1831–32’, in D. Fisher (ed.), The House of Commons, 1820–1832, i. (Cambridge, 2009), 407–12.

5. 5. F. O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons, and Parties: The Unreformed Electoral System of Hanoverian England 1734–1832 (Oxford, 1989), 225–44; D. Eastwood, ‘Contesting the Politics of Deference: The Rural Electorate, 1820–60’, in J. Lawrence and Miles Taylor (eds.), Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820 (Aldershot, 1997), 27–49; D. Fisher, The House of Commons, 1820–1832, ii–iii. (Cambridge, 2009); A. Heesom, ‘ “Legitimate” versus “Illegitimate” Influences: Aristocratic Electioneering in Mid-Victorian Britain’, Parliamentary History, 7, 2 (1988), 282–305; T. Nossiter, Influence, Opinion and Political Idioms in Reform England: Case Studies from the North-East, 1832–74 (Hassocks, 1975); Eastwood, ‘Contesting the Politics of Deference’, 42; P. Salmon, Electoral Reform at Work: Local Politics and National Parties, 1832–1841 (Woodbridge, 2002), 119–82.

6. 6. DSC, Grey, B46/1/45, ‘Memorandum on Reform Bill, by Russell, 20 Oct. 1831’, 1–8; DSC, Grey, B46/1/54, ‘Paper endorsed by Lord Althorp “Mr Horsley Palmers proposals”’, 1–2; B46/2/5, Wharncliffe to Grey, 24 Nov. 1831, f.1–2; DSC, Grey, B46/2/6, ‘Copy of Paper by Lord Wharncliffe on modifications on Reform Bill’, 10 Nov. 1831, f.1–10; H. Taylor (ed.), The Reform Act, 1832: The Correspondence of the Late Earl Grey, i. (London, 1867), 408; A. Kriegel, The Holland House Diaries, 1831–1840 (London, 1977), 81.

7. 7. Brock, Reform Act, 264; Salmon, ‘English Reform Legislation’, in Fisher, Commons, i. 407–410; Taylor, Correspondence of the Late Earl Grey, i. 474.

8. 8. DSC, Grey. B46/2/8, ‘Substance of what passed at the Bank on 9 Nov. between H.P. & P.G’, 1–2; B46/2/10, ‘Grenfell to Ellice’, 11 Nov. 1831, 1–2; The Times, 12, 18 Nov. 1831.

9. 9. SRO, Hatherton, D260/M/F/5/26/7, 31 Oct., 8 Nov., and 18 Nov. 1831, f.195, 200 and 220; SRO, Hatherton, D260/M/F/5/27/7, Lyttelton to Littleton, 10 Nov. 1831; see Chapters 5, 6 and 7.

10. 10. The Times, 23, 24 and 25 Nov. 1831; Courier, 25 Nov. 1831; Taylor, Correspondence of the Late Earl Grey, i. 474; Kriegel, Holland House, 84; Brock, Reform Act, 260.

11. 11. D. Fisher, ‘Charles Shaw-Lefevre’, in R. G. Thorne, The House of Commons, 1790–1820, iv. (Cambridge, 1986), 403.

12. 12. F. Wilson, A Strong Supporting Cast: The Shaw Lefevres 1789–1936 (London, 1993), 106.

13. 13. Wilson, Strong Supporting Cast, 54, 63–4; M. Curthoys, ‘Lefevre, Sir John George Shaw-(1797–1879)’, ODNB, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/25275 [accessed 6 Sept. 2016].

14. 14. P. Mandler, Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform: Whigs and Liberals 1830–1852 (Oxford, 1990), 91.

15. 15. Wilson, Strong Supporting Cast, 62, 90–218; Curthoys, ‘Lefevre’.

16. 16. Hansard, 3, v. (11 Aug. 1831), 1222.

17. 17. PP1830–31 (247), ii. 4.

18. 18. Salmon, ‘English Reform Legislation’, in Fisher, Commons, i. 409.

19. 19. Moore, Politics of Deference, 178; PP1831–2 (357), xli. 4.

20. 20. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 3.

21. 21. PP1831 (348), xviii. 410–17.

22. 22. TNA, T72/43, ‘Ledger of the Commissioners’, f. 140; Lewis, Topographical Dictionary (1831).

23. 23. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 23–6, 57–60; 9 Geo IV, c.43 (15 July 1828).

24. 24. PA, Lefevre Papers, SLF/15/46, Lefevre to Spencer, 2 Dec. 1831, 146; PP1831–2 (357), xli. 11–12, 16–17, 23, 29–30; SRO, Hatherton, D260/M/F/5/27/7, Lyttelton to Littleton, 10 Nov. 1831.

25. 25. PA, Lefevre Papers, SLF/15/46, Lefevre to Spencer, 2 Dec. 1831. 146.

26. 26. See Introduction for data sources.

27. 27. PP2014–15, HC 600, What Next on the Redrawing of Parliamentary Constituency Boundaries?, 3, 16, 19–20; The 2023 Review of Parliamentary Constituencies was completed on a stricter +/-5 per cent variance, Boundary Commission for England, ‘Guide to the 2023 Review of Parliamentary constituencies’ (2021), 8.

28. 28. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 43, 51.

29. 29. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 28–30.

30. 30. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 3.

31. 31. Salmon, Electoral Reform at Work, 146–82.

32. 32. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 51.

33. 33. PP1831–2 (174), iii. 173.

34. 34. Hansard, 3, ix. (27 Jan. 1832), 993; PA, Lefevre, SLF/15/47, Lefevre to Spencer, 28 Jan. 1832, 3

35. 35. SRO, Hatherton, D260/M/F/5/26/7, 7 Feb. 1832, 336; SRO, Hatherton, D260/M/F/5/27/8, Lansdowne to Littleton, undated, catalogued after 6 Feb., 9.

36. 36. J. Gibson and C. Rogers, Poll Books 1696–1872: A Directory to Holdings in Great Britain (Bury, 2008).

37. 37. Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire.

38. 38. Cheshire, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Devonshire, Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Lancashire, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, Northumberland, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire.

39. 39. BL, Add. MS. 79714, Browne to Graham, 4 Apr. 1831, 192; BL, Add. MS. 79715, Blamire to Graham, undated, 25–9; M. Escott, ‘Cumberland’, in Fisher, Commons, ii. 213–17; H. Spencer, ‘Russell, William, 1798–1850’, in Fisher, Commons, vi. 1077–9.

40. 40. Wilson, Strong Supporting Cast, 76; Anonymous, A Copy of the Poll for Two Knights of the Shire for the County of Northamptonshire (Northampton, 1831).

41. 41. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 34–5.

42. 42. H. Spencer, ‘Northamptonshire’, in Fisher, Commons, ii. 752–61.

43. 43. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 22–6.

44. 44. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 23.

45. 45. H. Spencer and P. Salmon, ‘Hampshire’, in Fisher, Commons, ii. 418–25; R. Foster, Politics of County Power: Wellington and the Hampshire Gentlemen 1820–1852 (Hemel Hempstead, 1990), 11, 105–50.

46. 46. J. H. Andrews, ‘Political Issues in the County of Kent, 1820–1846’ (University of London MPhil. dissertation, 1967), 11–12.

47. 47. Hansard, 3, v. (11 Aug. 1831), 1221–48, ix. (27 Jan. 1832), 890–1020.

48. 48. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 57–60.

49. 49. SRO, Hatherton, D260/M/F/5/27/7, Lyttelton to Littleton, 10 Nov. 1831; P. Salmon, ‘Worcestershire’, in Fisher, Commons, iii. 225–9; D. Fisher, ‘Ward, Hon John (1781–1833)’, in Fisher, Commons, vii. 637–42.

50. 50. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 54.

51. 51. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 31.

52. 52. Moore, Politics of Deference, 178; Hennock and Moore, ‘Sociological Premises of the First Reform Act’, 337.

53. 53. SRO, Hatherton, D260/M/F/5/26/7, 25 July 1831, 84–6.

54. 54. MOP (7 June 1832), iii. 2519.

55. 55. MOP (22 June 1832), iii. 2733

56. 56. MOP (7 June 1832), iii. 2519.

57. 57. O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons, 135.

58. 58. Hansard, 3, ii. (1 Mar. 1831), 1075.

59. 59. Hansard, 3, x. (11 Feb. 1832), 247–8.

60. 60. SRO, Hatherton, D260/M/F/5/26/7, 16 Feb. 1832, 347–8; MOP (8 June 1832), iii. 2529; PP1831–2 (488), iii. 27–34.

61. 61. 2 William IV c.64 (11 July 1832).

62. 62. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 4, 7, 39, 43.

63. 63. SRO, Hatherton, D260/M/F/5/26/7, 4 Aug. 1831, 107; P. Salmon, ‘Staffordshire’, in Fisher, Commons, iii. 10.

64. 64. SRO, Hatherton, D260/M/F/5/26/7, 7 Feb. 1832, 336, D260/M/F/5/26/8, 14 June 1832, 63–5; BL, Add. MS. 79717, Graham to Russell, undated, 66 (incorrectly attributed to Durham).

65. 65. MOP (22 June 1832), iii. 2732–3.

66. 66. Staffordshire Advertiser, 30 June 1832; HLJ (1831–2), lxiv. 330, 336, 342, 365.

67. 67. Derby Mercury, 4 July 1832; PP1831–2 (357), xli. 13; Lewis, Topographical Dictionary (1831), ii. 28.

68. 68. HCJ (1831–2), lxxxvii. 387, 425.

69. 69. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 29; Lewis, Topographical Dictionary (1831), iii. 19.

70. 70. Lewis, Topographical Dictionary (1831), iii. 377.

71. 71. Hansard, 3, xiii. (7 June 1832), 543.

72. 72. BL, Add. MS. 79717, Graham to Russell, undated, 66; M. Escott, ‘Smith, Stanley Edward, 1775–1851’, in Fisher, Commons, vii. 158.

73. 73. MOP (7 June 1832), iii. 2518; Lancaster Gazette, 16 June 1832.

74. 74. PP1831–2 (357), xli. 20–21; PP1831–2 (488), iii. 7; PP1831–2 (521), iii. 7; HCJ (1831–2), lxxxvii. 425; 2 Gul. IV, c.64 (11 July 1832).

75. 75. MOP (8 June 1832), iii. 2518.

76. 76. T. Jenkins, ‘Gloucestershire’, in Fisher, Commons, ii. 393.

77. 77. MOP (22 June 1832), iii. 2731–2.

78. 78. LJ (1831–2), lxiv. 353.

79. 79. BL, Add. MS. 79717, Graham to Russell, undated, 66; MOP (9 July 1832), iv. 3052.

80. 80. MOP (8 June 1832), iii. 2529.

81. 81. LJ (1831–2), lxiv. 342, 348.

82. 82. Morning Chronicle, 30 June 1832.

83. 83. Hansard, 3, xiv. (9 July 1832), 170–72.

84. 84. The exceptions being Salmon, ‘English Reform Legislation’, in Fisher, Commons, 411; H. Miller, Nation of Petitioners: Petitions and Petitioning in the United Kingdom, 1780–1918 (Cambridge, 2023), 60–61.

85. 85. Compiled from Fisher, Commons, iv–vii.

86. 86. H. Spencer and P. Salmon, ‘Hampshire’, in Fisher, Commons, i. 424; Foster, Politics of County Power, 130–50.

87. 87. J. Owen, ‘Suffolk West’, in P. Salmon and K. Rix, The House of Commons 1832–1868 (forthcoming).

88. 88. C. Dod, Electoral Facts, from 1832 to 1853, Impartially Stated (London, 1853), 353.

89. 89. H. Miller, ‘Warwickshire South’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

90. 90. M. Casey, ‘Yorkshire’, in Fisher, Commons, iii. 236–53.

91. 91. Salmon. Electoral Reform, 146–82; M. Cragoe, ‘The Great Reform Act and the Modernization of British Politics: The Impact of Conservative Associations, 1835–1841’, Journal of British Studies, 47, 3 (2008), 581–603.

92. 92. J. Owen, ‘Suffolk East’, and ‘Suffolk West’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

93. 93. M. Spychal, ‘Buck, Lewis William’, and ‘Buller, John Buller Yarde’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

94. 94. P. Salmon, ‘Somerset East’, and H. Miller, ‘Staffordshire South’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868; E. Jaggard, Cornwall Politics in the Age of Reform, 1790–1885 (London, 1999), 94–5.

95. 95. J. Owen, ‘Essex North’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

96. 96. M. Spychal, ‘Northamptonshire South’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

97. 97. A. Gambles, Protection and Politics: Conservative Economic Discourse, 1815–1852 (Woodbridge, 1999), 176–229; T. Crosby, English Farmers and the Politics of Protection 1815–1852 (Hassocks, 1977), 81–186.

98. 98. Salmon, Electoral Reform, 139–40.

99. 99. Birmingham Daily Post, 22 July 1865. See also, West Kent Guardian, 6 Feb. 1836; Daily News, 24 Sept. 1868; Dod, Electoral Facts, from 1832 to 1853, 274–6; M. Spychal, ‘Botfield, Beriah’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

100. 100. Daily News, 29 Sept. 1851; Salmon, Electoral Reform, 61–2, 129–31, 138–9, 174–82; H. Miller, ‘Warwickshire North’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

101. 101. John Bull, 18 Mar. 1865.

102. 102. South Eastern Gazette, 8 June 1847; Daily News, 29 Sept. 1851; Evening Mail, 14 Feb. 1859; Worcester Journal, 26 Feb. 1859; Wiltshire Independent, 16 July 1863, 4 Aug. 1864; Nonconformist, 14 Oct. 1863; Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, 8 Dec. 1864; John Bull, 18 Mar. 1865; H. Miller, ‘Leicestershire South’, and ‘Staffordshire South’, M. Spychal, ‘Northamptonshire North’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

103. 103. Brighton Gazette, 11 June, 2 July 1835; Standard, 11 Oct. 1837; Sun, 20 Nov. 1839; Daily News, 28 Aug. 1868.

104. 104. H. Miller, ‘Staffordshire South’ in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

105. 105. J. Owen, ‘Durham South’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

106. 106. Salmon, Electoral Reform, 160.

107. 107. Jaggard, Cornwall Politics, 155.

108. 108. J. Owen, ‘Nottinghamshire North’, and ‘Nottinghamshire South’, H. Miller, ‘Herefordshire’, and ‘Leicestershire South’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868; Crosby, Politics of Protection, 161–71.

109. 109. Morning Post, 15 Sept. 1831.

110. 110. Salmon, Electoral Reform, 185–200, 224–32; P. Salmon, ‘Local Politics and Partisanship: The Electoral Impact of Municipal Reform, 1835’, Parliamentary History, 19, 3 (2000), 357–76; J. Phillips and C. Wetherall, ‘The Great Reform Act of 1832 and the Political Modernization of England’, American Historical Review, 100, 2 (1995), 411–36; D. Fraser, ‘The Poor Law as a Political Institution’, in D. Fraser (ed.), The New Poor Law in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1976), 111–27; D. Fraser, Urban Politics in Victorian England: The Structure of Politics in Victorian Cities (Leicester, 1976), 55–90.

111. 111. On this phenomenon see, O’Gorman, Voters, Patrons, Parties, 392–3; F. O’Gorman, ‘Campaign Rituals and Ceremonies: The Social Meaning of Elections in England 1780–1860’, Past and Present, 135 (1992), 79–115; J. Vernon, Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, 1815–1867 (Cambridge, 1993), 207–50.

112. 112. M. Spychal, ‘Northamptonshire North’, in Salmon and Rix, Commons 1832–1868.

113. 113. Sussex Advertiser, 24 Dec. 1832.

114. 114. Patrick M. Kuhn; Luke Blaxill; Gidon Cohen; Gary Hutchison; Nick Vivyan (2022), ‘Interactive Map of Election Violence Events in England and Wales, 1832–1914’, Causes and Consequences of Electoral Violence: Evidence from England and Wales, http://victorianelectionviolence.uk/interactive-map/ [accessed 29 Nov. 2022].

115. 115. D. Rossiter, R. Johnston, and C. Pattie, The Boundary Commissions: Redrawing the United Kingdom’s Map of Parliamentary Constituencies (Manchester, 1999), 39–42, 53, 60–74; M. Cowling, 1867, Disraeli, Gladstone and Revolution: The Passing of the Second Reform Bill (Cambridge, 1967), 52–3; M. Chadwick, ‘The Role of Redistribution in the Making of the Third Reform Act’, HJ, 19, 3 (1976), 680; M. Roberts, ‘Resisting ‘Arithmocracy’: Parliament, Community and the Third Reform Act’, JBS, 50, 2 (2011), 381–409.