The county town of Lancaster on the River Lune had been polled four times between 1790 and 1818. Its politics were influenced by attempts to restore its eighteenth-century prosperity and civic pride by reversing the decline of its port and staple industries of shipbuilding, cabinet making and sailcloth manufacture, following the loss to Liverpool in 1799 of its West India trade; and by the campaign to prevent the transfer of its assizes to Liverpool, Manchester or Preston.4 The influential Lowther family, headed by the Tory 1st earl of Lonsdale, and the Douglas family, whose head, the 10th duke of Hamilton, owned nearby Ashton Hall (and had represented the borough, 1802-6), failed to add Lancaster to their pocket boroughs. However, they could sway elections when allied with the corporation, the textile manufactures who had invested in the town since 1802, Liverpool mercantile interests or fellow local landowners. Prominent among the latter were the Whig lord lieutenant, the 12th earl of Derby, and his son-in-law Edmund Hornby* of Dalton Hall.5 At least four-fifths of the electors were non-resident, and contests tended to be determined by largesse and pre-poll freeman admissions financed by the rival candidates and their sponsors. These peaked during or in anticipation of contests in 1818 (837), 1824 (255), 1826 (133), 1830 (168) and 1831 (147).6

At the 1818 general election, which left the protagonists financially exhausted, the Liverpool West India merchant John Gladstone*, backed by Hamilton’s father and a Liverpool consortium, had topped a poll of 2,490 (the largest known) to be returned with the sitting nabob and Northamptonshire squire Gabriel Doveton, thus unseating the anti-Catholic Tory John Fenton Cawthorne of nearby Wyreside Hall, a member of the ailing port commission, and breaking the preferred pattern of representation by a resident country gentlemen and a man of commerce. A petition alleging treating failed. Fenton Cawthorne rallied his friends at the Hearts of Oak Club and on the corporation, a self-electing body dominated by the merchant elite and local gentry of the Pitt Club, founded by William Minshull, proprietor of the Lancaster Gazette. The corporation comprised a mayor and two bailiffs (the bailiff of the brethren and the bailiff of the commons), who were the returning officers, seven aldermen, 12 capital burgesses and 12 common councillors. On 30 Aug. 1819, at a cost of £1,900, they had revived themselves by securing the adoption of a new charter confirming self-selection, in the teeth of opposition from reluctant appointees to office (they were fined for refusing) and resident non-freemen led by the attorney Arthur Ingleby (d. 1824). Ingleby demanded the vote and access to corporation meetings for all inhabitants. The freemen were routinely polled in the event of a contest for the post of common bailiff, and after 1820 these elections became a focus for fierce partisan activity.7 The committal to Lancaster gaol of Henry Hunt* and the Peterloo agitators at the 1819 summer assizes created a stir, as did their petitions to Parliament protesting at their conditions of detention. The leaders of the Pitt Club had requisitioned a public meeting which addressed the regent, 13 Sept. 1819, when Fenton Cawthorne and another local landowner, Thomas Greene of Slyne and Whittington, paraded their credentials as ‘church and state’ candidates. Greene had been endorsed by the recorder of Liverpool, James Clarke of Cockerham, in a harangue against reform.8

The anti-Catholic Tory Thomas Richmond Gale Braddyll† of Conishead Priory, a son of the 1780-84 Member, tested the ground early in 1820, but finding that the Lowthers intended to remain neutral or to back Fenton Cawthorne, who had started canvassing, he, like Greene, desisted.9 Doveton delayed his announcement until 17 Feb., when his committee were authorized to spend, and a replay of the 1818 contest was avoided and shared representation restored by the announcement of Gladstone’s retirement, 22 Feb., ‘upon the fullest consideration of some of the circumstances that attended the last election and of events which have since grown out of them’. (He came in for New Woodstock.)10 Fenton Cawthorne, whose committee met at his Market Street house and the King’s Arms, persisted with a thorough canvass of the resident and Lancashire out-voters to deter late challengers, but none appeared. His proposers, Richard Atkinson of Stodday Lodge and William Atkinson of Dalton, praised his commitment to church, state and Lancaster. Doveton, who was sponsored by the banker John Dilworth and the Whig physician Lawson Whalley (one of the Lawson Quaker dynasty), made the briefest of visits, dined his supporters at the Royal Oak and spoke of his attention to Lancaster interests.11 Charles Gibson of Quernmore Lodge presided at the Pitt Club dinner, 30 May, when the Hearts of Oak Club held their own celebration of Pitt, organized on Fenton Cawthorne’s behalf by John Charnley of Castle Park, who presided with him at their anniversary dinner, 18 Aug. 1820.12

A borough meeting chaired by James Atkinson as mayor, 14 Dec. 1820, when Clarke and the vicar John Manby were the main speakers, addressed the king unanimously in support of ministers after the bill of pains and penalties against Queen Caroline was abandoned.13 The Pitt Club overcame a challenge to their monopoly of corporation offices in 1822 when the cotton spinner William Robinson defeated the whitesmith John Heaton to become common bailiff. They mustered in strength at the installation of their president Thomas Greene as county sheriff in March 1823 and at the May dinner, and carried the election of the shipbuilder John Brockbank as common bailiff in October.14 Backed by Greene and Derby’s heir, the county Member Lord Stanley, who was foreman of the grand jury, the mayor, the ship owner John Bertram Nottage and the corporation launched a well-publicized campaign and successfully opposed populous Liverpool’s bid to become an assize town. Hostile petitioning by Liverpool, Manchester and Warrington failed to prevent them consolidated their achievement through the 1824 Judges’ Lodging Act, granting Lancaster £10,000 for better premises (5 Geo. IV, c. 19).15 The corporation-sponsored paving and tithes bills were also enacted that session (5 Geo. IV, c. 66 and 70), but a new canal bill failed and policing remained in the hands of an ad hoc local committee.16

The locally connected Tory and political economist Francis Lee offered when Doveton’s death, 9 Apr. 1824, produced a vacancy. He was the promoter of a scheme to redevelop the port by constructing a quay and lock across the Lune estuary from Glasson to Overton, and described himself as the locum for his under-age son Edward Hughes Lee, whom he introduced as the heir to the £30,000 fortune of his uncle Edward Hughes Ball Hughes. Lonsdale’s Westmorland ally, the nabob Alexander Nowell* of Underley in the Lune valley, was also spoken of; but the corporation rallied behind Greene, who had ‘proved his worth’ on the assizes question, was a shareholder in the Kendal canal and the developer of nearby Hest Bank quay, which had boosted the coastal trade. He declared directly the writ was moved, 12 Apr., entertained lavishly, and joined Hamilton, who intended future opposition, in financing over 200 freeman admissions, 19 Apr. 1284.17 His return next day, proposed by Gibson and Richard Atkinson, gave both seats to local Tories. Greene, who was to trim between the parties, maintained that his entourage’s red banners were no political label and distinguished him only as outgoing sheriff, and he insisted on his right to put conscience before party, despite his current endorsement of the Liverpool administration’s policies. At the dinner in the Assembly Rooms, which Fenton Cawthorne also addressed, Hornby defended the Whigs’ decision not to oppose a candidate of Greene’s calibre. The Lancaster Gazette reported that the election heralded a ‘sort of new era, the renewal of that cordiality and good fellowship which beseem a civilized community’.18

The 1824 and 1825 common bailiff elections were uncontested, but manoeuvring by Lee and Nowell persisted and Greene, who made his mark as a promoter of tithe reform, had repeatedly to deny reports that he was a stalking horse and would stand down at the next general election. Both Members issued notices when it was falsely anticipated in October 1825.19 The collapse in February 1826 of the Lancaster Bank of Dilworth, Arthington and Birkett, with £145,835 in proven debts, had been preceded in 1822 by the failure of Thomas Worswick, Sons and Company, and left the town with no bank, threatening the Canal Company and many businesses. The corporation’s response, a bid to secure a Bank of England branch bank for Lancaster, was rejected.20 The banking crisis also prompted Lee’s retirement from the fray before the general election in June 1826, when, to the Lowthers’ annoyance, Nowell, who had first tried Carlisle, left his personal canvass too late and desisted, before making a futile bid for a county seat.21 Hamilton waited until nomination day, 9 June, before approving Greene’s return with Fenton Cawthorne, who, despite lacking the stamina and wealth for a contest, remained personally popular. Catholic relief, the sugar and coal duties (the subjects of petitions from the corporation and merchants in 1823 and 1825), colonial slavery, for whose abolition the inhabitants had petitioned, 7 Apr. 1826, and that session’s corn bill and Bank Acts were the main issues discussed. The Members were proposed as previously, with Clarke now seconder for the absent Fenton Cawthorne and Hornby for Greene, who paid for the entertainments.22 On 14 July 1826 the mayor, Samuel Gregson, who was secretary of the Kendal Canal Company and president of the Pitt Club, chaired a public meeting to establish the Lancaster Joint-Stock Banking Company, with Alderman Leonard Redmayne as the largest shareholder.23

The campaign to open the corporation revived with the demise in 1827-8 of the Pitt Club; but close scrutiny of the accounts was evaded and schemes to revive freeman admissions by purchase and farm the corporation leases were either shelved or botched. At the 1827 common bailiff election, the Whig surgeon, reformer and campaigner for detailed audits Christopher Johnson lost by 319-301 to the Tory merchant Arthur Armistead, after the poll had stood overnight at 103 each. Johnson’s election in 1828 was uncontested.24 Greene presented the Dissenters’ petitions, 6 June 1827, and voted for repeal of the Test Acts in 1828.25 The Lord received petitions from the town’s physicians and surgeons calling for the relaxation of prohibitions on dissection to assist anatomical study, 8 May, and the Catholics for relief, 16 May 1828.26 According to The Times, Lord Holland presented a similar petition from them, 9 Feb. 1829, but it is not recorded in the Journals.27 Both Members opposed the concession of Catholic emancipation in 1829. The corporation’s hostile petition, which Greene presented, with another from the inhabitants, 2 Mar., was ridiculed that day by Derby’s grandson Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley, who claimed that it had been carried ‘behind closed doors’, 27 Feb., after an amendment delegating resolution of the issue to Parliament had been narrowly defeated (15-13). Both Greene and its Lords presenter on 5 Mar, Eldon, commended it, and the corporation publicly thanked Greene for accurately representing their views, 13 Mar.28 The merchants, manufacturers, traders and inhabitants petitioned requesting inquiry into the East India Company’s monopolistic charter, with a view to opening the trade with China, 1 June 1829, 4 May, and the bankers for the abolition of capital punishment for forgery, 2 June 1830.29 The threat to the assizes revived with the publication in 1829 of the common law commissioners’ report which recommended holding them in Manchester; and with Liverpool also in contention, Greene and the Stanleys joined the mayor, the worsted manufacturer George Burrows, in resisting any change.30 The revival in the coastal trade had stalled and, with the death of George IV and a dissolution in prospect, a mercantile candidate of liberal opinions was sought and the Members were accused of neglecting the town’s commercial interests.31 Greene, who had recently recovered from a serious respiratory complaint, and Fenton Cawthorne, who was prevented by the infirmities of old age from canvassing personally, issued notices from London, 30 June 1830. Nowell, a steward at the June regatta and recent charity functions, had forfeited Lonsdale’s trust, and so Hamilton’s choice, the London West India merchant Patrick Maxwell Stewart, became the leading contender. That his brother Sir Michael Shaw Stewart (who now vacated Lanarkshire to come in for Renfrewshire) was the developer of the Clydeside port of Greenock also counted in Stewart’s favour. Stewart’s decision on 20 July, after a six-day canvass, to postpone the attempt created a furore among the lower orders eager for the spoils of a contest, and from the 24th they rallied in opposition to the absent Fenton Cawthorne.32 He and Greene were proposed as previously, 31 July. Greene’s seconder, William Carus Wilson*, a devotee of the Lowthers, praised his parliamentary record, and John Alexander Hunter of nearby Sunderland spoke similarly for Fenton Cawthorne. In the absence of a third man, the textile manufacturer Robert Hyde Gregg†, whose brother John, the proprietor of the Caton and sailcloth mills, was Lancaster’s largest employer, was put in nomination. His proposers, the attorney William Harling and the maltster Thomas Leeming, who had financed most of the 60 freeman admissions that morning, demanded a poll on his behalf. Moving with the political tide, Greene, the only candidate present, spoke of his recent votes for transferring East Retford’s seats to Birmingham and the enfranchisement of the manufacturing towns. Heeding the Dissenters’ placards and the corporation’s recent petitions, he also declared for the gradual abolition of colonial slavery and against the East India Company’s monopoly. He topped the poll of 390 that day, a Saturday, with 368 votes, to 239 for Fenton Cawthorne and 112 for Gregg. Before it reopened on the Monday (2 Aug.), John Gregg, responding to a summons from Greene, arrived and ordered polling for his brother to cease. He refused to be swayed otherwise by Harling. Directly the result was declared that day, it was announced from Ashton Hall that Stewart would stand ‘on the first occasion that shall occur’. Gregg’s notice distancing him from the present and any future attempts was circulated on the 3rd.33 His committee’s chairman Richard Atkinson rallied Fenton Cawthorne’s supporters at the King’s Arms, 19 Aug. 1830, and presided with him at the Hearts of Oak Club dinner.34

The Dissenters, Wesleyan Methodists and inhabitants petitioned both Houses for the abolition of slavery, 3, 9, Nov., 7, 21 Dec. 1830, 15 Apr. 1831, and the Commons received another from the cotton manufacturers against the tax on printed calicoes, 17 Dec. 1830.35 As elsewhere in the North, the Grey ministry’s registry of deeds bill was unpopular, and it was the subject of a hostile petition adopted at a meeting sponsored by the corporation, 9 Mar. 1831.36 Differences between Harling, who campaigned for an out-voter franchise at corporation elections, and Johnson, who sought the vote for all inhabitants, had thwarted the former’s attempt to return the Whig mill owner Thomas Mason as common bailiff in October 1830 and precluded an early consensus on reform. The cabinet makers and joiners petitioned the Lords for reform, including the ballot at parliamentary elections, 14 Feb., but otherwise petitioning was inhibited until after the by-election caused by Fenton Cawthorne’s death, 1 Mar. 1831.37 Backed by the liberal Lancaster Herald, established six weeks previously, Stewart declared immediately, had the writ issued on the 4th and was made an honorary freeman on the 12th after a successful five-day canvass. His committee stressed his aristocratic and mercantile connections, and support for free trade, economy and civil and religious liberty, but they delayed announcing his outright support for reform until details of the ministerial bill, which confirmed Lancaster’s entitlement to two Members, had been circulated, and said nothing on slavery or deed registration. His election on the 14th, proposed by Hornby and seconded by a personal friend of Fenton Cawthorne, the Rev. Thomas Butler, was unopposed.38 Next day, a petition in favour of the reform bill was unanimously adopted at a hurriedly convened assembly, when, as at subsequent Lancaster reform meetings, the speakers were Hornby and his son, the merchant Benjamin Dockray, who demanded more Scottish seats, Edward Dawson of Aldcliffe Hall, the mill owners George Burrow, John Gregg, Samuel Hinde and Thomas Housman Higgins, and the attorneys Henry Gregson, Lodge Moore and William Treasure Redmayne (representing his father the alderman). An attempt to confine the petition to the ‘chief aspects’ of the bill, as the Lancaster Gazette had recommended, failed. Johnson confirmed Greene’s support for the measure directly the petition was adopted and moved that he be asked to endorse it with its presenter Stewart.39 Doing so, 19 Mar., Greene expressed relief that his constituents and most of the corporation of Lancaster concurred in his opinion. The Lords received the petition in the bill’s favour, 21 Mar., and another two from the freemen urging them to pass it, 30 Mar. Both Members divided for it.40 Talk of putting up an anti-reformer against Greene at the 1831 general election evaporated, as did overt hostility to Stewart, whose declaration against the precipitate abolition of slavery and vote against Fowell Buxton’s motion on 15 Apr. had riled the Dissenters by confirming him as a West India Member. Opposition was confined to squibs and taunts on the hustings, where Greene, proposed as usual by Gibson, with Thomas Giles seconding, was hard pressed to demonstrate his political consistency on reform. Stewart, nominated by Hornby and Richard Atkinson, pragmatically acknowledged the evils of slavery and called for an end to the monopolies of the Bank and the East India Company and compensation for the West India planters.41

Both Members gave the reintroduced and revised reform bills general support. Greene’s wayward votes for enfranchising £50 tenants-at-will, 18 Aug., preserving freemen’s voting rights, 30 Aug. 1831, and transferring Gateshead’s seat to Merthyr Tydfil, 5 Mar. 1832, were condoned, but the Lancaster Herald criticized his ‘fudging’ and compared him unfavourably with Stewart, whose reform speeches it circulated.42 The bill’s fate dominated speeches at the coronation dinners in September 1831, and the ‘inhabitants’ petitioned the Lords in its favour, 30 Sept., but Stewart’s attempt to turn the corporation feast into a reform rally angered the bill’s local supporters.43 When a ministry headed by the duke of Wellington was contemplated in May 1832, the Conservatives canvassed against Greene in anticipation of a dissolution, but his endorsement of local petitions to the Commons opposing the factories bill, 30 July, 8 Aug. 1831, 7, 14 Mar. 1832, his support for the assizes campaign, and his speeches as spokesman for the magistrates and mill owners made him difficult to oppose, especially after Johnson became mayor in October 1832.44

No civic celebration marked the reform bill’s passage in June 1832.45 Parts of the neighbouring townships of Bulk and Scotforth were brought into the parliamentary borough, as the boundary commissioners had recommended, and Lancaster was made the principal polling town for Lancashire North. Before the general election in December, 1,109 electors were registered (848 freemen and only 161 new voters), a reduction of almost 3,000 (75 per cent).46 The Lancaster Gazette commented: ‘The constituency ... is greatly abridged, and the ruinous contests which formerly prevailed, by bringing out-voters, are not likely to revive. The expenditure was of the worst description and tainted with venality’.47 Nothing came of a challenge by locally-born John Simspon, and both Members successfully sought re-election in 1832, Stewart as a Liberal and Greene (who aligned afterwards with the Conservatives) as a supporter of free trade, tithe commutation and moderate parliamentary reform.48 Stewart’s defeat in 1837 by a second Conservative confirmed the representation in local landed and mercantile interests and also marked a return to frequent venal contests, of which there were nine before Lancaster was disfranchised for corruption in 1865. Conservatives predominated, 1837-47, but from 1847 the representation was generally shared. Borough representation was restored to Lancaster under the 1884 Reform Act.49