Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-l4ctd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-28T06:59:19.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Liberalism in Devon and Cornwall, 1910–1931: ‘the old-time religion’*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael Dawson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Liberalism in Devon and Cornwall before 1914 pursued a traditional ‘democratic’ rhetoric based on a class division which associated the Liberal party with ‘the people’ and Unionism with a privileged aristocracy. The ‘new Liberalism’ and social reform were unimportant. In the 1920s, the Gladstonian trinity of peace, retrenchment and free trade comprised easily the most common theme in Liberal candidates’ speeches. The Gladstonian tradition remained central to Liberalism because it accurately reflected the preoccupations of the party's core supporters in the region. There was apparently no belief amongst Liberals that the party's policies after 1918 were out-dated and irrelevant; their view is supported by an analysis of the 1923, 1924 and 1929 contests and their results.

Throughout the period, Liberal candidates were as ready and able as their opponents to use the coarser arts of electioneering. Liberalism was not wedded to a restricted Edwardian electorate with a relatively high level of political intelligence. The argument that it was is contradicted by contemporary accounts that the electorate of the 1920s was more thoughtful and less susceptible to emotional appeals than were pre-war voters.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 425 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hymn heard at a chapel in mid-Cornwall in the 1930s and which the author, Jack Clemo, had not encountered for ten years – ‘it had been expelled from the Methodist hymn-book as Conference realized the need of being progressive’. Clemo, J. R., Confession of a rebel (London, 1949). PP. 106–7.Google Scholar

2 Tanner, D., Political change and the Labour party 1900–1918 (Cambridge, 1990), esp. pp. 422 and 424CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bernstein, G. L., Liberalism and Liberal politics in Edwardian England (London, 1986), esp. pp. 120–3Google Scholar; Searle, G. R., The Liberal party: triumph and disintegration, 1886–1929 (London, 1992), esp. pp. 84, 85, 109 and 118–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 See Dawson, M., ‘Politics in Devon and Cornwall, 1900–1931’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1991)Google Scholar, chapters vii and viii.

4 The Liberal share of the vote in straight fights with Unionists or Conservatives was 51·8 per cent (Jan. 1910), 50·3 per cent (Dec. 1910), 49·1 per cent (1922), 53·4 per cent (1923) and 47·2 per cent (1924). The figures for post-war elections are for county divisions only.

5 See Western Times, 15, 12 and 17 Jan. 1910 (Tiverton, South Molton and Honiton).

6 For example, see the remarks of the Liberal candidates for Torquay, St Austell, Tavistock and Camborne on what their victories signified, Western Daily Mercury, 25 and 28 Jan. 1910.

7 Western Daily Mercury, 11, 12, 25 and 28 Jan.; West Briton, 6 Jan. 1910.

8 Western Daily Mercury, 28 Nov. and 9 Dec. 1910.

9 This supports the view of Howarth, J., ‘The Liberal revival in Northamptonshire, 1880–1895’, Historical Journal, XII, 1 (1969), 78–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pace Clarke, P. F., Lancashire and the new Liberalism (Cambridge, 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Western Daily Mercury, 13 Jan. 1910 (Layland-Barratt, Torquay).

11 Foot, S., My grandfather, Isaac Foot (Bodmin, 1980), p. 81Google Scholar; The Times, 14 Dec. 1960.

12 Vincent, J., The formation of the British Liberal party, 1857–68 (second edition, Sussex, 1976), pp. xliii and 163.Google Scholar

13 Dawson, M., ‘The Liberal land policy, 1924–1929: electoral strategy and internal division’, Twentieth-century British history, II, 3 (1991), 272–90, esp. pp. 285–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Kirk, J. H., The development of agriculture in Germany and the U.K.: U.K. agricultural policy 1870–1970 (Ashford, 1979), p. 5.Google Scholar

15 Western Times, 22 Nov. 1918.

16 West Briton, 23 May 1929.

17 Western Morning News, 13 Nov. 1923, said of Cornwall, but generally applicable.

18 Ibid. 5 Dec. 1923 (Croydon Marks, North Cornwall).

19 Ibid. 22 Nov. and 6 Dec. 1923.

20 Ramsden, J. (ed.), Real old Tory politics: the political diaries of Sir Robert Sanders (London, 1980), p. 247 (12 05 1932)Google Scholar. There were eight such contests in Devon and Cornwall; five others with National and Labour candidates only; and three uncontested seats.

21 Western Morning News, 27 Oct. 1931.

22 Western Morning News, 4 March; see also The Times, 27 Feb. 1922.

23 West Briton, 26 Oct. 1922; Western Times, 3 Nov. 1922.

24 Western Morning News, 10 May 1929 (Tavistock). Seven out of the twelve Liberal candidates mentioning specific issues cited the need for economy in their messages to the electors. Ibid. 21 May 1929.

25 Ibid. 11 May 1929.

26 Ibid. 10 May 1929.

27 Dictionary of national biography, 1951–1960 (Oxford, 1971), p. 604.Google Scholar

28 Implied by Wilson, T., The downfall of the Liberal party (London, 1966), p. 27.Google Scholar

29 Western Daily Mercury, 18 Nov and 2 Dec. 1918.

30 Western Morning News, 21 May 1929.

31 Diary of Lady Mary Peto, 29 May 1929 (emphasis in original). These diaries are owned by Mr Jonathan Peto of Wadebridge, Suffolk, . Western Morning News, 9 Dec. 1924.Google Scholar

32 Western Morning News, 25 May 1929; Camborne Conservative association minute book, 21 Oct. 1929, Cornwall county record office, X 387.

33 M. Petherick to Baldwin, 2 June 1929, Baldwin papers, vol. 37, fos. 162–4.

34 Briggs to Lord Astor, 28 Aug. 1922, Lady Astor papers, MS 1,416/1/1/1,735. Gooch, G. P., Life of Lord Courtney (London, 1920), p. 261.Google Scholar

35 Maclean to Viscount Gladstone, 19 May 1929, Gladstone papers, B.L. Add. MS 46474, fo. 209.

36 Mallet to W. Runciman, 1 Oct. 1929, Runciman papers, WR 224 (Mallet had been one of the M.P.s for Plymouth between 1906 and 1910.

37 For example, Cook, C., The age of alignment: electoral politics in Britain 1922–1929 (London, 1975); PP. 214225–8 and 233CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilson, , Downfall, pp. 214–15 and 219Google Scholar; Hart, M., ‘The Liberals, the war and the franchise’, EHR, XCVII, 385 (1982), 820–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bentley, M., ‘The Liberal response to socialism’, in Brown, K. D. (ed.), Essays in anti-Labour history (London, 1974), pp. 42–73, esp. pp. 47 and 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There has more recently been a recognition that the policies of the Liberal party in the 1920s were not so very different from those of Labour. See, for example, Pugh, M., The making of modern British politics, 1867–1939 (Oxford, 1982), p. 220Google Scholar and Searle, , Liberal party, p. 151.Google Scholar

38 For the latter, see Whiting, R. C., ‘The Labour party, capitalism and the national debt, 1918–24’, in Waller, P. J. (ed.), Politics and social change in modem Britain (Sussex, 1987), pp. 140–60.Google Scholar

39 Western Morning News, 14 Oct. 1924.

40 Matthew, H. C. G., McKibbin, R. I. and Kay, J. A., ‘The franchise factor in the rise of the Labour party’, EHR, XCI, 361 (1976), 723–52, 743 and generally 742–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Matthew, , ‘Rhetoric and politics in Britain, 1860–1950’, in Waller, (ed.), Politics and social change, esp. pp. 50–2Google Scholar; Bentley, M., The Liberal mind, 1914–1929 (Cambridge, 1977), passimCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hart, M., ‘The decline of the Liberal party in parliament and in the constituencies 1914–1931’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1982), esp. p. 419Google Scholar. Clarke, P. F., ‘Liberals, Labour and the franchise’, EHR, XCII, 364 (1977), 582–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, agreed that there was undoubtedly something in the view that the Liberals were wedded to pre-1914 forms of politics in a way that their opponents were not. However, he was rather sceptical about how far this argument could be taken, p. 583, and his Lancashire and the new Liberalism provides strong evidence of the Liberals’ ability to participate in ‘popular polities’, which ‘by definition had a certain vulgarity’, pp. 130–50, esp. p. 150. This section of the article questions the whole basis of the argument of Matthew et al.

41 Ostrogorski, M., Democracy and the organization of political parties (2 vols., London, 1902), I, 382–409Google Scholar, esp. 391 and 409.

42 Mid-Devon and Newton Times, 18 Jan. 1908.

43 For example, Western Daily Mercury, 4 Jan. 1906.

44 Ibid. 20 Jan. 1906.

45 West Briton, II Oct. 1900.

46 Ibid. 11 and 25 Jan. 1906.

47 Mid-Devon and Newton Times, 11, 18 and 25 Jan. 1908.

48 Western Times, 26 and 27 Jan. 1906.

49 Newton, J., W. S. Caine, M.P. (London, 1907), p. 291.Google Scholar

50 Vincent, , Formation of the Liberal party, p. xxix.Google Scholar

51 For example, A. C. Morrison-Bell (M.P. for Honiton, 1910–31), ‘Journey with maps’, an unpublished autobiography, ch. viii, p. 6, house of lords record office, his. col. 193.

52 The Times, 13 Dec. 1918.

53 West Briton, 13 Nov. 1922 and 27 May 1929.

54 Ibid. 30 May 1929.

55 See, for example, Western Times, 31 Oct. 1924.

56 Peto diary, 25 Oct. 1924.

57 West Briton, 13 and 16 Nov. 1922; Western Times, 31 May 1929.

58 West Briton, 27 May 1929.

59 Western Times, 17 May 1929 (author's emphasis).

60 West Briton, 20 Nov. 1922 and 6 Dec. 1923; Western Times, 17 May 1929; Western Morning News, 4 Dec. 1923; Devon and Exeter Daily Gazette, 6 Nov. 1922.

61 Sir A. Caird to Baldwin, 5 June 1929, Baldwin papers, 37, fo. 44. See also Peto diary, 17 Nov. 1922, 7 Dec. 1923 and 23 Oct. 1924 for other alleged Liberal lies and misrepresentations.

62 Vincent, , Formation of the Liberal party, p. 244.Google Scholar

63 Dawson, ‘Liberal land policy’, passim.

64 Matthew, et al. , ‘Franchise factor’, p. 749.Google Scholar