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VI. British Politics and Blackburn Politics, 1900–1910

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. F. Clarke
P. F. Clarke
Affiliation:
University College, London
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Extract

Four notable General Elections in the years 1900–10 helped to undermine faith in the great fixed stars by which Victorian statesmen had set their course. A great Liberal majority filled the House of Commons and was augmented by the representatives of organized labour; within the Conservative party the votaries of Tariff Reform imposed their new orthodoxy. We now know a good deal about the attitudes and actions of men at the heart of politics, and something about the electoral calculations upon which their hopes of achieving or maintaining power were based. But, as Dr Kitson Clark has reminded us, ′elections are won or lost in the constituencies, and in order to learn what happened in any given general election it has proved to be necessary to make a rather close local study of particular constituencies′.1 Modern scholarship has cast a clearer light upon the relations between Labour and the Liberals in these years, as upon the Unionist attitude towards Tariff Reform.2 One aim of this article is to seek to explore these two themes by reference to electoral developments in one English borough. The merits of a case study of Blackburn from this point of view will, I hope, become apparent. There is also a complementary objective. While the study of ‵court′ politics may become jejune unless the Blackburns are taken into consideration, it is equally true that a parochial account would leave much about Blackburn politics unexplained. It is necessary to explore the interactions between two political worlds, to compare great things with small.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , June 1969 , pp. 302 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

1 The Making of Victorian England (1962), p. 10.

2 See especially Frank Bealey and Henry Pelling, Labour and Politics, 1900–1906 (1958); Fraser, Peter, ‘Unionism and Tariff Reform: the crisis of 1906’, Historical Journal, v (1962), 149–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Neal Blewett, ‘ Free Fooders, Balfourites, Whole Hoggers. Factionalism within the Unionist party, 1906–1910’, Ibid. XI (1968), 95–124; A. M. Gollin, ‘The Observer’ and J. L. Garvin, 1908–1914 (1960).

3 The figures in this paragraph are based on the Censuses of 1901 and 1911; Barrett and Co., General and Commercial Directory of Blackburn (Preston, 1900, 1915); G. H. Wood, The History of Wages in the Cotton Trade (1910), table 36, p. 116. The electors under various qualifications are given in the annual Return showing the Total Number, and the Number in each Class on the Register now in force, P.P. 1900 (116) lxvii, 455,Google Scholar etc.

4 Recollections, 2 vols. (1917), 1, 4.Google Scholar

5 Fraser to his future wife, 14 May 1878. Diggle, J.W., The Lancashire Life of Bishop Fraser (1889), p. 454;Google Scholar cf. p. 431.

6 For Blackburn politics see Miller, G.C., Blackburn: the evolution of a cotton town (Blackburn, 1951), pp. 404–35.Google ScholarA Liberal pamphlet survives: Ye Blackburne Election Petition or Ye Last Crow of Ye Olde Game Cocke (Blackburn, 1869)Google Scholar—as it turned out, a somewhat premature obsequy for the Hornbys. Snowden asserts that Briggs's success in 1880 was due to the fact that his dog had just won the Waterloo Cup. An Autobiography, 2 vols. (1934), 1, 96.Google Scholar For references to Briggs see B(lackburn) Times, 20 Jan. 1906; N(orthern) D(aily) T(elegraph) (Blackburn), 26 Oct. 1909.

7 See e.g. B(lackbum) W(eekly) T(elegraph) 22 Sep. 1900; N.D.T. 15 Jan. 1906. This account of Hornby is based on B. Times, 21 Nov. 1896, 27 Oct. 1928; Manchester Courier, 20 Nov. 1896; B.W.T. 15 Sep. 1900; L(ancashire) D(aily) P(ost) (Preston), 19 Sep. 1900.

8 L.D.P. 21 Dec. 1905.

9 B.W.T. 22 Sep. 1900.

10 See Memoranda of January 1900, Herbert Gladstone Papers, B.M. Add. MS. 46, 105, fos. 21–2, 58–68. The Blackburn Conservative and Unionist Association and the Blackburn Trades Council and Labour Party have kindly informed me that they possess no papers of this period. I am also grateful to the Director of Blackburn Public Library for information about the local sources in his keeping.

11 L.D.P. 19–21 Sep. 1900; Manchester Guardian, 21 Sep. 1900; B.W.T. 22 Sep. 1900.

12 Tsuzuki, Chushichi, H. M. Hyndman and British Socialism (Oxford, 1961), pp. 54–5;Google Scholar Blackburn I.L.P., Bazaar Handbook (1908), in Blackburn local collection; B.W.T. 22 Sep. 1900.

13 See Blackburn Labour Journal, Nov., Dec. 1898.

14 L.D.P. 19 Sep. 1900; The Times, 27 Sep. 1900. There are no Snowden papers but Mr Colin Cross has valiantly made bricks without straw in Philip Snowden (1966). Mr Cross's account of the Blackburn elections closely follows Snowden's own version in An Autobiography. It is doubtful whether Snowden possessed any private documents, beyond local newspaper cuttings, when writing this since it is based almost exclusively upon the Blackburn Weekly Telegraph. I have preferred to use the local newspapers direct.

15 L.D.P. 24 Sep., 2 Oct. 1900.

16 N.D.T. 11 Sep. 1900; Blackburn Advertiser, 15 Sep. 1900. It is true that the competition was not very stiff.

17 ‘The Tatler’, B.W.T. 15 Sep. 1900.

18 N.D.T. 26 Sep. 1900.

19 L.D.P. 12 Sep. 1900.

20 B.W.T. 29 Sep. 1900.

21 L.D.P. 25 Sep. 1900; Blackburn Catholic News, 6 Oct. 1900.

22 Weekly Standard (and Express) (Blackburn), 29 Sep. 1900.

23 See L.D.P. 26–9 Sep. 1900; N.D.T. 29 Sep. 1900.

24 B.W.T. 6 Oct. 1900; L.D.P. 19 Sep. 1900; Preston Guardian, 29 Sep. 1900.

25 Snowden's poll is incorrectly given as 7,095 in Cross, Philip Snowden, p. 52, which makes two mistakes in the 1906 result (pp. 69–70), giving the Liberal candidate the wrong Christian name and putting the Drage—Snowden splits at 86. In the figures for January 1910 (p. 107), only Cecil's vote is given correctly.

26 N.D.T., L.D.P. 3 Oct. 1900; Weekly Standard, B.W.T. 6 Oct. 1900.

27 Blackburn Labour Journal, Oct. 1900; letter from G. Wright, Manchester Guardian, 6 Oct. 1900.

28 L.D.P. 19 Sep. 1900.

29 N.D.T. 18 Dec. 1905.

30 Blackburn Labour Journal, Dec. 1901, Jan. 1905.

31 Herbert Gladstone's diary, 12 Nov. 1902, Add. MS. 46, 484, fo. 24. ‘No rich men’, he added flatly.

32 B. Times, 11 July, 26 Sep., 17 Oct. 1903. Memorandum of March 1903, Herbert Gladstone Papers, Add. MS. 46,106, fos. 1–9; cf. preliminary notes, fos. 11–12, 28–34.

33 See Blackburn Labour Journal, Mar. 1903, May, June, 1905.

34 B. Times, 10, 24 Oct. 1903, 23 Jan., 27 Feb., 11 June, 6 Aug., 31 Dec. 1904; N.D.T. 6 Jan. 1906.

35 N.D.T. 6 Dec. 1905.

36 The Unemployed (1894); The Problem of the Aged Poor (1895); The Labour Problem (1896). How widely read these works were it is impossible to say; most of the pages of the copy of The Labour Problem in the Cambridge University Library had not been cut when the present writer consulted it. Drage had also just published a popular work, Trade Unions (1905).

37 See e.g. his speech against the (Conservative) Workmen's Compensation Bill in the House of Commons, 17 May 1897, reprinted in his Ephemera, (1915), pp. 93–103.

38 N.D.T. 13 Dec. 1905; cf. J. H. Hartley's similar speech, Ibid. 9 Dec. 1905.

39 See letters, N.D.T. n–14 Dec. 1905; B. Times, 13 Jan. 1906.

40 Hornby to Lord Robert Cecil, 7 Feb. 1909, Cecil Papers, Add. MS. 51, 159; cf. Manchester Courier, 14 Dec. 1905. The foliation of both the Cecil Papers and the Balfour Papers in the British Museum is provisional; they will be cited hereafter as CP and BP respectively, together with the volume reference.

41 N.D.T. 9 Dec. 1905. For Drage's unqualified Free Trade credo see B(lachburn) Gazette, 13 Jan. 1906.

42 N.D.T. 12, 23 Dec. 1905.

43 N.D.T. 19 Dec. 1905. This was the first time that Blackburn Trades Council, silent in 1900, had intervened in politics.

44 N.D.T. 11, 15 Jan. 1906; B. Times, 13 Jan. 1906.

45 N.D.T. 16, 21, 23 Dec. 1905, 8, 13 Jan. 1906; B. Gazette, 20 Jan. 1906.

46 Snowden's article on the Blackburn contest, The Clarion, 2 Feb. 1906.

47 Letter from ‘G.E.T.’, N.D.T. 30 Dec. 1905.

48 See e.g. meeting on 3 January, B. Gazette, 6 Jan. 1906.

49 N.D.T. 3 Jan. 1906.

50 B. Times, 13 Jan. 1906; Blackburn Catholic News, 6, 13 Jan. 1906.

51 Manchester Guardian, N.D.T. 17 Jan. 1906; B. Gazette, 20 Jan. 1906.

52 B. Times, 20 Jan. 1906; Blackburn Labour Journal, Feb. 1906.

53 Cecil to Balfour, 25 Jan. 1906, BP, Add. MS. 49,737.

54 Cecil to Balfour, 25, 30 June, 9 July 1907, BP, Add. MS. 49,737. S. C. Hunt to Balfour, draft in Cecil's handwriting, wrongly assigned to Jan. 1909; Balfour to Hunt, 24 July 1907, copy, CP, Add. MS. 51,071.

55 For the intensity of this bombardment see the letters from Hugh Cecil of 28 and 16 pages respectively, 4–6 May and 27 July 1907, BP, Add. MS. 49,759.

56 See e.g. Hood to Wilfrid Short, 14 Jan. 1907, BP, Add. MS. 49,771; Sandars to Balfour, 17 Nov. 1907, BP, Add. MS. 49,765.

57 Salisbury to Balfour, 17 Jan. 1908, BP, Add. MS. 49,758.

58 Hood to Bowles, 23 Dec. 1907, copy; cf. Bowles to Hood, 17 Dec. 1907, copy, CP, Add. MS. 51,072. This is, mutatis mutandis, the corollary of what the Blackburn Liberals had asserted during the General Election.

59 Long to Balfour, 29 Dec. 1907, BP, Add. MS. 49,776. For the good wishes of Henry Chaplin see Robert Cecil to Hugh Cecil, 13 Feb. 1908, copy, CP, Add. MS. 51,157.

60 Hood to Sandars, 11 Jan. (1908), BP, Add. MS. 49,771.

61 Wilfrid Short to Cecil, 20 Mar. 1908, CP, Add. MS. 51,071.

62 Sir Samuel Scott to Cecil, 17 Mar. 1908, CP, Add. MS. 51,158; Cecil to Long, 4 May 1908, CP, Add. MS. 51,072; The Times, 1 Apr. 1908; Morning Post, 21 May 1908. This meeting passed a vote of thanks to Cecil for a speech in which he emphasized the reluctance with which he would consider opposing a Unionist Government, but it does not appear to have specifically endorsed the Marylebone agreement, the parties to which were therefore Cecil and the Council.

63 Bowles to Cecil, 14 Apr. 1908, CP, Add. MS. 51,072. Although Bowles had never offered it himself, the ‘Marylebone pledge’ was rejected by 44 to 12.

64 Long to Sir Philip Magnus, 14 Dec. 1907, copy enclosed with Magnus to Cecil, 17 Dec. 1907, CP, Add. MS. 51,158. Magnus had acted as an intermediary in the discussions.

65 Balfour to Selborne, 6 Mar. 1908, copy; cf. Selborne to Balfour, 10 Feb. 1908, BP, Add. MS. 49,708.

66 For the activities and opinions of Hughes, Hood and Sandars see the letter from the secretary of the Marylebone Constitutional Union, J. S. Underhill to Cecil, 8 Jan. 1908; Hood to Cecil, 17 Nov. 1908, CP, Add. MS. 51,158. Sandars to Short, 5 Jan. 1909, BP, Add. MS. 49,765.

67 See e.g. Hood to Sandars, 27 Jan. (1909), wrongly assigned to 1908, BP, Add. MS. 49,771.

68 E. G. Brunker (Secretary of the Unionist Free Trade Club) to Cecil, 1 Feb., 23 June 1908, CP, Add. MS. 51,072.

69 Hornby to Cecil, 7 Feb. 1909, CP, Add. MS. 51,159.

70 B. Times, 7 Nov. 1908.

71 B. Gazette, B. Times, 14 Nov. 1908; cf. L. Darwin to Cecil, 18 Dec. 1908, CP, Add. MS. 51,158.

72 N.D.T. 21, 22 Jan. 1909; Manchester Guardian, 23 Jan. 1909.

73 Morning Post, 25, 30 Jan. 1909; Lord Cromer to Cecil, 29 Jan. 1909, CP, Add. MS. 51,072.

74 Austen Chamberlain, Politics from Inside (1936), pp. 138–42.

75 Bowles to Cecil, 20 Aug. 1909, CP, Add. MS. 51,072; cf. The Times, 21 Aug. 1909.

76 Selborne to Cecil, 25 Aug. 1909, CP, Add. MS. 51,157.

77 Cecil to Balfour, 21 Aug. 1909, BP, Add. MS. 49,737.

78 Bowles to Cecil, 24 Aug. 1909, CP, Add. MS. 51,072.

79 Balfour to Selborne, Sep. 1909, 2 copies, one in Cecil's handwriting, CP, Add. MS. 51.157.

80 Sandars to Cecil, 21 Sep. 1909, CP, Add. MS. 51,071; Memorandum headed ‘Norwood’ (Oct. 1909), BP, Add. MS. 49,737.

81 Cecil to Sandars, 22, 30 Sep. 1909, BP, Add. MS. 49,737.

82 Hood to Sandars, 1 Oct. 1909, BP, Add. MS. 49,771.

83 See Morning Post, 2–25 Oct. 1909.

84 Cecil to Balfour, 8 Oct. 1909, BP, Add. MS. 49,737; John Rutherford to Cecil, 13 Oct. 1909, CP, Add. MS. 51,159; Bowles to Cecil, 17 Oct. 1909, CP, Add. MS. 51,072; for Hughes see Sandars to Balfour, 14 Oct. 1909, BP, Add. MS. 49,766.

85 Yerburgh to Cecil, 16 Oct. 1909, CP, Add. MS. 51,159.

86 Blackburn Labour Journal, Feb. 1907.

87 Prophets, Priests and Kings (1908), p. 321.

88 See Philip Snowden, Socialism and the Drink Question, (1908), esp. p. 191. For his assessment of Lloyd George and the 1909 Budget see The Workers' Tribune (Blackburn), Aug. 1909.

89 N.D.T. 20 Nov, 1909.

90 Sir Thomas Barclay, Thirty Years. Anglo-French Reminiscences (1914), pp. 318–19. N.D.T. 29 Oct. 1909; B.W.T. 15 Jan. 1910.

91 Letter from ‘Miner’, N.D.T. 8 Dec. 1909.

92 N.D.T. 29 Nov., 6, 10, 2i, 22 Dec. 1909; B. Gazette, 1, 8, 15 Jan. 1910; Blackburn Catholic News, 15 Jan, 1910.

93 See e.g. questions to Cecil, N.D.T. 22 Dec. 1909; Barclay on old age pensions, Ibid. 30 Nov. 1909. Lord Hugh Cecil had earlier reported even Conservatives in Blackburn as being in favour of the Budget. Salisbury to Robert Cecil, 7 Aug. 1909, CP, Add. MS. 51,085.

94 Manchester Guardian, 18 Nov. 1909.

95 B. Times, 1 Jan. 1910; B. Gazette, 8, 15 Jan. 1910; Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, All The Way (1949), p. 114.

96 N.D.T. 24 Dec. 1909; B. Gazette, 15 Jan. 1910.

97 N.D.T. 10 Dec. 1909.

98 E.g. his speech at Middleton, Manchester Guardian, 13 Dec. 1909.

99 N.D.T. 16, 27 Dec. 1909; B. Times, 25 Dec. 1909; B.W.T. 8 Jan. 1910.

100 N.D.T. 18 Dec. 1909; B.W.T., B. Times, 8 Jan. 1910.

101 B. Times, 22 Jan. 1910.

102 All The Way, p. 114

103 B.W.T. 26 Mar. 1910.

104 Barclay, Thirty Years, pp. 320–2; N.D.T. 18, 21 Nov. 1910; B. Times, 19 Nov. 1910.

105 B. Gazette, 26 Nov. 1910.

106 Like Barclay, Whiteley did not wish to leave his supporters in the lurch and offered, should a replacement not be forthcoming, to stand himself provided friends and opponents entered into a conspiracy of silence to ‘ keep from a certain old lady in East Park-road the news of what I am doing’. See N.D.T. 25–9 Nov. 1910; B. Gazette, 19, 26 Nov. 1910.

107 N.D.T. 24 Nov.-I Dec. 1910; B. Times, 3 Dec. 1910.

108 B. Times, B. Gazette, 26 Nov., 3 Dec. 1910.

109 Riley's article on the Blackburn contest, Liverpool Courier, 7 Dec. 1910.

110 B. Times, 10 Dec. 1910.

111 N.D.T. 24 Dec. 1909.

112 Hamer had proclaimed: ‘Let them therefore go into this battle under the old flag—the flag which was borne by Cobden, by Bright, and by their grand old man, Mr Gladstone—(loud applause)—the flag of Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform. (Applause.)’ N.D.T. 5 Jan. 1906.

113 Cecil's letter to the Earl of Bessborough, 29 Sep. 1909, Morning Post, 9 Oct. 1909.

114 N.D.T. 30 Nov. 1910.