Thomas Drummond, the Boundary Commission and the 1832 Reform Act*

‘One of the best men of business we had ever met’: Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act*

Martin Spychal Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 Institute of Historical Research/History of Parliament

Abstract As one of Britain’s landmark constitutional reforms, the 1832 Reform Act has attracted considerable historical attention. However, only cursory notice has been paid to the extensive work completed by the 1831–2 boundary commission to reform the nation’s parliamentary boundaries. Drawing on previously unused archival material, this article provides the first sustained analysis of the boundary reforms that took place in England’s ancient boroughs in 1832, revealing the significance of Thomas Drummond, a previously obscure royal engineer and chair of the English and Welsh boundary commission, to the ‘Great Reform Act’. As well as revealing the wider importance of parliamentary boundaries to the passage of reform by 1832, Drummond and the boundary commission established significant precedents for the expansion of the reformed British state and future parliamentary reform.

On 1 December 1831, as political union activity surrounding the reform bill reached fever pitch and the government of the second Earl Grey was making preparations to introduce its third reform bill of the year, Staffordshire M.P. Edward Littleton sat down for dinner in London with several prominent whigs. Conversation turned to the topic of Thomas Drummond – a royal engineer who since August that year had been supervising the operations of the English and Welsh borough boundary commission as part of the government’s preparations for electoral reform. According to Littleton, those present began to wax lyrical over Drummond’s bureaucratic capacity. All agreed, Littleton recorded, ‘in thinking him one of the best men of business [they] had ever met’ and Sir James Graham reportedly joked that ‘he was sure from Drummond’s talent, and twitch of the nose, that he was [Lord] Brougham’s son’ – the highly gifted, but enigmatic Lord Brougham (and his heavily caricatured nose) being the foremost political celebrity of the day.1 Existing historiography offers little indication of Thomas Drummond’s significance to the 1832 Reform Act, and thus little explanation as to why he had become the subject of such admiration within the cabinet by December 1831.TherearetwoVictorian biographies of Drummond and he has had his own Dictionary of National Biography entry

* This article is a revised version of a paper given at the ‘Parliaments, politics and peoples’ seminar, Institute of Historical Research. It was subsequently awarded second place in the 2015 Pollard Prize. The author would like to thank Miles Taylor, Philip Salmon, Kathryn Rix, Paul Readman, Rona Cran, the I.H.R. seminar and the King’s College Modern British History Ph.D. reading group for helpful discussion and comments on earlier drafts of this article. 1 Staffordshire Record Office (hereafter S.R.O.), Hatherton papers, D260/M/F/5/26/7, fo. 248, 1 Dec. 1831.

VC 2017 The Authors DOI: 10.1111/1468-2281.12180 Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. [The copyright line for this article was changed on 25 May 2017 after original online publication.] 544 Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act since 1888, although discussion of his legacy has tended to focus on his invention of a portable limelight device (which illuminated the world of nineteenth-century theatre) as well as his tireless efforts as under-secretary for Ireland between 1835 and 1840.2 Comparatively less is known about his work supervising the English and Welsh borough boundary commission for the Grey ministry between August 1831 and September 1832. This is something of an anomaly given that so much historical ink has been spilled over Britain’s first Reform Act. Whereas whig reforms to the poor law and municipal corporations during the eighteen-thirties have become synonymous with the names of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 Edwin Chadwick and Joseph Parkes, it is unlikely that many reserve a similar place for Drummond in their mental map of 1832. Histories of Britain’s first Reform Act have devoted some attention to Drummond’s part in the remodelling of the disfranchisement schedules for the Grey ministry’s third reform bill. Stephen Thompson’s and Brian Robson’s recent articles on the topic are of particular merit.3 Nevertheless, with the exception of Norman Gash, D. C. Moore and Philip Salmon, little effort has been made to make sense of the boundary commission – in the context of which Drummond’s remodelling needs to be seen. In 1953,Gash provided a brief overview of the boundary changes that accompanied the 1832 Reform Act but called for more research.4 Following this, Moore attempted to incorporate the boundary commission and its proposals into his politics of deference thesis. In doing so, he argued that the intention of the boundary commission had been to design constituencies of an urban or rural character, which would be deferential to the influence of local hierarchical interests.5 However, as Abraham Kriegel astutely identified, Moore’s thesis assumed a level of cabinet collusion and knowledge about the existing electoral system that did not exist in 1832, and, as this article will demonstrate, was based on a misinterpretation of the commission’s aims, as well as the recommendations of its published reports.6 The History of Parliament’s recent seven- volume House of Commons 1820–32 provides the best account of the boundary commission available at present. Its constituent parts suggest that the commission and parliamentary boundaries were far more important to the processes of reform between

2 J. F. McLennan, Memoir of Thomas Drummond (Edinburgh, 1867); R. B. O’Brien, Thomas Drummond, Under- Secretary in Ireland 1835–40: Life and Letters (1889); R. B. O’Brien, ‘Drummond, Thomas (1797–1840)’, in Dictionary of National Biography, ed. L. Stephens (1888), xvi. 41–5; his biography was recently updated for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (S. H. Palmer, ‘Drummond, Thomas (1797–1840)’, O.D.N.B. (Oxford, 2008) [accessed 23 Feb. 2015]); A. Jackson, The Two Unions: Ireland, Scotland, and the Survival of the United Kingdom, 1707–2007 (Oxford, 2012), p. 208. 3 Some tentative discussion of Drummond’s list is provided by S. J. Thompson, ‘“Population combined with wealth and taxation”: statistics, representation and the making of the 1832 Reform Act’, in Statistics and the Public Sphere: Numbers and the People in Modern Britain, c.1800–2000, ed. T. Crook and G. O’Hara (New York, 2011); B. Robson, ‘Maps and mathematics: ranking the English boroughs for the 1832 Reform Act’, Jour. Hist. Geography, xlvi (2014), 66–79; and M. Brock, The Great Reform Act (1973), pp. 157–9, 265, 377 n. 122 and n. 158. Notably, J. Cannon, Parliamentary Reform 1640–1832 (Cambridge, 1973) mentions the reorganization of Schedule B, but does not acknowledge Drummond’s involvement (pp. 228–9). 4 N. Gash, Politics in the Age of Peel (1971), pp. 69–72. 5 D. C. Moore, The Politics of Deference (New York, 1976), pp. 173–83; D. C. Moore, ‘Concession or cure: the sociological premises of the First Reform Act’, Historical Jour., ix (1966), 39–59. 6 The Holland House Diaries, 1831–40, ed. A. Kriegel (1977), pp. xxx–xxxi. For general criticism of Moore’s thesis, see R. W. Davis, ‘Deference and aristocracy in the time of the Great Reform Act’, Amer. Hist. Rev., lxxxi (1976), 532–9; E. P. Hennock and D. C. Moore, ‘The First Reform Act: a discussion’, Victorian Stud., xiv (1971), 321–37; D. Eastwood, ‘Contesting the politics of deference: the rural electorate, 1820–60’, in Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820, ed. J. Lawrence and M. Taylor (Aldershot, 1997), pp. 27–49; P. Salmon, Electoral Reform at Work: Local Politics and National Parties, 1832–41 (Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 120–3.

1831 and 1832 than has previously been acknowledged. Its M.P. and constituency biographies reveal a range of reactions to individual boundary changes at a local level that had not previously been documented.7 Furthermore, Salmon’s survey of the 1832 English reform legislation for the volumes suggests that the commission and the issue of boundaries intersected with parliamentary debate over the reform bill at several key points between March 1831 and June 1832. Ultimately though, Salmon’s survey concludes by asking more questions than it answers – he recognizes that little is known about the establishment of the commission, Drummond’s contribution to its work and Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 the wider significance of its recommendations to the eventual passage of the 1832 Reform Act.8 Beyond the historiography of 1832, historians of cartography in nineteenth-century Britain have provided some discussion of the boundary commissions – primarily because the state’s first official maps of England’s northern towns were published as a result.9 Notably, Richard Oliver has provided an excellent account of the piecemeal mapping of England completed by government commissions during the eighteen-thirties in the absence of a finished ordnance survey of England.10 This, however, is where the trail ends, and, as an indication of historians’ neglect of the topic, the wide historiography that discusses commissions of inquiry and the supposed nineteenth-century ‘revolution in government’ has omitted to mention that a boundary commission accompanied the firstReformAct.11 This article will provide the first sustained analysis of the English borough boundary commission and Drummond’s role within it, and will make use of a range of previously neglected archival material relating to 1832, most notably the working papers of the commission. Who was Drummond? How was the commission established? How did it operate? How significant was it to the passage of the 1832 Reform Act? This article will argue that the boundary commission and Drummond were key to the reform process at Westminster during 1831 and 1832, and that their work was of wider significance to whig governance during the eighteen-thirties than has previously been acknowledged. First, though, a disclaimer: the commission of which Drummond was in charge did propose boundaries for Welsh boroughs, and as part of the Grey ministry’s 1832 reform legislation separate commissions also proposed boundaries for England’s counties and

7 See, e.g., S. Farrell, ‘Poole’, in House of Commons 1820–32, ed. D. Fisher (7 vols., Cambridge, 2009), ii. 334. 8 P. Salmon, ‘The English reform legislation, 1831–2’, in House of Commons 1820–32,i.395–401; P. Salmon, ‘Boundary changes: the Victorian legacy’, The Victorian Commons, Dec. 2012 [accessed 1 Dec. 2016]. 9 R. Hyde, ‘Mapping urban Britain 1831–2 – the compilation of the reform bill plans’, Bull. Soc. University Cartographers,ix(1978), 1–9; J. B. Harley, Maps for the Local Historian (1972), p. 14; some discussion of Drummond as well as the Irish boundary commission is provided in R. Hewitt, Map of a Nation: a Biography of the Ordnance Survey (2010), pp. 262, 266–7, 288. 10 R. Oliver, The Ordnance Survey in the 19th Century: Maps, Money and the Growth of Government (2014), pp. 108–10; Oliver focuses primarily on the later tithe commission (see pp. 111–30). This draws from the work of R. Kain and E. Baigent, The Cadastral Map in the Service of the State: a History of Property Mapping (Chicago, Ill., 1992). 11 H. M. Clokie and J. W. Robinson, Royal Commissions of Inquiry: the Significance of Investigations in British Politics (New York, 1937); J. M. Collinge, Office Holders in Modern Britain, ix: Officials of Royal Commissions of Inquiry 1815–70 (1984), pp. 1–28; O. MacDonagh, Early Victorian Government 1830–70 (1977); U. R. Q. Henriques, Before the Welfare State: Social Administration in Early Industrial Britain (1979); U. R. Q. Henriques, ‘An early factory inspector: James Stuart of Dunearn’, Scottish Hist. Rev., l (1971), 18–46; M. J. Cullen, The Statistical Movement in Victorian Britain: the Foundations of Empirical Social Research (Hassocks, 1975), pp. 1–6; O. MacDonagh, ‘The 19th- century revolution in government: a reappraisal’, Historical Jour., i (1958), 52–67; ‘The 19th-century revolution in government: a reappraisal reappraised’, Historical Jour., iii (1960), 17–37; L. J. Hume, ‘Jeremy Bentham and the 19th-century revolution in government’, Historical Jour., x (1967), 361–75.

Ireland and Scotland’s boroughs. However, as Drummond instigated key precedents that were to be followed by these other commissions, and due to the different nature of each of the four nations’ borough electoral systems and their varied historiographies, this article will focus specifically on attempts to reform the boundaries of English boroughs – which returned the majority of Westminster’s M.P.s following 1832.12

Thomas Drummond was born in Edinburgh in 1797, one of four siblings in a debt- laden whig family. Following the death of his father in 1800 he grew up in Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 Musselburgh, in relative poverty, under the care of his mother. He attended a local grammar school until he was thirteen, when, following a resettlement of the family’s debts, he commenced the study of mathematics, natural philosophy and chemistry at Edinburgh University. At the age of fifteen, after making use of his family’s connections, he left Scotland following his appointment to a cadetship at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. As a gifted mathematician and scientist he quickly worked his way through the ranks of the academy, and by July 1815 had secured a position with the royal engineers. Over the next five years he assumed various roles for the engineers before he joined the board of ordnance’s survey of Scotland and England in 1820.13 Drummond remained with the board of ordnance when the survey of Ireland commenced in 1824, and working closely with Thomas Colby, superintendent of the ordnance, until 1829. While in Ireland, Drummond rose to prominence after combining his inventive mind, engineering skills and scientific knowledge to modify the heliostat, compensation bars and limelight for the specific purposes of surveying in Ireland’s treacherous conditions.14 His modifications to Gurney’s limelight, which became known as ‘the Drummond light’, brought him back to London permanently by 1829,afterhe was commissioned by the Trinity House Corporation with developing limelight for use in lighthouses. His experiments with, and demonstrations of, the light at Trinity House and in Purfleet excited considerable public attention during 1830. These experiments also served to bring him to the attention of scientific society – he became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in May 1830, provided a lecture to the Royal Society in June 1830 on his modifications to limelight, and even dined with William IV at the RoyalPavilioninBrightoninJanuary1831.15 It was Drummond’s light that brought him to the attention of the lord chancellor, Lord Brougham in March 1831 – the same month that the Grey ministry’s first reform bill was introduced to the Commons. By this point Drummond was settled at 16 Park Road in Marylebone and had struck up a friendship with his neighbour, the

12 On Scotland, see University College London, special collections (hereafter U.C.L.S.C.), Brougham papers, box 457, no. 24,761, undated but after 8 Aug. 1831; on Ireland, see The National Archives of the U.K., T 72/9/18, ‘Frome’, Drummond to Ansley, 20 Oct. 1831; K. T. Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society in Ireland 1832–85 (Oxford, 1984); K. T. Hoppen, ‘An incorporating union? British politicians and Ireland 1800–30’, Eng. Hist. Rev., cxxiii (2008), 328–50; M. Dyer, Men of Property and Intelligence: Scottish Electoral System Prior to 1884 (Aberdeen, 1996); G. Pentland, Radicalism, Reform and National Identity in Scotland 1820–33 (Woodbridge, 2008); G. Pentland, ‘Scotland and the creation of a national reform movement, 1830–2’, Historical Jour., xlviii (2005), 999–1023; ‘The debate on Scottish parliamentary reform, 1830–2’, Scottish Hist. Rev., lxxxv (2006), 102–3. See surveys on Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in House of Commons 1820–32,i.63– 216; Gash, pp. 34–64. 13 See McLennan, pp. 1–36; O’Brien, pp. 3–20. 14 C. Close, The Early Years of the Ordnance Survey (Newton Abbot, 1969), pp. 71–6. 15 T. Drummond, ‘On the illumination of lighthouses’, Philosophical Trans. Royal Soc. London, cxx (1830); McLennan, pp. 113–37; Palmer; Colby describes one of the experiments in Close, p. 74.

the reflector full upon him, but he fled instanter. He started immediately afterwards, at eleven Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 o’clock, for Lord Grey’s.17 Brougham’s reaction aside, this demonstration led to Drummond’s introduction to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (S.D.U.K.), which had been established in 1826 by Brougham and a number of reform-minded lawyers, educators and politicians to use new printing and distribution technologies to mass-publish affordable educational material.18 The S.D.U.K. professed itself to be operating above party politics, but was frequently linked in contemporary tory discourse with the recently established London University and was seen as part of a secular, radical movement responsible for the oft-satirized ‘march of intellect’.19 In reality the politically active members of the S.D.U.K. varied in their ideological outlook – its central committee consisted of a mixture of Benthamites, philosophic whigs and radicals associated with the Edinburgh Review, young whigs with a more ‘rural’ outlook such as Viscount Althorp, and some moderate Canningites or liberal tories more frequently associated with the Political Economy Club.20 What the S.D.U.K., under Brougham’s active supervision and its association with the avowedly secular London University, did represent was an active challenge to the established Anglican institutional order. As Rosemary Ashton has recently demonstrated, the Society’s geographic association with the progressive, or ‘godless’, area of Bloomsbury in north London further encouraged this perception. In doing so the society quite literally sought to keep its distance from England’s traditional power base of Westminster, Oxford and Cambridge.21 Following the demonstration of his light to Brougham, Drummond began dining with the S.D.U.K. committee. He then started attending meetings of the S.D.U.K. map committee (an ambitious project that sought to print an affordable world atlas, which Ker hoped would ‘find its way into every house in the Empire’),22 andbytheendof 1831 Drummond had been formally proposed as a member of the S.D.U.K. committee

16 Capt. Larcom, ‘Memoir of the professional life of the late Captain Drummond’, Royal Engineers Professional Papers,iv(1841), xviii–xxii; McLennan, p. 142. 17 Drummond to his mother, 26 March 1831 (quoted in McLennan, pp. 135–7). 18 C. Knight, Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century (1864), p. 113; Cullen, pp. 21, 80. 19 R. Ashton, ‘Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (act. 1826–46)’, O.D.N.B. [accessed 2 March 2016]; M. C. Grobel, ‘The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1826–46’ (unpublished University of London M.A. dissertation, 1933); see, e.g., William Heath’s 1828–30 series of cartoons entitled the March of Intellect (British Museum, 1948,0217.34). 20 P. Mandler, ‘Tories and paupers: Christian political economy and the making of the new poor law’, Historical Jour., xxxiii (1990), 81–103,atp.94; P. Mandler, Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform (Oxford, 1990), pp. 91, 100, 113; R. Ashton, Victorian Bloomsbury (2012), pp. 58–81. The Political Economy Club also contained some philosophic radicals such as James Mill (see Anon., Political Economy Club, Names of Members 1821–60 (1860)). 21 Ashton, Victorian Bloomsbury, pp. 1–81. 22 Quoted in M. Cain, ‘The maps of the Society of the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge: a publishing history’, Imago Mundi, xlvi (1994), 151–67,atp.151.

By the time Drummond took charge of the boundary commission in August 1831 parliamentary boundary reform had materialized as one of the more controversial aspects of the Grey ministry’s reform bill. When the bill was first introduced to the Commons in March 1831 it stipulated that following its passage a privy council committee would divide twenty-seven counties, draw boundaries around new parliamentary boroughs, clarify the boundaries of ancient boroughs and extend the boundaries of every ancient borough that contained fewer than 300 £10 householders.24 Such extensive plans had only materialized following the cabinet’s realization, in early 1831, that a significant minority of returning officers were unsure of the geographic extent of their parliamentary boroughs, as well as the discovery that eighty-seven of the 142 ancient boroughs originally intended to retain the franchise contained fewer than 300 houses valued at £10 according to local rates.25 As the first reformed elections could not take place until these reforms had been enacted, and because the government knew that its plans to extend the boundaries of small boroughs would court considerable controversy, the cabinet rejected an initial proposal by the ‘committee of four’ that a royal commission investigate and then recommend reformed boundaries. In its place, it was proposed that a privy council committee would enact boundary changes via royal proclamation rather than through a separate parliamentary bill.26 Unsurprisingly, parliamentary opponents of reform greeted these plans with suspicion. Their first complaint was that a privy council committee, wholly detached from parliamentary process, would be allowed to transform borough boundaries beyond recognition. It was then argued that the Grey ministry intended to staff this privy council committee with a number of its friends, whose task it would be to redesign

23 U.C.L.S.C., S.D.U.K. papers, in-papers, box 24, Drummond to Coates, 27 Apr. 1831; S.D.U.K. papers, map committee minutes, folder 13, fo. 6, 16 Apr. 1831; the Penny Magazine (1832) lists the 1831 S.D.U.K. committee; Knight, p. 118. Brougham usually attended these dinners and then chaired the S.D.U.K. committee meetings straight after (Grobel, ch. iv, app., ‘S.D.U.K. committee list’). 24 A Bill to Amend the Representation of the People in England and Wales (Parl. Papers 1830–1 [37], ii), pp. 7–9. 25 Parliamentary Representation (Parl. Papers 1830–1 [202], x); Parliamentary Representation (Parl. Papers 1830–1 [338], x); University of Durham, special collections, Grey papers (hereafter Grey papers), GRE/B46/2/36,fos.1–5, Russell to Durham, 13 Feb. 1831;Brock,pp.142–3;F.T.Baring,Journals and Correspondence of Sir Francis Thornhill Baring, Afterwards Lord Northbrook (1905), p. 83; Memoir of John Charles Viscount Althorp, 3rd Earl Spencer,ed. D. Le Marchant (1876), pp. 294–6; H. Brougham, Life and Times of Henry Brougham (3 vols., 1871), iii. 92–3. 26 The legal inexperience of the cabinet was also probably partly to blame for this decision. The ‘committee of four’ – Lord Duncannon, John George Lambton (Lord Durham), Sir James Graham and Lord John Russell – constructed an initial draft of the reform bill (Grey papers, GRE/B46/1/27, fos. 1–2, ‘Reform Committee Minutes of Proceedings Dec. 11 & 14 1830’; GRE/B46/1/33, fos. 1–10, ‘England, reform bill, being the heads of a bill based on Lord J. Russell’s plan of reform’; GRE/B46/1/38, fos. 1–10, ‘Reform Bill for England and Wales’).

England’s electoral map in favour of whig interests.27 Robert Peel declared the proposals for a privy council committee unlawful, and one correspondent in the anti-reform Morning Post accused the Grey ministry of having ‘prostitute[d] their influence to the vile purposes of factious intrigue’.28 The paper later calculated that the government’s boundary and disfranchisement clauses, if left to stand as they were, would provide the whigs with a 127-seat advantage in the Commons.29 Nevertheless, anti-boundary clause rhetoric, like all anti-reform rhetoric, fell on deaf ears during the parliamentary elections that followed the Commons’ rejection of the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 reform bill in April 1831.30 By contrast, the Grey ministry demonstrated more attentiveness to the protestations of its parliamentary opponents when it introduced its second reform bill in June 1831. The bill proposed that parliamentary committees would now oversee the boundary changes required by the reform bill, and the government announced cross-party talks on the issue.31 This helped to pacify all but the most ardent opponents of reform on the basis that further changes to the boundary clauses were likely to be made in committee.32 This turned out to be the case, and in the Commons on 1 September 1831, the government agreed to subject its boundary proposals to increased parliamentary scrutiny, and to limit the extent to which boundaries could be extended.33 The government also used this opportunity to announce the thirty-one boundary commissioners that it had chosen to complete this work. Aside from two M.P.s and a peer, the list was full of names unknown to the majority of the Commons – including that of Thomas Drummond.34 These ‘unknown’ men, leader of the Commons Viscount Althorp announced, had been chosen on the basis of their ‘character, knowledge, and science’, and were reportedly ‘a class of men as little biased as possible, either by politics or party feelings’.35 By legitimizing their appointments to the committees on the basis of science and objectivity, the government made resort to what Patrick Joyce has termed a ‘public rhetoric of disinterestedness’ – a linguistic framework that developed around the members of British scientific societies during the eighteen-twenties.36 For the government, the use of such rhetoric offered another means of responding to the charges of political partiality that had been levelled at their plans for boundary reform since March 1831. The suggestion was that, due to their scientific backgrounds, these commissioners would be able to redraw England’s electoral map in an impartial manner. Nevertheless, given that definitions of what constituted ‘science’, and how its various disciplines should best be practised, were heavily contested issues in their own right during the

27 ‘ART. VII.21. Would reform in parliament be a benefit to the country?’, Quarterly Rev., xlv (Apr. 1831), 323. For Peel’s comments, see Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., iii (24 March 1831), col. 901;(21 March 1831), cols. 687–8;(22 March 1831), cols. 764–800;(28 March 1831), cols. 983–99;(14 Apr. 1831), cols. 1327–8; (21 Apr. 1831), cols. 1742–7;(18 Apr. 1831), col. 1550. 28 Morning Post, 19 Apr. 1831, pp. 3–4. 29 Morning Post, 23 Apr. 1831,p.3; see also 12 May 1831,p.3; 20 May 1831,p.3; 21 May 1831,p.3; 26 May 1831,p.2; 13 June 1831,p.2. 30 The Times, 2 May 1831,p.5; Morning Chronicle, 7 May 1831,p.4; Morning Post, 12 May 1831,p.3. 31 A Bill to Amend the Representation of the People in England and Wales (Parl. Papers 1831 [22], iii); Hansard, 3, iv (13 July 1831), col. 1200. 32 Hansard, 3,iv(12 July 1831), col. 1117;(13 July 1831), cols. 1197–201, 1215–27. 33 Hansard, 3,vi(1 Sept. 1831), cols. 982–1017; Commons Journals, 1 Sept. 1831,p.808. 34 The three known names were James Abercromby, chief baron of Scotland; Edward Littleton, a whig M.P.; and Davies Gilbert, a tory M.P. and president of the Royal Society. 35 Hansard, 3,vi(1 Sept. 1831), cols. 982–6. 36 P. Joyce, The Rule of Freedom (2003), pp. 26–7.

Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) VC 2017 The Authors Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London 550 Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act period, it is not surprising that Althorp’s claims, as will be discussed below, were greeted with suspicion.37 So, who were these unknown men, how had they been recruited to the commission and how genuine was Althorp’s claim that they intended to act as impartial commissioners? The cabinet had begun making preparations for a boundary commission once it realized pro-reform candidates would win a majority in the 1831 election. Lord John Russell had been delegated the task of identifying boundary commissioners by prime minister Lord Grey in May, and initially suggested a seven-man cross-party committee, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 containing active ‘committee men’ in line with parliamentary convention.38 By July, cabinet discussion had extended this list to seventeen names, and it now consisted of a number of active committee men, legal experts and known moderates or anti-reformers with links to the Royal Society.39 It had been hoped that the scientific backgrounds of the latter would counterbalance their general opposition to reform when they evaluated individual boundary proposals, and also that their nomination would placate parliamentary opponents of the reform bill.40 Nevertheless, only four of these July suggestions appeared in the list of thirty-one, mostly ‘unknown’, commissioners announced in parliament on 1 September.41 The principal difference was that the proposed commission now contained fourteen men associated with the S.D.U.K., and seven engineers from the royal engineers or royal artillery. This change was due to the fact that by the end of July Brougham had assumed responsibility from the cabinet for organizing the commission, and that Thomas Drummond had been appointed to supervise a working committee of the English and Welsh borough boundary commission by early August.42 Following a recommendation from Henry Bellenden Ker, Drummond met with Brougham in July to discuss the boundary commission.43 Drummond’s experience surveying and co-ordinating operations for the ordnance survey since 1820 meant that he was particularly suited to discussing the technical requirements and potential scope of a boundary commission. Suitably impressed, the cabinet agreed to Brougham’s recommendation that Drummond supervise a preliminary working committee of the commission, which would propose parliamentary boundaries for every English and Welsh borough, to be considered at a later date by a parliamentary committee.44

37 Joyce, pp. 26–7; see also J. Morrell and A. Thackray, Gentlemen of Science (New York, 1981); S. Cannon, Science in Culture (New York, 1978); L. Goldman, ‘The origins of British social science: political economy, natural science and statistics, 1830–5’, Historical Jour., xxvi (1983), 587–616; G. Foote, ‘The place of science in the British reform movement 1830–40’, Isis, xlii (1951), 192–208; T. Porter, The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820–1900 (New Jersey, 1986). 38 Grey papers, GRE/B50A/6/18, fo.1, Russell to Grey, 23 May 1831; P. Jupp, British Politics on the Eve of Reform (Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 210–16, 233. Committee men were commoners that had sat on nine or more select committees, and Lords that had sat on four or more committees between 1828 and 1830. 39 T.N.A., PRO 30/22/1B, fos. 157–8, undated letter from Russell to Grey; Kriegel, pp. 5–6; see also U.C.L.S.C., Brougham papers, box 3, no. 39,600, Abercromby to Brougham, undated. 40 Russell had wanted M.P.s ‘inimical or indifferent to the measure [reform bill]’ (Kriegel, p. 6). 41 Hansard, 3,vi(1 Sept. 1831), cols. 982–6. 42 Brougham, iii. 379; U.C.L.S.C., Brougham papers, box 225, no. 33,076, Drummond to Brougham, 5 Aug. 1831. 43 National Library of Ireland, Drummond papers, MS. 7511, fos. 75–6, Ker to Dawson, 9 Nov. 1840; Larcom, pp. xviii–xxii. 44 Larcom, pp. xx; Brougham, iii. 379; Mclennan, p. 142; Reports from Commissioners on Proposed Division of Counties and Boundaries of Boroughs (Parl. Papers 1831–2,[141], xxxviii, xxxix, xl), xxxviii. 5.

From the first week of August, Drummond, Brougham and Ker began contacting men with sufficient time and finances to take up what amounted to a non-salaried role on the working committee. John Wrottesley, Francis Beaufort and Thomas Flower Ellis, all members of the S.D.U.K. map committee, alongside Ker and Drummond, were recruited.45 Ker’s uncle, Henry Gawler, a barrister who had recently written an article on the operation of the poor law for the S.D.U.K. was also nominated, as were George Barrett Lennard and Benjamin Ansley, who along with Wrottesley had previously been directors of the Metropolitan Loan and Investment Company, for which Ker acted as Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 standard counsel.46 S.D.U.K. committee attendee William Ord, regular S.D.U.K. contributor John Elliot Drinkwater and founding member and correspondent Henry Tancred also agreed to work for the commission.47 John Romilly, council member of London University and committee member alongside Ord on the ‘Loyal and Patriotic fund for assisting reform’ was also appointed.48 Brougham had encouraged Drummond to nominate ‘gentlemen who would perhaps make an active and useful member of the reform commission’.49 This resulted in seven royal engineers or royal artillery officers being recruited as commissioners from the ordnance survey, including Drummond’s close friends Robert K. Dawson (who was to manage a separate team of seventy surveyors for the commission, many of whom were also seconded from the ordnance survey) and John Chapman, as well as the astronomer Richard Sheepshanks.50 These recruits formed the majority of a twenty-one-man working committee of the English and Welsh boundary commission that Drummond planned would commence operations in the localities by the end of August. The close affiliation of most of these committee members with Brougham, the S.D.U.K. and to a lesser extent London University, represented a distinct departure from Russell’s original intention that the boundary commissions should be established on a conventional, cross-party basis. Significantly, the members of the working committee had very little experience working in an official governmental capacity. This was because, after a decade of limited influence over recruitment to parliamentary commissions and committees, Brougham had seized an opportunity to staff the Grey ministry’s first major commission with a number of intellectuals and young whigs from his ‘godless’ Bloomsbury set.51 Drummond had also ensured that the commission consisted of a core of men with surveying and cartographical expertise – and this was the first time engineers and surveyors had been recruited en masse to support the work of a parliamentary or royal

45 Beaufort, who was hydrographer to the admiralty, had been on Russell’s original July list. His biographer suggests Sir James Graham, first lord of the admiralty made this nomination (A. Friendly, Beaufort of the Admiralty (1977), p. 267). 46 U.C.L.S.C., S.D.U.K. papers, in-papers, box 29, Gawler to Coates, 25 May, 1831; The Times, 14 Apr. 1824, p. 2. 47 Ord was not fully approved onto the committee until Nov. 1831 (U.C.L.S.C., S.D.U.K. papers, out-papers 1830–1833, box 19, Coates to Ord, 12 Nov. 1831); U.C.L.S.C., S.D.U.K. papers, in-papers, box 24, ‘Drinkwater, John Elliot, 1828–35’; and Henry Tancred’s entry on the Clergy of the Church of England Database [accessed 1 Aug. 2013]. 48 The Times, 21 June 1830,p.2; The Times, 31 May 1831,p.1. 49 U.C.L.S.C., Brougham papers, box 225, no. 33,076, Drummond to Brougham, 5 Aug. 1831. 50 U.C.L.S.C., Brougham papers, box 225, no. 39,468, Drummond to Brougham, 12 Aug. 1831; Drummond to his mother, 9 Sept. 1831 (quoted in McLennan, p. 143); Oliver, pp. 108–10; T.N.A., WO 47/1555, board of ordnance minute book, 21 Nov., fo. 104357; Close, pp. 73, 82. 51 See Ashton, Victorian Bloomsbury, pp. 1–81; R. Tompson, The Charity Commission and the Age of Reform (1979), pp. 94–116.

Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) VC 2017 The Authors Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London 552 Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act commission.52 Instead of basing their recommendations on interviews with ‘experts’ in parliament and relying on information that was submitted to parliament from the localities (as had previously been the case for non-permanent commissions), Brougham and Drummond planned that the boundary commission would use legal, as well as non- legal, technical experts to collect and construct the cartographical, quantitative and qualitative data that it needed to survey England’s ancient electoral system. The limited experience of these men in the business of government meant that when they were announced to the Commons, M.P.s only recognized the names of a few Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 whig sons – Ord, Wrottesley, Romilly and Barrett Lennard – as well as that of Ker, who had achieved a degree of infamy in Westminster during the previous decade because of his links with Brougham.53 Given the S.D.U.K.’s reputation anti-reformers missed an opportunity to embarrass the government by failing to connect the commissioners with the Society in the days following their announcement – the ultra- tory John Bull, for example, claimed that the commissioners were ‘wholly unexceptionable, for ... they never were heard of before’.54 Nevertheless, Althorp’s claims regarding the impartial and scientific character of the commissioners hardly enamoured anti-reformers with the commission. For traditional tories Althorp’s language signalled the further assimilation of a new generation of political economists into the administration of the British state.55 The Morning Post lamentedthefactthatwhatit presumed would be a ‘new body of political architects’, with a fondness for arithmetic and the trigonometrical techniques of the ordnance survey, would be responsible for the destruction of England’s ancient constitution.56 Whether the announcement of the commissioners helped to convince more liberal minded tories about the commission is difficult to say, due to their silence over the issue in the Commons. The reform bill’s supporters were more positive and The Times (which had spent the previous three weeks criticizing the government over its plans to divide the counties) welcomed the naming of commissioners on the basis that it made the ‘success [of the reform bill] more certain’.57 The paper, whose editor Thomas Barnes was famed for his close links to Brougham, viewed the commission in grandiose terms. It expressed hope that the commission would bring ‘order out of confusion’ to the electoral system, as the court of fire had done following the Great Fire of London.58 Given Drummond’s management of the commission, which will be discussed below, it is likely that he viewed its work in a similar manner. While many of the commissioners clearly had whig backgrounds and were supporters of the reform bill, Drummond’s tireless efforts to ensure that their work adhered to consistent, empirical principles reflected a genuine desire on his part to

52 Notably, the 1827–8 Metropolitan water supply commission made no plans to carry out its own survey, or employ the services of engineers (Collinge, ix. 9–16). 53 Hansard, 3,vi(1 Sept. 1831), cols. 982–1017; J. S. Vaizey, ‘No. 67. Charles Henry Bellenden Ker’, in The Institute: a Club of Conveyancing Counsel. Memoirs of Former Members,iv(1907), 218–42. 54 John Bull, 5 Sept. 1831,p.284. 55 For more on traditional versus emerging liberal toryism, see, e.g., B. Hilton, ‘The political arts of Lord Liverpool’, Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., 5th ser., xxxviii (1988), 147–70; B. Hilton, ‘Peel: a reappraisal,’ Historical Jour., xxii (1979), 585–614; D. Eastwood, ‘Robert Southey and the intellectual origins of romantic conservatism’, Eng. Hist. Rev., civ (1989), 308–31. 56 Morning Post, 3 Sept. 1831,p.2. 57 The Times, 3 Sept. 1831,p.2. 58 The Times, 3 Sept. 1831,p.2; on Brougham’s connection with Barnes, see Anonymous, The History of The Times: ‘The Thunderer” in the Making (1935); and D. Maclise, ‘The editor of “The Times”’ (1830) (British Museum, 1859,0625.87).

Drummond held meetings with Brougham, Russell and Althorp at the boundary commission’s headquarters in the privy council office throughout August 1831 to plan the work of the commission. It was initially agreed that the working committee would visit every borough that was to remain enfranchised, or be enfranchised by the reform bill. At the time, this amounted to 146 ancient boroughs and thirty-eight newly Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 proposed boroughs.59 As a matter of course the commissioners would first complete an up-to-date cartographical survey of the borough in question, ascertain its ancient parliamentary and extra-parliamentary boundaries from local sources and identify, also from a variety of local sources, the number of £10 householders in the borough and its surrounding areas. The commissioners would then propose a parliamentary boundary for each borough. If a borough was found to contain fewer than 300 £10 householders a suitable area with comparable social and economic interests within seven miles of the ancient borough was to be found with which to increase the borough’s electorate. If a borough contained over 300 £10 householders the commissioners were to recommend reformed boundaries that encompassed the modern extent of the borough and allowed for all probable future expansion. An indicator of the commission’s ambition to ensure the longevity of its recommendations was Drummond’s instruction to one of his commissioners to ensure that his proposed boundaries allowed for a century’s worth of town expansion.60 Even more ambitious to contemporaries was Brougham and Drummond’s plan that all of this work would be completed in three months.61 To finish this task the commissioners were divided into nine pairs (two of which were also responsible for visiting boroughs in Wales). Each pair of commissioners was assigned a district to visit, and at least one permanent surveyor. Additional surveyors were then assigned to each team, as required, by Robert K. Dawson, who Drummond had entrusted with managing the commission’s surveying operations. Drummond co- ordinated operations from London, reviewing the commissioners’ proposals as they were completed, and oversaw a further team of surveyors and colourers who distributed enlarged tracings of board of ordnance or privately available town plans to each team of commissioners ahead of their visits to each borough.62 Furthermore, each set of commissioners was provided with a blue book that contained every statistical return that had been collected since the reform process had commenced.63 Each team was assigned between twenty and thirty boroughs, giving them around three days per borough to

59 The second reform bill had initially proposed to disfranchise 57 ancient boroughs, but Saltash was moved to Schedule B on 26 July 1831. The commissioners eventually visited 41 new boroughs as Stroud and Ashton under Lyme were added to Schedule D on 15 Sept. 1831, as was Chatham in Dec. 1831 (Hansard, 3,v(26 July 1831), cols. 363–7; vii (15 Sept. 1831), cols. 63–7;ix(12 Dec. 1831), col. 165). 60 T.N.A., T 72/11/25, ‘Stamford’, ‘Observations on Stamford Report’, Thomas Drummond to William Tallents and Richard Sheepshanks, 6 Sept. 1831. 61 Brougham, iii. 379. Based on correspondence within T.N.A., T 72 and his scheduling for the commissioners, a three-month timescale to visit all boroughs was originally envisaged. 62 Oliver, pp. 108–9; T.N.A., WO 47/1548, board of ordnance minute book, fos. 8378–9, 19 Sept. 1831; WO 47/1553, fos. 9643–4, 25 Oct. 1831. 63 The commissioners frequently refer to the blue book rather than multiple returns, which explains the page references in the boundary commission reports (e.g., T.N.A., T 72/9/21, ‘Grantham’, Chapman to Drummond, 28 Nov. 1831 and T 72/9/4, ‘Devizes’, Ansley to Drummond, 14 Nov. 1831). See Thompson for a detailed exploration of how this data had been collected.

Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) VC 2017 The Authors Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London 554 Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act complete their work. To obtain the information necessary to propose new boundaries interviews were to be sought with local officials, as well as ‘intelligent men’ acquainted with the locality.64 In terms of payment, the commissioners were to be provided with expenses only, and the surveyors and draftsmen were to be paid for their services on an hourly basis.65 In late August and early September 1831 the commissioners began their visits to the localities. As the reform bill was still at committee stage in the Commons at this point, it must be noted that parliament had not sanctioned the commission. This helps to explain Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 why the commission began its work to no public fanfare, and why Drummond, who could not help but share the news of his appointment to the commission with his mother, informed her, in early September, ‘not a word, if you please, of this inquiry, or of my superintending it’.66 The secret was not kept for long, however, and second-hand news of the start of the commission, while welcomed by the bill’s supporters, led to outrage among anti-reformers, who again accused the whigs of constitutional obfuscation over the issue of boundaries.67 Nonetheless, the committee was allowed to continue its work after the government assured its opponents that all proposals would require the full sanction of a subsequent parliamentary committee.68 When the commissioners went to a locality, their first stop was to find lodgings at a local inn – Ord and Chapman stayed at the Hen and Chickens in Birmingham, for example. Then, equipped with letters of introduction signed by the home secretary, the commissioners visited the town hall or vestry to meet the borough’s local officials.69 Wrottesley provided a description of his experience of such an encounter in Tynemouth: ‘Soon after our examination of the overseers was concluded [the vestry clerk, Mr.] Tylney came with a profusion of maps and papers and offers of services, my colleague was then engaged in another room with the South Shields Officers, and I received him alone’.70 The commissioners’ first task was to identify a borough’s ancient parliamentary and relevant non-parliamentary boundaries. In most cases it was found that a map (or maps) of the town, with a boundary detailed on it, was either in the possession of town officials or someone living in the locality. These boundaries were then confirmed by perambulation with local officials, before being drawn onto the commissioners’ town plans by their surveyor. In Devizes, for example, a surveyor working for the commission confirmed that ‘an old engraved map of the town; other M.S. maps in the possession of the town clerk – and perambulation’ had been used to verify the borough’s ancient boundary.71 In thirty of the 146 ancient boroughs they visited the commissioners discovered that parliamentary boundaries were either heavily

64 Reports from Commissioners, xxxviii. 5–10. 65 See recording of hours worked on the maps in T.N.A., T 72/8–11. For the purposes of these payments and all other commission expenses, Drummond was authorized by the treasury to open an account with banking agents Greenwood, Cox & Co., who were to finance the commission’s daily operations. The treasury settled its primary account for the commission with these agents, in Sept. 1832 (T 72/43, ‘Ledger of the commissioners’, fos. 1–2; Drummond to his mother, 9 Sept. 1831 (quoted in McLennan, p. 143)). 66 Drummond to his mother, 3 Sept. 1831 (quoted in McLennan, p. 142). 67 The Times, 3 Sept. 1831,p.2; Standard, 3 Sept. 1831,p.3; repr., Morning Post, 5 Sept. 1831,p.3; John Bull, 5 Sept. 1831,p.3. The first report in the national press was a reprint of a story in the County Chronicle detailing the arrival of Drinkwater and Saunders in Guildford (The Times, 30 Aug. 1831,p.3). Further reports were discussed in parliament on 5 Sept. (Hansard, 3,vi(5 Sept. 1831), cols. 1147–9). 68 Hansard, 3,vi(5 Sept. 1831), col. 1150. 69 Birmingham Gazette, 26 Sept. 1831,p.3. 70 T.N.A., T 72/11/47, ‘Tynemouth’, Wrottesley to Drummond, 22 Nov. 1831. 71 T.N.A., T 72/8/41, ‘Calne’, J. R. Wright to Lieutenant Dawson, 31 Jan. 1832.

VC 2017 The Authors Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act 555 disputed, or unknown – leaving the commissioners considerable discretion in these cases to define the borough by an existing parochial boundary or their own assessment of its modern extent. Following this, the commissioners held meetings with local officials, and occasionally local surveyors or borough patrons, to ascertain the number of £10 householders that lived in a borough and its surrounding areas.72 The commissioners found cross- referencing the data held by multiple local tax-collection agencies to be the most accurate means of obtaining this data – and if discrepancies were found a personal Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 inspection and valuation of the houses in a borough was completed.73 Such extensive cross-referencing became crucial for three reasons. First, parish rates, assessed taxes and other local rates were raised via an array of local, and usually outdated, partial house valuations. Second, if a borough was found to contain fewer than, or just above 300 £10 householders this data determined the type of boundary change that was to take place. Finally, following the rejection of the second reform bill by the Lords in October 1831 the government had commenced discussions with Drummond over the possibility of remodelling the disfranchisement schedules using tax and household data collected by the commission. As a result of these considerations, as well as a general suspicion of local officials, Drummond was scrupulous in reviewing £10 householder data when the commissioners submitted their initial reports to him in London, particularly so from October.74 If a borough was found to contain anything short of 500 £10 householders (which was the case in eighty-five of the 146 ancient boroughs visited) and he was not satisfied with the commissioners’ data, he requested that they either correspond with local officials or complete additional visits to a borough to verify their information.75 Drummond was well aware that in these cases the £10 data collected by the commission would form the basis of controversial boundary proposals, and now potentially remodelled disfranchisement schedules. He therefore repeatedly implored that his commissioners take every step to ensure their data could withstand the most rigorous parliamentary scrutiny. On the whole, however, the commissioners met with surprising success when trying to obtain this information. While Drummond maintained suspicions over the data collected from at least eight boroughs, further investigation usually found that official incompetence and confusing local house valuations were the cause of misinformation. In fact the only boroughs in which the commissioners experienced difficulty gaining information were Bristol and Nottingham – and that was because their visits coincided with the public disturbances that took place in both boroughs following the rejection of the second reform bill. In both cases, the understandably nervous commissioners outsourced the collection of their data to local surveyors rather than

72 E.g., commissioners Ansley and Gawler met with Lord Malmesbury in Christchurch, but his information was cross-referenced with data from borough officials (T.N.A., T 72/8/56, ‘Christchurch’, Ansley to Drummond, 2 Oct. 1831). 73 E.g., see T.N.A., T 72/8/21, ‘Beverley’, Tancred to Drummond, 17 Oct. 1831;T72/8/10, ‘Arundel’, Drinkwater and Saunders to Drummond, 29 Sept. 1831. 74 T.N.A., T 72/9/40, ‘Kingston upon Hull’, Drummond to Tancred, 13 Oct. 1831;T72/9/11, ‘Durham’, Drummond to Wrottesley and Tancred, 17 Oct. 1831. 75 Reports from Commissioners, xxxviii. 11; see, T.N.A., T 72/10/51, ‘Northallerton’; T 72/8/41, ‘Calne’, Beaufort to Ansley and Gawler, Nov. 1831;T72/11/39, ‘Tavistock’, see map with original boundary drawn, 17 Sept. 1831; S.R.O., Hatherton papers, D260/M/F/5/26/7, fo. 241, diary, 28 Nov. 1831; for Tavistock’s final boundary, see Reports from Commissioners, xxxviii. 129–30.

Once the commissioners had obtained the necessary boundary and £10 household data they could move on to the task of proposing a borough’s reformed parliamentary boundary. For boroughs that contained fewer than 300 £10 householders, Drummond requested that the commissioners complete a survey of the social and economic conditions of all population groupings within seven miles of an ancient borough. They Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 were then asked to extend the boundary of that borough to incorporate the population grouping most similar to the original borough to increase that borough’s electorate to above 300 £10 householders. Of the 146 ancient boroughs initially visited fifty contained fewer than 300 £10 householders. Three of these were found to contain more than 300 £10 householders when their boundaries were extended to encompass the modern town, and nine were found to have suitable villages or towns that neatly adjoined the ancient borough – such as Huntingdon, whose 276 £10 householders were felt to share a similar agricultural profile to nearby Godmanchester’s 129 £10 householders.77 The remaining thirty-eight boroughs in this category proved more troublesome. For example, commissioners Ord and Chapman found that the ancient borough of Droitwich – which contained 128 £10 householders, and whose inhabitants were engaged in salt production – was surrounded by 20,000 ‘wholly rural’ acres that contained ‘scarcely two or three villages’ and a ‘scanty’ 123 £10 householders. More promisingly, they discovered that the nail-manufacturing town of Bromsgrove, which contained at least 213 £10 householders, was within seven miles of the ancient borough. As Bromsgrove had a sufficiently large town population, engaged in a form of manufacturing, the commissioners identified it over Droitwich’s surrounding agricultural areas as the ‘source ... most advisable to augment the constituency’.78 The difficulty here was that the commissioners’ initial instructions had stipulated that they could only draw boundaries via continuous lines. This meant that in order to connect Droitwich with Bromsgrove, Ord and Chapman were required to include an arbitrary portion of the intervening rural district. Such a boundary, they observed, would be ‘liable to much objection ... [from] the interposed agricultural population’, whose double vote for the county was likely to be transferred to a single vote for a borough alien to their interests.79 Instead, they advocated drawing distinct boundaries around both Droitwich and Bromsgrove and grouping the towns under a single borough franchise, in a manner similar to that already used in Scotland and Wales. By September 1831 Drummond had received reports of similar cases from across the country. After liaising with cabinet members and those scheduled to sit on the parliamentary committee on boundaries, the commission was granted permission to propose grouped boroughs, if it provided the best means of maintaining the socio-economic consistency of a borough that contained fewer than 300 £10 householders.80

76 T.N.A., T 72/8/35, ‘Bristol’, Gawler to Drummond, 5 Nov. 1831;T72/10/52, ‘Nottingham’, Chapman to Drummond, 1 Dec. 1831. 77 T.N.A., T 72/9/41, ‘Huntingdon’, ‘Report for Huntingdon’, Sheepshanks and Tallents to Drummond, 20 Sept. 1831;T72/8/19, ‘Bedford’, Drummond to Sheepshanks and Tallents, 21 Sept. 1831. 78 T.N.A., T 72/9/9, ‘Droitwich’, ‘9.E Droitwich Report’. 79 T.N.A., T 72/9/9, ‘Droitwich’, Chapman to Drummond, 25 Sept. 1831. 80 T.N.A., T 72/9/12, ‘Evesham’, Drummond to Ord and Chapman, 17 Sept. 1831. For reference to Drummond’s discussions with the intended chair of the commission, James Abercromby, see T 72/11/46, ‘Truro’, Drummond to Birch, 27 Sept. 1831; also T 72/11/34, ‘Sudbury’, Drummond to Sheepshanks, 30 Sept. 1831.

Drummond, ever conscious of ensuring that proposals would stand up to parliamentary scrutiny, warned the commissioners to exhibit caution before proposing grouping. In some cases grouping appeared a satisfactory option. For example, Dorking seemed particularly suited for association with the ancient borough of Reigate. Neither town had a strong economic identity, and both contained approximately the same number of £10 householders, meaning one town was unlikely to have a preponderating influence over the other in future elections.81 For Drummond, the case of Droitwich was less straightforward. While Droitwich and Bromsgrove were both manufacturing Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 towns, their manufacturing identities seemed to conflict with each other. Accordingly, Drummond warned Ord and Chapman that their proposal for the borough must take care not to ‘injure the interest to which that constituency [Droitwich] is attached [in the Commons]’, and cautioned them against simplistic definitions of interest that disregarded the idea that a town population might have a close connection to its surrounding agricultural district. The question was whether nail and salt manufacturers were more united in interest than salt manufacturers and their surrounding agricultural areas. If it was the case that Droitwich was more united with its agricultural surrounds, Drummond conjectured in a letter to the commissioners, the response of the population of Droitwich to being grouped with Bromsgrove might be: we have been spared by the legislature [from disfranchisement] to be sacrificed by the Commissioners – if our constituency must be increased unite with us our surrounding friends, with whom we are connected by a common interest, and do not swamp us in that batton making, nail hammering place [Bromsgrove], the pest of the surrounding country and whose only redeeming quality consists in consuming our corn and cattle.82 This was hypothetical of course, but it demonstrated the complexities of boundary proposals in these cases, as well as Drummond’s humour and the extent to which he wanted to ensure that boundary proposals would be well received in the localities. In the case of Droitwich, the commissioners discovered that there was no easy solution – the borough’s voters had to be increased from somewhere and upon further investigation its surrounding agricultural areas were found to be no more suited than Bromsgrove for achieving this task.83 Despite these complexities, by December 1831 (when the commissioners had completed their initial visits to each borough) grouping had been proposed as an option for boundary extension for twenty-six boroughs, including Droitwich. It had been the government’s original intention that these proposals would be considered by a parliamentary committee, but following the rejection of the second reform bill by the Lords on 7 October, and given the speed with which the commissioners had completed their initial work, these plans were altered. Instead, the government asked Francis Beaufort and Edward Littleton, in conjunction with Drummond, to form a sitting committee of the commission based at the council office.84 This committee was to

81 T.N.A., T 72/11/3, ‘Reigate’, ‘Report on Reigate’, Drinkwater and Saunders to Drummond, undated; T 72/9/9, ‘Droitwich’, ‘Necessity of careful enquiry before recommending the association of place – Droitwich and Bromsgrove’, Drummond to Chapman, 29 Sept. 1831. 82 T.N.A., T 72/9/9, ‘Droitwich’, ‘Necessity of careful enquiry before recommending the association of place – Droitwich and Bromsgrove’, Drummond to Chapman, 29 Sept. 1831. 83 T.N.A., T 72/9/9, ‘Droitwich’, Chapman to Drummond, 19 Nov. 1831. 84 S.R.O., Hatherton papers, D260/M/F/5/27/7, fo. 70, Russell to Littleton, 18 Oct. 1831; fo. 60, Russell to Littleton, 23 Oct. 1831;D260/M/F/5/26/7, fo. 190, diary, 27 Oct. 1831.

Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) VC 2017 The Authors Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London 558 Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act finalize each of the commissioners’ boundary proposals before their introduction to parliament, although the formal method by which this was to be done was still undecided.85 The commissioners’ proposals for boroughs that contained fewer than 300 £10 householders provided the committee with their greatest source of apprehension, and they decided to defer any decision over the introduction of the grouping principle into the English borough system to the cabinet.86 It took the cabinet until late December (after the introduction of the third reform bill) to make a decision, and when it did an alternative scheme for altering these boroughs was agreed in order to Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 appease the ‘waverers’ (a group of peers and M.P.s who sought to moderate the reform bill in return for its safe passage through the Lords). In late December, moderates such as Lords Palmerston and Lansdowne won a victory for what they held to be the landed interest when they persuaded the cabinet to discard grouping and extend all boroughs with fewer than 300 £10 householders up to four miles into their surrounding parishes until the requisite number of householders was achieved.87 To Drummond’s exasperation much of the commissioners’ attempts to identify socio-economically suitable partners for these boroughs had been pointless, and further visits to boroughs had to be completed.88 In Droitwich, this led to a four-mile radius being drawn around a map of the borough, and every parish being added until the magic householder mark was achieved. As a result, Droitwich was extended into thirteen parishes and expanded in area from 2.7 to 37.4 square miles. In terms of voters, 183 £10 householders from the surrounding parishes were added to Droitwich’s 128 £10 householders – which moderates hoped would strengthen the landed, agricultural interest in the borough. Similar boundary changes took place in fifty ancient boroughs following the passage of the 1832 Boundary Act.89 In the years following 1832,these boroughs proved an important source of tory, and until 1846, pro-corn law support in the Commons.90 For the ancient English boroughs that contained over 300 £10 householders, as well as for the boroughs due to be enfranchised, Drummond had worked closely with the commissioners since August 1831 to ensure all boundary proposals adhered to two key principles. In contrast to boroughs with fewer than 300 £10 householders, the majority of these proposals found their way on to the statute book. The first principle was that all reformed boundaries had to encompass every house that formed part of the modern town or city associated with the borough. Vital to this process were the updated town plans of each borough and its surrounds that the commissioners had completed in conjunction with their surveyors as part of their initial work in the borough. The bird’s- eye view provided by these plans allowed the commissioners easily to identify every

85 S.R.O., Hatherton papers, D260/M/F/5/26/7, fo. 224, diary, 20 Nov. 1831. 86 T.N.A., T 72/9/9, ‘Droitwich’, note by Beaufort, undated but prior to 31 Oct. based on comments in S.R.O., Hatherton papers, D260/M/F/5/26/7, fo. 195, diary, 31 Oct. 1831;D260/M/F/5/26/7, fo. 205, diary, 31 Oct. 1831; T.N.A., T 72/9/9, ‘Droitwich’, note by Littleton. 87 Palmerston met with the boundary commission on the same day that Lansdowne initially proposed this scheme (S.R.O., Hatherton papers, D260/M/F/5/26/7, fo. 231, diary, 23 Nov. 1831; also, fo. 241, 28 Nov. 1831, fo. 281, 20 Dec. 1831; Kriegel, pp. 83–4, 99–100). 88 S.R.O., Hatherton papers, D260/M/F/5/26/7, fo. 285, diary, 23 Nov. 1831. 89 Thirty-three boroughs were extended into multiple surrounding parishes and 17 were extended into their surrounding parish or township (2 William IV, c. 45 (11 July 1832)). 90 The author’s Ph.D. thesis explores this topic in more detail, and expands on the recent work of C. Schonhardt Bailey, From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas and Institutions in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, Mass., 2006).

VC 2017 The Authors Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act 559 grouping of houses in the vicinity of an ancient borough. In order to decide whether a grouping of houses then formed part of the modern borough the commissioners had to evaluate the legal, economic and social connections between an ancient borough and its nearby houses. To maintain their impartiality, Drummond provided strict orders to the commissioners that these decisions could not be based on a survey of local opinion, the fear being that, if asked, local political factions would provide a definition of their modern borough which favoured their own future electoral interests. The discovery of ancient legal charters linking two places provided the most Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 convincing evidence for the extension of a borough. For example, finding that a small part of the town of Strood formed part of the liberties and ancient borough of Rochester meant that the commissioners were compelled to add the entire town to the borough, even though the towns were not felt to be connected by trade or custom.91 If legal connections were not present, then economic connections could convince the commissioners to extend a borough. For example, they proposed to extend the boundary of Dorchester into the nearby village of Fordington after it was discovered that at least 700 of Fordington’s 2,000 inhabitants derived their employment from Dorchester.92 Social connections between nearby places were perhaps the most difficult to pin down, but they were also considered. In Exeter, it was recommended that Heavitree should be included in the borough as the commissioners discovered it was a retirement village for army officers and professionals once associated with the city.93 Attempting to define a modern borough by resort to these three discrete variables was a complex task, and at least two sets of commissioners had difficulty in defining a modern town without resorting to a survey of local opinion – and, as feared, when this happened in Durham the commissioners became embroiled in a row between the conservative and liberal factions in the city.94 The second principle on which the commissioners’ proposals were to be based was that a borough’s boundaries had to allow for its future expansion. Drummond and the government wanted the commission’s boundary proposals to remain in place for the long term, and as mentioned above, he had impressed on his commissioners the importance of designing boundaries that would last for a century. Again, this was a complex process that favoured the more meticulous commissioners and those with engineering or surveying backgrounds. In Bridgwater a wide boundary was proposed as the commissioners felt the borough was likely to expand in the future. This prediction was based on Bridgwater’s position as an inland commercial port, and its current and future capacity to manufacture brick using silt deposits left by the River Parret, which ran through the town. It was discovered that silt was deposited for a mile to the north and south of Bridgwater, and that a number of brick building yards and housing developments had been built or were in the process of being established in those areas. As the land to the west of the borough was liable to flooding and unsuitable for building, an extension of the borough to the north, east and south was proposed.95 If a

91 T.N.A., T 72/11/9, ‘Rochester’, see original map for Home Street and Bill Street areas of Frindsbury parish that were surveyed but not included in final boundary; Reports from Commissioners, xl. 29. 92 T.N.A., T 72/9/5, ‘Dorchester’. The original report is the same as the published report (Reports from Commissioners, xxxix. 194). 93 T.N.A., T 72/9/15, ‘Exeter’, see map in folder for original boundary that excluded Heavitree; Morning Post, 1 Dec. 1831,p.3. 94 M. Escott, ‘Durham’, in House of Commons 1820–32, ii. 369. 95 T.N.A., T 72/8/33, ‘Bridgwater’, Birch and Brandreth, undated report on Bridgwater.

Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) VC 2017 The Authors Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London 560 Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act skilled surveying team was assigned to the commissioners it allowed for some highly accurate planning to take place, such as in Liverpool. The city plan that was completed for Liverpool was remarkably detailed, and its proposed boundary took into consideration houses that were in the process of being built as well as individually marked plots of land that had been sold for building.96 Given the extent of the townships that comprised Liverpool’s suburbs this was a sizeable task, and it was thanks to the expertise of Manchester-based surveyors Robert Thornton and Thomas Smith, who assisted the commissioners, that such a detailed survey of the town’s likely future Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 growth was completed.97 When the commissioners exhibited an inability or unwillingness to propose such future-proofed boundaries, Drummond was happy to overrule initial proposals based on information in the surveyors’ maps and commissioners’ reports. This was the case in Stamford, where the commissioners initially proposed only a slight extension to the borough so that it included a few houses in an adjoining parish. On reading this report Drummond expressed ‘great regret’ that a wider boundary had not been proposed and revised the proposed boundary so that it allowed ‘free scope’ for the borough to expand to the south, particularly along Stamford’s principal road to London.98 In Worcester, the commissioners expressed reluctance that the whole of the town of Worcester should form part of the boundary for fear of aggravating the suburban property owners whose houses they felt ‘properly belonged’ to the county.99 In making this recommendation this particular pair of commissioners had one eye on protecting whig electoral interests in the borough. While completing their work they had gradually come to realize that the government and Drummond’s principles for boundary reform might be counterproductive for future whig or emerging liberal electoral interests, due to the number of town-based voters who were being removed from the counties.100 Either way, Drummond modified their recommendation for the sake of consistency, to ensure that all of Worcester was included in the city’s parliamentary boundaries. Thanks to Drummond’s supervision, the commissioners’ boundary recommendations for new boroughs and those that contained over 300 £10 householders were remarkably consistent with the complex and abstract principles that the government had requested the commission meet. This amounted to 137 boundary proposals, only eighteen of which were amended by parliament prior to the passage of the 1832 Boundary Act.101 Overall, then, what do they say about the Grey ministry’s and Drummond’s ambition for the reformed electoral system? Moore was half right on this – Drummond’s correspondence with the commissioners does illustrate a desire to define new boroughs

96 T.N.A., T 72/10/10, ‘Liverpool’. 97 See the large map on white card in T.N.A., T 72/10/10, ‘Liverpool’; also Thornton to boundary commission, 6 Jan. 1832 and 15 Jan. 1832. 98 T.N.A., T 72/11/25, ‘Stamford’, ‘Observations on Stamford Report’, Thomas Drummond to William Tallents and Richard Sheepshanks, 6 Sept. 1831; Stamford’s boundary proposal was later overruled in parliament in favour of a compromise between the commissioners’ and Drummond’s proposals. 99 T.N.A., T 72/11/72, ‘Worcester’, initial report on Worcester, undated but received at council office, 20 Sept. 1831. 100 See correspondence in T.N.A., T 72/11/72, ‘Worcester’. Ord and Chapman did not explicitly state that this recommendation was for party reasons, but given Ord’s political background it explains why their proposals for these boroughs were often very different to the other commissioners’. Littleton, when later reviewing these proposals, noted similar concerns (T 72/8/62, ‘Coventry’, undated note by Littleton). 101 This figure includes the boundaries enacted for England’s 41 new boroughs and the 96 ancient boroughs not expanded into their parish or parishes. The 1832 Boundary Act amended the boundaries of 59 of these ancient boroughs (2 William IV, c. 45 (11 July 1832)).

The speed with which the commission had been able to complete its initial work led to one final extension of Drummond’s responsibilities. Following the rejection of the second reform bill in October 1831 the cabinet requested that the commissioners compile accurate population, tax and household data for every borough scheduled to be fully disfranchised, partially disfranchised or that had stood on the margins of disfranchisement in the first two versions of the reform bill.106 It was hoped that this would allow the disfranchisement schedules to be remodelled on data collected specifically for that purpose – and not on census data, as had previously been the case.107 As a result, during November and December 1831, the commissioners visited twenty- five Schedule A boroughs not already visited (boroughs to be wholly disfranchised), and revisited forty-one Schedule B boroughs (boroughs to be partially disfranchised) and ten boroughs on the margins of partial disfranchisement.108 In each borough, if they had not already done so during earlier visits, the commissioners identified the geographic area rightfully associated with the modern town. They then collected tax and household data

102 Moore, ‘Concession or cure’, pp. 52–3. 103 Banbury was one of these cases (see Drummond’s comments in T.N.A., T 72/8/52, ‘Cheltenham’, Drummond to Chapman, 14 Sept. 1831). 104 Moore, ‘Concession or cure’, pp. 52, 54–5; Moore, Deference, pp. 173–83. 105 T.N.A., T 72/11/25, ‘Stamford’, ‘Observations on Stamford Report’, Thomas Drummond to William Tallents and Richard Sheepshanks, 6 Sept. 1831; Reports from Commissioners, xxxviii. 5–10; Hennock’s interpretation of this aspect of the commission’s work was correct (Hennock and Moore, pp. 326–7). 106 Parliamentary Representation (Parl. Papers 1831–2 [20], xxxvii), pp. 2–5. 107 For more discussion on the debates over the use of census data, see Thompson; and Salmon, ‘English reform legislation’, pp. 381–8. 108 This figure is based on data compiled from the commission’s report and T 72.

Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) VC 2017 The Authors Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London 562 Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act relative to this area – or reverified it if it had already been collected.109 This placed considerable strain on the commission’s resources and when the government decided in late November 1831 to introduce its third reform bill, with remodelled disfranchisement schedules before the end of the year, Drummond requested ‘as many surveyors as could be spared’ from the board of ordnance to complete this work.110 As well as requesting that Drummond organize this additional work, the cabinet asked that he devise some means of using the data to reorganize the disfranchisement schedules. To this end Drummond developed an algorithm that, once he had received Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 the requisite data, allowed him to place England’s 120 smallest boroughs according to their population in relative order against each other, based on the number of houses in each borough and the assessed taxes that they paid.111 As the commission was afforded little over a month to complete this task it pushed even Drummond’s efficiency to the limit – and the data required for this list was still incomplete by the time Russell introduced the third reform bill and ‘Drummond’s list’ on 12 December. This led to local disputes being raised over the data and by late January 1832 a verified, refined version of the list was published.112 Drummond’s list and the reduction in Schedule B from forty-one to thirty boroughs, which was the result of government negotiations with the waverers prior to the introduction of the third reform bill, transferred five boroughs from Schedule B to A; five from Schedule A to B; placed seven boroughs in Schedule B that had not previously been scheduled to lose any seats; and spared eighteen boroughs from partial disfranchisement.113 One of the most interesting aspects of Drummond’s list was its reception and the means by which the government sought to justify its use. Unsurprisingly, it was met with derision by anti-reformers in parliament and much of the anti-reform press. Nevertheless, the nature of the debate it provoked was important, as the forces of mathematics were employed to discuss its accuracy – first by John Wilson Croker, then by mathematician and M.P. Jonathan Pollock in the Commons, and then by Pollock and other mathematicians in letters to editors and in pamphlets.114 To counter this response the government contacted its own set of mathematicians – Drummond’s mathematics master at Woolwich, Peter Barlow; Professor George Airy of Cambridge; Professor William Wallace of Edinburgh; and Britain’s leading physicist and astronomer John Herschel.115 Further to this, a series of letters and editorials were published in

109 To speed up this process the commission submitted questionnaires in late Nov. requesting a self-assessment of this data to every returning officer in England’s 120 smallest boroughs; any questionable data was verified by personal inspection. 110 T.N.A., WO 47/1555, board of ordnance minute book, fos. 10435–7, 21 Nov. 1831. 111 Drummond’s formula gave each borough an overall number by adding two figures together for each borough – the number of houses in a borough divided by the average number of houses of all 120 boroughs, and the amount of assessed taxes divided by the average number of assessed taxes for all 120 boroughs. 112 Parliamentary Representation (Parl. Papers 1831–2 [44, 222], xxxvi). 113 On the reduction of Schedule B, see Salmon, ‘English reform legislation’, pp. 381–8; Brock, pp. 264–5; see final draft of second reform bill, A bill [as amended on the report] to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales (Parl. Papers 1831 [244], iii); and the final Reform Act (2 William. IV, c. 45 (7 June 1832)). 114 Hansard, 3,ix(15 Dec. 1831), cols. 257–8;(16 Dec. 1831), col. 332;(17 Dec. 1831), cols. 429–547;(17 Jan. 1832), cols. 564–74;(20 Jan. 1832), cols. 651–700;x(20 Feb. 1832), cols. 536–70; Morning Post, 24 Dec. 1831,p.3; Courier, 3 Jan. 1832,p.3; Westmorland Gazette, 14 Jan. 1832,p.2; Standard, 21 March 1832; Westmorland Gazette, 14 Apr. 1832,p.2; Anon., Two Letters to the Right Honourable Lord John Russell on the Classification of Boroughs (1832). 115 Royal Society Archives (hereafter R.S.A.), Herschel papers, box 21, fo. 100, Herschel to Beaufort, 12 Jan. 1832; box 21, fo. 103, Herschel to Beaufort, 29 Feb. 1832; Mclennan, pp. 153–60.

A similar redefinition of the terms of debate had occurred in relation to parliamentary boundaries by early 1832. By the time the third reform bill was introduced in December 1831, the efficiency of the working committee had allowed the government to jettison its plans for a parliamentary committee to approve boundaries following the passage of a reform bill. After the sitting committee of Littleton, Beaufort and Drummond had finalized the commissioners’ boundary proposals, they were amalgamated into a separate parliamentary bill that the government was happy to subject to full parliamentary scrutiny. These boundary proposals were published in the boundary bill of February 1832,andbyMarch1832 1,850 copies of the commission’s nine-volume report had been printed for parliament.120 Following this, discussion over boundaries was no longer an abstract debate about parliamentary process or the worst-case scenario imaginings of a democratic, gerrymandered electoral system. By early 1832 M.P.s had been made aware of the changes that would take place to their constituencies. Furthermore, they could access a map that illustrated the proposed changes, and a report that revealed how many and what type of voters would be contained in each reformed constituency.

116 The Times, 20 Dec, 1831,p.2; 30 Jan. 1832,p.2; 2 Feb. 1832; 22 Feb. 1832; Morning Chronicle, 18 Jan. 1832; The Examiner, 26 Feb. 1832,p.2; 11 March 1832,p.2. See also, Grey papers, GRE/B46/1/53A, fo. 4, ‘Printed Bill of 26 March 1832, with ms comments by Wood’. 117 Hansard, 3,x(20 Feb. 1832), cols. 553–6. 118 R.S.A., Herschel papers, box 6, fo. 454, Drummond to Herschel, 14 Jan. 1832; Mclennan, pp. 146–61. 119 Hansard, 3, xii (7 May 1832), cols. 729–30; for a comprehensive treatment of the events that followed the resignation of the Grey ministry in May 1832, see Brock, pp. 268–310. 120 S.R.O., Hatherton papers, D260/M/F/5/27/8, fos. 40–1, Drummond to Littleton, 4 Sept. 1832; the commission’s reports had been printed by 27 March 1832.

The government was able to use the rhetoric of maps and statistics to make their case for reform easier to stomach, and this was significant to the fate of the Grey ministry’s reform legislation for two reasons. First, the commissioners’ reports revealed how conservative the whig reform plans actually were. With the commissioners’ reports at hand, Lord Grey could assure the Lords in April 1832 that reform would change very little about the electoral system – seventy-seven boroughs would still contain fewer than 500 voters, he stated, and only fourteen would contain over 5,000.121 In practice, even these estimates proved too high, as the reform bill’s registration clauses (which the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 government predicted would prevent a quarter of £10 householders from registering) and the persistence of ancient franchise rights ensured that such levels of £10 householder enfranchisement were not reached for over a decade.122 Additionally, now that the government’s boundary proposals were out in the open, constituencies were able to lodge grievances that could be addressed by parliament before any boundary changes received royal assent. This allowed the boundary bill to pass through parliament after only a few hours of debate in both Houses – a feat that was helped by the remarkable consistency of principle on which the boundary proposals were based.123 At the centre of all of this was Drummond, who in a manner consistent with his personal scientific background had sought to employ surveying and data collection in order to shed light on England’s ancient electoral system. The immediate importance of his exertions to the success of the reform bill were not lost on his fellow boundary commissioners, who arranged for his portrait to be painted by Henry Pickersgill to thank him for his supervision of the commission. They commended Drummond for exhibiting ‘perfect integrity, the most active zeal, and the most acute intelligence ... in the execution of a delicate and arduous duty, intimately connected with an important event in the history of our country’.124 Drummond’s zeal had ensured that between August 1831 and September 1832 (when he finally wrapped up the commission) a total of twenty-one commissioners, seventy surveyors, nine lithographers and seventeen clerical staff, at a cost to the treasury of £26,607, had completed the state’s first ever survey of England’s ancient electoral system.125 Reams of electoral data from the localities that had not previously been known at a central level had been collected, and England’s electoral map – including the state’s first official town plans for at least sixty of England’s northern towns and cities – had been drawn for the first time.126 Following the 1832 Boundary Act the total area of England’s borough constituency system had

121 Various parliamentary reporters recorded Grey’s figures differently and The Times reported that this part of his speech was inaudible from the gallery (Hansard, 3,v(9 Apr. 1832), cols. 12, 19; The Times, 10 Apr. 1832,p.1; Morning Post, 10 Apr. 1832,p.1; Morning Chronicle, 10 Apr. 1832,p.2; Mirror of Parliament,iv(9 Apr. 1832), col. 1663). As a result these figures are compiled from Boundary Reports (Parl. Papers, 1831–2 [232], xxxvi), which Grey probably used in this instance and that cabinet members repeatedly used during debates in the Lords (Hansard, 3, xii (13 Apr. 1832), col. 364;(21 May 1832), cols. 1117–8;(22 May 1832), cols. 1233–8). 122 This is based on the author’s calculations and explored in greater depth in his thesis. On electoral registration clauses, see Salmon, Electoral Reform, pp. 27–42 and C. Seymour, Electoral Reform in England and Wales (1970), pp. 133–64. 123 2 William IV, c. 45 (11 July 1832). 124 S.R.O., Hatherton papers, D260/M/F/5/27/8, fo. 34, commissioners to Drummond, 6 June 1832. 125 T.N.A., T 72/43, ‘Ledger of the commissioners’. The 17 clerical staff are recorded as four clerks, one messenger, one calculator, nine colourers and two assistants. For the expenses of the commission, see S.R.O., Hatherton papers, D260/M/F/5/27/8, fos. 40–1, Drummond to Littleton, 4 Sept. 1832. 126 Reports from Commissioners, xxxviii–xli; Parliamentary Representation (Parl. Papers 1831–2 [20], xxxvii).

VC 2017 The Authors Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London Thomas Drummond, the boundary commission and the 1832 Reform Act 565 been increased from 1,317 to 2,809 square miles – and all of these boundaries (unless a borough was disfranchised) remained in place until at least 1867.127 Drummond and the commission established the key precedents that guided parliamentary boundary reform over the next century. The 1867, 1884 and 1918 Reform Acts were all accompanied by boundary commissions whose recommendations were enacted by separate Boundary or Redistribution of Seats Acts. Each commission had to contend with the idea of preserving the representation of communities, while also having to ensure that constituencies represented an increasingly equitable number of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/90/249/543/5603617 by guest on 27 September 2021 electors. Furthermore, on each occasion the boundary commission’s initial report and proposals provided a vital opportunity for informal and formal negotiations between parties over the extent of reform. While this precedent was broken in 1944,whena permanent independent boundary commission was established to provide periodic reviews of constituency boundaries, parliamentary boundaries have continued to provide the primary means by which the electoral system has been, and continues to be, reformed. The efficiency of Drummond’s work, and the speed of its enactment, is best demonstrated by the most recently completed review of English boundaries, which commenced in 2000 but was not approved by parliament until 2007.Furthermore,the continued relevance of Drummond’s insistence that the boundary setting process should be anchored in a disinterested means of defining communities was underscored by the failure of the 2010 coalition government to reform parliamentary boundaries. The primary argument employed by those opposed to the government’s proposed reforms, which included a number of backbench tory M.P.s, was that the 2011 boundary commission had gone too far in terms of marginalizing the community principle in favour of creating constituencies that contained an equal number of constituents – a debate that has reopened ahead of the 2018 boundary review.128 This further underlines the extent to which the Grey government’s piecemeal reforming measure of March 1831 was transformed by the work of Drummond and the boundary commission. Given this, the Reform Act, rather than the Poor Law Amendment or Municipal Corporations Act, should be considered as the first step in whig attempts to complete what David Eastwood has termed a ‘rational reordering of the English state’ during the eighteen-thirties.129 Following the commission’s lead, the S.D.U.K., with its extended network of expertise, remained a fertile recruiting ground

127 These figures include Aylesbury, Cricklade, East Retford and New Shoreham and the post-1832 figure includes new boroughs. The pre-1832 figure excludes Ashburton and Northallerton whose pre-reform boundaries were not known. Compiled from Boundaries of Boroughs (Parl. Papers 1859 [166], xxiii); Parliamentary Representation (Parl. Papers 1831–2 [92, 126, 493], xxxvi); shapefiles produced by Great Britain Historical G.I.S., University of Portsmouth (2012) [accessed 23 Jan. 2017]; and Boundary Commission (Parl. Papers 1867–8 [3972], xx). The use of the G.I.S. dataset accounts for the difference between this author’s figures and those cited in Gash, pp. 432–3 and Salmon, ‘English reform legislation’, pp. 395–401. 128 D. Rossiter, R. Johnston and C. Pattie, The Boundary Commissions: Redrawing the UK’s Map of Parliamentary Constituencies (Manchester, 1999); What Next on the Redrawing of Parliamentary Constituency Boundaries (Parl. Papers 2014–5 [Cm. 600], viii), pp. 10–15; R. Johnston, D. Rossiter and C. Pattie, Equality, Community and Continuity: Reviewing the UK Rules for Constituency Redistributions (2014); ‘MPs attack constituency changes to shrink Commons to 600 seats’, Guardian, 13 Sep. 2011 [18 May 2015]; ‘Cameron Defies MPs on Boundary Reform’, The Times, 11 May 2015 [18 May 2015]. 129 D. Eastwood, ‘Amplifying the province of the legislature: the flow of information and the English state in the early 19th century’, Hist. Research, lxii (1989), 276–94,atp.277.

130 Commissions (Parl. Papers 1836 [528], xxxvii); Commissions (Parl. Papers 1837 [290], xxxix); Collinge, pp. 16–28; Grobel, pp. 67–72; Henriques, ‘Early factory inspector’; Henriques, Before the Welfare State; Mandler, ‘Tories and paupers’; Mandler, Aristocratic Government, pp. 131–50. 131 Henriques, Before the Welfare State,p.26; Mandler, Aristocratic Government, pp. 135–6. 132 See J. Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (1993), pp. 113–26.

VC 2017 The Authors Historical Research, vol. 90, no. 249 (August 2017) Historical Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute of Historical Research, University of London