Trans. Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 130 (2012), 279–293 The 1895 by-election in Bristol East By W. JOHN LYES I trust that the information put together in these pages may not be altogether without interest to Bristolians, and may be found useful for reference, both now and hereafter, if not to a wide public, at least to the members of that good old family of Dryasdust, which concerns itself with the records of persons and institutions of byegone times, and which, I hope, will always number some representatives among the natives and citizens of Bristol.1 This account of a by-election in late Victorian Bristol may not constitute one of the major events in the city’s history but it took place during a period that was important in the development of early socialism. Following the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884 the parliamentary franchise was extended to urban working men and agricultural labourers and attention turned to the election of members of parliament who would promote the interests of the new electorate. The movement was spearheaded by the trade unions but they did not seek to form a new party and were content to return members in collaboration with the Liberal party. Any candidate aspiring to defeat a Liberal nominee had to contend with the fact that members were not paid and that no party organisation existed to support him. In 1880 organisations whose aim was to promote socialism were few and far between; as G.M. Young put it: Any-one who set himself to collect all occurrences of the word Socialism in the Victorian age would probably conclude that it might be taken, or made to mean everything which a respectable man saw reason to disapprove of or to fear.2 In 1881 H.M. Hyndman invited representatives from a number of organisations to a meeting the object of which was to facilitate the election of radical members of parliament. This resulted in the formation of the Democratic Federation (later the Social Democratic Federation) to which a number of bodies, including the Fabians, were affiliated but it did not succeed in achieving the election of a member. The trade unions continued to resist the formation of a party to encourage the election of working-class members of parliament and at the Trades Union Congress held at Swansea in 1887 a young Scottish miners’ delegate called James Keir Hardie had an ill-tempered disagreement with Henry Broadhurst, a Liberal MP and the secretary of the Parliamentary Committee about the issue. Despite these difficulties Hardie was elected as member for West Ham South in the 1892 general election, thanks in part to the withdrawal of the Liberal at the last moment. At the same election Joseph Havelock Wilson, the seamen’s leader, succeeded in Middlesborough, assisted by the fact that he was opposed by both a Liberal and a Liberal Unionist candidate, and John Burns defeated a Liberal candidate in Battersea. Once elected, there was little or no co-operation between the three of them as Wilson and Burns aligned themselves with the Liberals; they played no part in 1. Alfred B. Beaven, Bristol Lists: Municipal and Miscellaneous (Bristol, 1899). 2. Portrait of an Age (Oxford, 1936). 279-293 - Lyes.indd 279 19/02/2013 13:48 280 W. JOHN LYES the Independent Labour Party (ILP) which was formed on Hardie’s initiative at a conference in Bradford Jan. 1893. Thus, at the time of the by-election in Bristol East (March 1895) there were just three socialist Members of Parliament who had been elected in straight fights against Liberal candidates. The campaign in Bristol East is an early example of a contest between a socialist candidate and the official Liberal candidate and is noteworthy for the fact that the former came within 182 votes of winning the seat. This account attempts to illustrate the nature of the constituency, the way in which the candidates were selected, the issues that concerned the electors and the manner in which the election was contested. The personalities of the candidates are not without interest. The Liberal party was represented by Sir William Henry Wills, a member of the Wills tobacco dynasty (Fig. 1). He was aged 65 at the time of the by-election and had been chairman of the company but retired from active involvement in order to enter politics in 1880. The independent socialist candidate was Hugh Holmes Gore, a Christian Socialist solicitor aged 30 who had moved from the family home in Clifton to live in a working-class area of the city (Fig. 2). The Conservative party proposed no candidate. Fig. 1. Sir William Henry Wills. Bristol Candidates: Their Portraits and Biographies by F.G. Warne (1892). 279-293 - Lyes.indd 280 19/02/2013 13:48 THE 1895 BY-ELECTION IN BRISTOL EAST 281 Fig. 2. Hugh Holmes Gore. Fabian Society archives. British Library of Political and Economic Science. Full accounts of the election are contained in Western Daily Press, Bristol Times and Mirror and Bristol Mercury. The minutes of the Bristol Socialist Society relating to the election have survived and some of Gore’s election material is also available.3 The Constituency Since the middle ages Bristol had been represented in parliament by two members elected by the city’s freemen. Following the Reform Act of 1830 the electorate was enlarged. However, representation by two members continued until the Redistribution Act of 1885 from which time 3. B[ristol] R[eference] L[ibrary] 21595; British Library of Political and Economic Science, Fabian Society Archives B/2/2, hereafter Fab. Arch. 279-293 - Lyes.indd 281 19/02/2013 13:48 282 W. JOHN LYES the city was divided into four single-member constituencies with a total electorate of 36,549 (33,233 householders, 1,930 freeholders, 939 lodgers and 447 freemen). Bristol East comprised part of the ward of St Philip North (bounded by Wade Street on the east and Stapleton Road on the north), the ward of St Philip South and the parish of St George. In 1885 the constituency had a population of 61,986 and an electorate of 9,506 and was predominantly a working-class area. Many of the constituents were employed in the boot manufacturing industry and relations between employers and workers had become strained. New machinery and working practices had led to the breakdown of the arbitration procedure which had regulated disputes. The federation of employers sought to impose new conditions which were not accepted by the union and this led to lock-outs and strikes. Matters came to a head at the beginning of March 1895 and at the time of the election a substantial number of the residents in the constituency were unemployed as a result. The first election in the constituency took place in November 1885 when Handel Cossham, a colliery owner and philanthropist, representing the Liberal party, defeated his Conservative opponent by 4,647 votes to 2,383. There was a further general election in June 1886 when Cossham increased his majority. On 23 April 1890 Cossham was taken ill in the House of Commons and died about two hours later. He was replaced by Sir Joseph Dodge Weston who, at the resulting by-election secured 4,775 votes; the Conservative candidate James Inskip, a local solicitor and chairman of the Taff Valley Railway Company gained 1900 votes.4 It was originally intended that the socialist candidate would be William Whitefield, the local miners’ agent, and that Gore would be his election agent but Whitefield withdrew at the last moment and was replaced by James Havelock Wilson, the secretary of the seamens’ union, who polled 602 votes. There was a general election in June 1892 when, following an arrangement between the political leaders, contests were avoided in Bristol West and Bristol East. As a young man Weston joined the prosperous iron and hardware business founded by his father. He later became chairman of the Patent Nut and Bolt Company, the Bristol Wagon Works Company and the Great Western Cotton Works Company. He was a councillor and served as mayor for four successive years and as President of the Grateful and Anchor Societies.5 After a short illness Weston died on 5 March 1895 thus prompting the by-election which is the subject of this paper. Latimer records that the funeral, was attended by the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, the magistrates, the members of the Council, and a great number of leading citizens. The procession, which was upwards of half a mile in length, passed through the city in the presence of tens of thousands of spectators.6 The Liberal Candidate The Liberal Association’s general committee of the division (‘the Liberal 250’) met at Russell Town schoolroom on 11 March; Mr W.H. Butler, a local industrialist and the chairman of the association, presided, and Mr Charles Townsend, MP for Bristol North and chairman of the Liberal Federation, was present. Townsend told the meeting that he had spoken to the whips in London who took the view that the present opportunity was a great one for returning a radical working man; this view was greeted with applause. He then outlined three categories of candidates: a ‘local gentleman’, a ‘radical 4. He had ceased to occupy this position in 1901 when the company won the action against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. 5. F.G. Warne, Bristol Candidates: Their Portraits and Biographies (Bristol, 1892). 6. The Annals of Bristol 1887–1900 (Bristol, 1902). 279-293 - Lyes.indd 282 19/02/2013 13:48 THE 1895 BY-ELECTION IN BRISTOL EAST 283 working man’ and a ‘prominent London man’.