Eat, Drink and Be Merry – the 1831 Stamford Election

John S. Hartley

It is almost impossible to provide precise modern equivalents of prices in this earlier period.  Nevertheless the Bank of England offers a website which may help a little: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator.  The equivalents given below, based on this calculator, are very approximate therefore, and give only a rough guide to the buying power of the pound for goods and services purchased in the UK. However precise or not the figures may be, they provide some sort of basis for comparison between sums of money mentioned in this article. Please note that I have made no attempt to impose apostrophes on the names of these establishments where they should (or might) have been used – the nineteenth century generally did not worry – and I do not!  Whether the Blacksmiths Arms belonged to one or many is of no matter here – immaterial, equally, is whether the Arms refer to a heraldic achievement or the hairy arms of a working man!

A few years ago, a large number of papers relating to the Stamford election of 1831 appeared, piecemeal, for sale on eBay.  While deploring the splitting an archive into individual items, and “cherry-picking” those of apparent greatest interest - this article tries to make the best of a bad job!  Among the many items on sale were a few invoices, presented to Charles Tennyson and his supporters by landlords of the public houses where voters had enjoyed his hospitality around the time he became MP for Stamford in May 1831. 

Individually scarcely more than curiosities, these invoices are a reminder of a time when Britain was in turmoil as those long-used to ruling the country, privileged by birth, wealth and connections, tried to keep a close control of Parliament for the continuing benefit of themselves, their families and their friends.  Many of these families, absolutely certain that they alone knew what was best for the country, regarded their reforming opponents with distaste and they were both unwilling and unable to trust them; they regarded their own rule, over past years and recently, as benevolent and far above any self-interest their opponents believed they saw.  Even the radical 11th duke of Norfolk who succeeded to the title in 1786 and died in 1815, political friend of Charles James Fox and an early supporter of reform, looked to influence voters in places as far apart as Horsham, Gloucester and Carlisle by his ‘borough-mongering’.  Whatever their political leanings, many substantial landowners believed that they were entitled, even called, to use their resources to support candidates to maintain their own interests in Parliament.  

Foremost amongst such families were the Cecils, no longer just Earls of Exeter but members of the Marquessate since 1801.  Their home, Burghley House, lay just outside the borough of Stamford, south of the river Welland, and in another county.  They were by far the largest property owners in the town.  There were others, however: significant numbers of charities in the town owed their income to the property with which they had been originally endowed.  By the start of the nineteenth century many of these charities were controlled by the town council, itself also a considerable property owner and sympathetic – many would have said sycophantic, as some still do, - to the Cecil interest.  The councillors themselves, many benefiting directly from Cecil patronage, largely supported the Exeter interest.  Probably the most important of the charities under the control of the members of the town council was the town’s Grammar School, endowed at its foundation in the 1530s by William Radcliffe, mayor and leading citizen.  This endowment had been strengthened with monastic and chantry property in the next decade. 

By the later 18th century the earls of Exeter had a positive policy of taking out long, frequently building, leases on both residential and commercial premises at very low rents – again, as many would have said, in collusion with the councillors[1].  In 1809 the annual income of the school from its endowment was about £360 (2024 – perhaps as much as £24,500[2]) of which the Exeter estate paid nearly one third for the properties it rented.  Its hold on the electorate of the town was strengthened further as it sublet all these leased properties.   The Horseshoe, at the heart of the town in Red Lion Square was among a number of licensed premises sub-let in this way.  It was one of the eleven public houses (with a further two unidentified establishments) whose invoices, presented to Tennyson for April and May 1831, have recently appeared on eBay[3].

 Unlike the many other so-called ‘pocket’ boroughs, Stamford had a large electorate.  Voters qualified by paying scot and lot – a parochial tax equated, by the nineteenth century, with the poor rate assessment.  On the death of George IV, the former Prince Regent, in 1830 and the accession of William IV, a general election became necessary. Charles Tennyson, (now largely remembered as uncle of the poet) of Bayons Manor at Tealby[4], some three miles to the east of Market Rasen in the north of Lincolnshire, was invited to stand as Stamford’s reforming candidate[5].  In a lively election he failed to capture either of the two Stamford borough seats.

Lord Thomas Cecil and Col Thomas Chaplin, the Exeter candidates, were elected, but Tennyson was a mere 21 votes behind Chaplin.  In 1830 as many as 669 had been entitled to vote; estimates for the 1831 election suggest there were between 770 and 898 legitimate electors.   No doubt the overall numbers had been increased by the efforts of Tennyson’s supporting committee – the Blue Committee – as well as the Exeter party - the Red Interest – both anxious to ensure that all qualified were correctly registered as electors.  In 1797 it had been observed that Stamford, “always submits the nomination of its members to the Earl of Exeter,” suggesting the long-standing subservience to the family since the last fully contested election in 1734.   An election in 1809 had turned out to be something of a farce[6].  It was this domination that Tennyson was looking to overthrow both in 1830 and 1831[7].    

The various means of promoting candidates and eliciting votes sound to modern ears like corruption – as most were, by any standard.  Ready cash, food and drink, and support for the electors’ businesses, employment, housing and all kinds of pensions, would bring their reward at election time; fear was, perhaps, the most powerful weapon of all.  The Marquess had himself carelessly helped his opponents after the 1830 election by personally coming into the town to help enforce the eviction of those of his tenants who had failed to support both his candidates – whether they had “plumped” – i.e. cast a single vote for Tennyson - or cautiously split their two votes between the Red and Blue candidates.  Whether successful in one election or not, many candidates “nursed” their voters until the next time[8]. 

A consequence of the 1830 election in Stamford was that the supporters of reform presented a petition to the House of Commons claiming interference by the Marquess of Exeter in promoting his candidates during the 1830 election.  Their claim failed, “through an omission in a matter of form” and the House, “refused to allow further opportunity for complying”[9].

At this time the countryside around Stamford was in turmoil, as was much of southern England.  Agricultural machines were broken, ricks and barns were burned.  Similar acts took place, or were threatened, with the aim of seeking redress for low agricultural wages and poor conditions and exploitation by landlords.  A particular complaint was over the introduction of threshing machinery. These so-called “Swing” riots had started in August 1830 and continued into 1831.  Locally the special constabulary and yeomanry were mobilised, and Sir John Trollope of Casewick in Uffington led a “huge party of mounted men from Stamford into Huntingdonshire.”  A straw stack was set alight at Easton-on-the-Hill; at Warmington a machine was destroyed by a riotous assembly.  Three rioters were arrested and taken to Oundle where they were successfully held overnight in spite of “the mob who demolished the outer gates of the bridewell-yard and partly stripped the roof of the building……”  Such was the political climate leading up to the second of the elections at the start of the 1830s[10].

On the 6th May 1831, after Col Chaplin, once more the second Burghley candidate, had failed by 54 votes to gain the second Stamford seat in House of Commons, the Mercury commented on the breaking of “the long-established influence of the Marquess of Exeter, aided ….... on the present occasion by an immense expenditure of money (said to be not less than £14,000) ….... and by pugilists …… and hired labourers …….”.  If such an accusation were accurate – and there seems to be considerable evidence to support it – the period of the election was what the Mercury called later in the same article, “a season of unusual excitement.”  Certainly, an outlay approaching a million pounds in a failed attempt to block a rival political interest would indeed seem “unusual”.

Unsurprisingly, there were great celebrations in Stamford after Tennyson had successfully contested that second borough seat despite the efforts of the Marquess of Exeter.  Subsequently, bills for entertainment at the end of April and much of May were presented to Tennyson by landlords of at least eleven named public houses together with a further two invoices from individuals, perhaps acting on behalf of their landlords.  It has been thought interesting, and perhaps worthwhile to append transcripts of all these bills at the end of this article.  Together they illustrate something of the celebrations that occurred all over the borough itself, as well as spreading far wider.

The invoices were largely addressed to Charles Tennyson Esq, some adding the courtesy of MP after his name; uniquely, John Sharpe Blades addressed his invoice to the ‘Blue Committee’, the colour of reform in Stamford.  The invoice from the Salutation, though made out to Tennyson was endorsed with “Mr Beasly,” the name of the Chairman of his election committee which had agreed to meet all the Blue election expenses.  There may very well have been other invoices, possibly from other establishments – the bill from the Salutation includes an unpaid earlier invoice dated 6th May, for £18-10-0, presumably mainly for hospitality provided up to that date.  Most call for payment to the named landlord making it easy to trace the name of the inn or public house which had provided entertainment for voters and their friends who supported the cause of reform.  The bill for the Glaziers Arms carries no landlord’s name but other sources show it was Edward Clipsham, a plumber (and presumably, glazier) who followed his trade while his two maiden sisters actually ran the public house which he had inherited from his mother in 1797.  A note, in another hand at the foot of Clipsham’s bill, reads “This ac[coun]t I believe was not obtained by Mr Tennysons servant.”  It was initialled, probably by a member of Tennyson’s election committee, suggesting that most of the invoices were systematically gathered for settlement.  Two invoices were presented by named individuals, Robert Blake and John Sharpe Blades; they carry no indication of where or for whom they worked, and their names have not been found in any contemporary lists.  Blake and Blades did not vote in any of the three elections at the start of the 1830s, suggesting that they did not pay the poor rate and were not property owners (in Stamford, at any rate), and so had no vote there. 

The landlords of the Black Horse, Horse and Jockey, Glaziers Arms, Chequers, Nags Head, Red Lion, Salutation and Stamford Arms, eight in total, voted exclusively for Tennyson at the 1831 election.  In the jargon of the time they had “plumped” for Tennyson, choosing to use just one of their votes for him, and not using the other.  Young at The Horseshoe and Abbot at the Roebuck, chose to use both their votes in 1831, splitting their support between Tennyson and Lord Thomas Cecil.  It is not surprising therefore to find that all hosted celebrations at their premises at Tennyson’s success at his backers’ expense.  Previously, in 1830, Preston of the Horse and Jockey and Saul of the Red Lion, had been rather more cautious and split their votes between the Burghley interest and the reformers but in the later 1832 election they each plumped for Arthur Gregory who had replaced Tennyson as the reforming candidate[11].  Abbott split his votes in both 1830 and 1831 though he also plumped for Gregory in 1832.  Young of The Horseshoe, a tenant of the Marquess, had cast both his votes for the Burghley candidates in 1830 and, as keen reformers might have said, ‘prevaricated’ in 1831, returning to the Burghley fold in 1832.  Surprisingly John Dickinson of the Stamford Arms and a tenant of a Snowden’s Hospital property administered by the town council, plumped for Tennyson in 1830 and 1831, splitting his votes between Cecil and Gregory in 1832.  Clipsham and Saul plumped in all three years for the reforming candidate.  And finally, Woodward, whose reforming credentials are perhaps strongest, since the Salutation was a home for independents does not appear to have registered a vote in 1832, having supported Tennyson in the previous two elections.

The inn or public house is, according to tradition, the place where freedom to express an opinion is encouraged as people try out their views on their fellows – a place of good fellowship and lively discussion.  However, the three elections in Stamford in the early 1830s suggest otherwise.  In the urban setting, it would appear, people preferred to gather where they might meet people of similar opinion.  The Salutation was a stronghold of members of the original Oddfellows Society in the town.  It was also the meeting place of the Royal Society of United Brethren – both friendly societies, each supported by, and supporting, independently-minded tradesmen, craftsmen and townsmen.  By contrast, properties in Red Lion Square, including the Horseshoe, had recently been rebuilt by their owner, the Marquess of Exeter.  This is the background which makes John Young’s voting pattern rather more understandable – by all reports some Burghley tenants were ejected from their homes after the 1830 election, having failed to vote for Exeter candidates.  Young took a considerable risk in splitting his vote in 1831[12].  In 1833 a rival Oddfellows Society was established in the town: the Loyal Finch Independent Lodge of Oddfellows No 5, based at Young’s establishment, the Horseshoe.  It was named after the second Exeter candidate, successful in the 1832 election, George Finch of Burley on the Hill, near Oakham.

On Monday 25th April 1831 both parties had begun their canvass “with a degree of energy unprecedented in Stamford.  Some conflicts have occurred on …… the streets, but happily nothing serious has resulted from them.”[13]  The next day no less than three letters were sent from the Blue Committee Room in Standwell’s Hotel to Tennyson.  Two, signed by both Cecil and Chaplin, made “strong and urgent request” to “forbid the use of Bludgeons.”  But the third, from Cecil alone, was far more carefully measured and antagonistic and personal in tone: “I would not wish to charge you with having made a statement wilfully untrue, but ..… you are perfectly mistaken in the idea you appear to entertain ….” And so on, leading ultimately to a challenge which resulted in a duel on Wormwood Scrubs after the election[14]. While the duel broke the law, honour was satisfied, both parties apologised, shook hands and went to a local police station where, on learning that all had been patched up, no charges were brought forward.

However, returning to the Election campaign itself, a letter sent from Stamford by Tennyson’s son, George, indicates that the Reds were importing prize fighters and other disreputable characters: “The Marquis of Exeter has engaged a number of prize fighters to break the heads of the Blues. The day before yesterday [ie the Tuesday that the three letters were written by the Cecil and Chaplin] several came down – Oliver, Barker, Whiteheaded Bob, …..[more]… of these ruffians are despatched from Town today.”[15]

On April 28th, during the canvass, the Nags Head provided four gallons of ale for which Tennyson was later billed.  The ale was for the musicians who probably formed the band which the Mercury reported met Sir William Ingleby and Mr Pelham, the Lincolnshire reforming candidates, and escorted them through Stamford with blue flags.  An extra 1½ gallons, as well as tobacco, were provided at the Red Lion on 2nd May – presumably these musicians paraded with Tennyson supporters throughout the canvass and the poll.  A day later Walford at the Nags Head invoiced Tennyson for providing “Post Boys and [Sedan] Chairmen” with some 20 pints of ale.  It would seem likely that they had been employed by the “Blue Committee” carrying messages and voters to the Poll and perhaps also the two bottles of sherry and one bottle of port sent to the hustings from the Red Lion!  The Committee would have met their basic charges while also giving them authority to claim a quantity of ale, the amount probably already agreed, at the Nags Head[16]. 

Voting took place in public, over several days, starting on Saturday 30th April, resuming on Monday 2nd May and ending on Tuesday 3rd May.  Stamford printers, following common practice, issued handbills showing the state of the poll at the close of each day’s voting, enabling those interested to keep a close check on how each candidate was doing.  When all was over and settled one or more copies of the Poll Book were published showing the results with a list of how each elector had voted[17].  Thus landlords, their agents and anyone else interested could check who each voter (and especially their tenants) had supported.

After Tennyson’s success in 1831 large numbers gave themselves over to rejoicing at the final “triumph of Reform” in Stamford.  There were various celebrations round the town in “friendly” public houses.   The evening chosen for these rejoicings was Tuesday, 17th May. Tennyson had been charged for many gallons of ale during and immediately after the election itself as the missing invoice for £18-10-0, presented on the 6th May by the Salutation, probably indicates.  No doubt this substantial sum (£1,550+) had been spent providing entertainment and encouragement to voters during the election itself as well as celebration on some scale, immediately afterwards; all the surviving invoices indicate the provision of considerable quantities of ale – about 250 gallons (or 2,000 pints – 1,135 litres!) - supplied before the 17th May. 

Organised celebrations in the public houses of the town took place that Tuesday evening: in all more than 187 dinners were served costing Tennyson 2s 6d each then and now about £10.00, perhaps.  With the food came more than 175 bowls of punch, each costing double the price of a meal.  It is not clear what went into the punch, but the overall price suggests both a potent mixture and a large quantity.  In addition, a wide range of spirits was provided – brandy at eight shillings a bottle, rum six shillings and gin four shillings and sixpence - £40, £30 and £22.50 respectively.  Sherry, port, and unspecified wines all were to be paid for. One must assume that a rather larger number than just those 187 diners enjoyed Tennyson’s hospitality.  During the celebrations on the 17th and over the next ten days a further 350 gallons (2,800 pints, nearly 1,600 litres) of ale were also charged to the Tennyson account!

However different social levels demanded different entertainments.  A week after the parties for which we have invoices at the pubs there was a dinner and ball celebrating the success of reform candidates in Stamford and elsewhere in Lincolnshire.  An advertisement in the Stamford Mercury of 20th May announced a “spacious Booth beautifully fitted up for the occasion”, specially erected in Broad Street where a dinner was to be held. Tickets for this were priced at ten shillings a head[18].  This seems a realistic amount for a celebration dinner including dessert and a bottle of wine – which was included with the ticket.  Moreover, it was “hoped that all Gentlemen attending the Dinner will honor Mr. Tennyson by accepting Tickets for the Ball.”  So consecutive evenings out, Tuesday and Wednesday 24th and 25th May, for the price of one, to celebrate (and hopefully cement) Stamford’s substantial backing for the reform of Parliament.  “Gentlemen intending to dine will please to signify their intention to Mr Hortor, at the Bar of the Tennyson's Arms and George and Angel Hotel, Stamford ….”  While “Gentlemen” might have been able to afford the tickets for the grand Dinner and Ball at the booth built in Broad Street, it is quite clear that many of Tennyson’s Stamford supporters could not possibly have afforded a ticket – and probably would not have felt comfortable attending a formal dinner and subsequent ball. 

The George and Angel had served as Tennyson’s election headquarters in the weeks before the poll – facing straight down St Mary’s Hill, it overlooked the hustings outside the Town Hall where voters declared, for all to hear, for whom they were casting their votes.  At present there is no evidence that Hortor presented any invoices to Tennyson who had first been attracted to Stamford at short notice in 1830 by the promise that his election costs would be met by the Committee of supporters.  The name of the George and Angel, one of the oldest inns in Stamford, was well known[19]; the addition of Tennyson’s name and coat of arms took place well before the second election, appearing in print in an advertisement in the Mercury in early March 1831[20].  Almost next door to the George and Angel, and awkwardly placed behind St Mary’s Church, stood the recently built Stamford Hotel on the site of the former Bull Inn.  Sir Gerard Noel of nearby Exton Hall in Rutland had spent a reported £43,000 building this[21] and hoped it would be a centre of resistance to the Burghley influence on voters in Stamford, but his defeat in the 1812 election, after such great expense left his hopes unfulfilled.  Known as Standwell’s Hotel after its lessee in 1825, it had become the headquarters in the 1830s of the Burghley candidates – an ironic reversal of fortune and a warning which cannot have been lost on the citizens of Stamford[22].

Arrangements for the entertainment at the “Booth” were planned.  On the 23rd May, Robert Saul supplied 12 pints of ale for the “Mutitioners [sic – presumably ‘musicians’ was intended] at Orchestra,” Clearly, an orchestra had been gathered and were preparing for the ball.

The Stamford Mercury of the 27th May reports on both dinner and ball.  Attending were not only all the newly elected reforming MPs for Lincolnshire and Rutland, Sir William Ingilby and Sir Gerard Noel, but “General Johnson[23], Major Handley[24] and numerous parties of gentlemen from Boston, Spalding, Holbeach, Deeping, Bourn and other towns of this and the neighbouring counties.”  The Mercury report makes it clear that the dinner itself was a male only occasion: “…. The gentlemen were honoured after dinner with the presence of Lady Tennyson and her daughters, Lady Ingilby and a large party of ladies of the town and neighbourhood.”  For them “accommodation had been provided that they might hear the speeches.”  The Mercury offers no indication of the content, quality or reception of the speeches, simply stating, “The day’s proceedings, it may be truly said, passed off with the most admirable effect.”

The ball “for which so ardent anticipation had been felt by an immense class of individuals” took place following evening.  Again, the marquee in Broad Street – always referred to as a “booth” – 130 feet by 40 feet (40m x 12m) was used, though the number attending was far greater than for the dinner.  To provide the additional accommodation the ”spacious portico of the market”[25] was fitted up for dancing; the “numerous intervening shambles of the butchery, each of which was converted into a receptacle for refreshments, …… was presided over by ladies of a committee who kindly devoted themselves to the service.”  Flowers and evergreen shrubs were everywhere, and the lighting was “beautifully” done with “variegated light formed into the most magnificent devices” in the booth.  “Order and harmony” reigned throughout the evening and during a break in the dancing, Tennyson was presented with a silver vase, costing 100 guineas (today perhaps £9,000) which his supporters had collected to commemorate his success.  Inevitably speeches followed.

Most remarkable about the Mercury account of the ball are the words “the immense number of five thousand persons[26] were entertained in this magic scene…………..”  Scarcely less remarkable is the way this sentence continues, “between eight o’clock on Wednesday evening and seven o’clock on the following morning.”  Some celebration!

The supporters of the Red party had their own celebration – and the Mercury duly recorded this also.  They reported that on Tuesday 31st May supporters were “entertained with dinner at 30 of the inns and public houses of Stamford.  About 700 persons partook of this festivity, which is estimated to have cost about £1 a man,” [my italics!].  According to the Poll Book just 382 voters had cast at least one of their votes for the Exeter candidates.  So it would appear that this celebration, like Tennyson’s, was attended by many who were not qualified to vote in the Stamford constituency.  The Mercury’s report is short and betrays the paper’s political bias, reflecting its owner’s bias, in favour of reform; the comment on the cost of the Red celebration – perhaps £60,000 today – was a reminder to its readers of those reports a month earlier about how the Cecils had tried to manage the electors of the borough. 

Tennyson’s Dinner and Ball provided opportunities for the public houses in Broad Street to make further profit out of his success.  On the night of the Ball the Salutation supplied “Brandy for [the] Booth” as well as having a “man employed in Making the Tea”, and a coal porter.  Afterwards, having perhaps been responsible for fitting out the large marquee used for the dinner and ball, Saul claimed for “Things not returned from the Booth: 1 chair, 9 mugs, 1 quart jug and one half pint pewter” valuing the items at the equivalent of about £40 today.  At the Red Lion there were losses of glasses and mugs over the election period to a similar amount.  The Nags Head claimed from Tennyson the cost of providing “the lamp trimmers Ale &c” while the illuminations were kept bright.  They also provided “tin cans, taps and pail,” presumably for the barrels of ale brought to the marquee.  An unspecified number of waiters tried to ensure everything ran smoothly at the Nags Head.  Nevertheless, unsurprisingly, amid all the celebrations accidents occurred.  The breakages of glass at the Nags Head, Red Lion and Salutation cost the equivalent of at least £50 today.  

All the effort and expense, revealed in these bills, together with the extreme celebrations in the Booth made no direct difference whatsoever to Stamford in the short term.  Tennyson and his fellow MP reformers brought the bill proposing reform of the electoral system to Parliament.  Accepted by the Commons but rejected by the House of Lords – largely the people who benefited most from the existing franchise – widespread riots ensued; Bristol, Nottingham and Derby, among many other places, suffered severely.  Faced with chaos, and the royal threat of the creation of enough peers to pass a Reform Bill, the Lords capitulated and the Reform Act received royal assent in the June of 1832.  Nationally, this enlarged the franchise, particularly in the ‘new’ industrial towns of the North and, importantly, showed the way political change might be achieved.  In Stamford the borough franchise was extended, and the constituency enlarged to include properties south of the Welland.  Many inhabitants of St Martin’s became new electors in this enlarged Stamford constituency.  The Exeter interest, owning the majority of the newly enfranchised properties in St Martin’s, was strengthened overwhelmingly as a result.  Before the 1832 election, when the new electoral register was to be used, Tennyson left Stamford to take the far safer seat of Lambeth which he held for the next twenty years.  Many of his supporters were upset, unsurprisingly, believing he had let them down. 

It was another 40 years, until the arrival of the secret ballot in 1872, that it became possible for Stamford electors to vote freely, without any fear of the consequences.

[1] Blore’s Stanford Charities published in 1813 was a critical investigation into management of the so-called municipal charities.  It anticipates many of the findings of the Charity Commissioners presented to Parliament in 1837, which was summarised in a lengthy Appendix by George Burton, Chronology of Stamford, Stamford, 1846.

[2] See introduction, above.

[3] See Appendix for a transcription of these invoices

[4] In an ‘ongoing fit of medievalism’ in 1835, Tennyson renamed his inherited home, Bacons, as the far grander Bayons Manor – hopefully revealing a connection with Bayeaux.  He also tacked “d’Eyncourt” to his surname.

[5] Tennyson was already known as a reformer – he had been a MP for Grimsby from 1818-26 and subsequently Bletchingdon in Surrey until 1831. See History of Parliament, relevant entries

[6] It was held just a fortnight after the duke of Ancaster had died with the result that Gen. Bertie, one of the two Stamford MPs and a friend of the Burghley interest, was raised to the peerage as the Earl of Lindsey.  As a member of the House of Lords, he could no longer represent Stamford in the Commons, so a new MP was required. A rank outsider, said to have been a traveller through the town, polled nearly one third of the total votes.

[7] See, The House of Commons, 1820–1832, History of Parliament Trust, ed. D. R. Fisher, Vol 3 sub Stamford.  Also, History of the Original Constitution of Parliaments, T.H.B. Oldfield, London 1797, p.428.

[8] In Stamford the Town Council Minute Book as far back as 1704 had recorded that the two most recent mayors had each received £100, perhaps equivalent to £20,000 today, from Mr Cecil and Mr Bertie, “to be distributed among the voaters of this town”. And this may possibly have been regarded as an annual ‘donation’!

[9] Stamford Mercury 3 Dec 1830

[10] See the article, The Agricultural Labourers' Standard of Living in Lincolnshire, 1790-1840: Social Protest and Public Order, by T.L. Richardson in Agricultural History Review, 4I, x, pp 1-19 for a much fuller discussion of the local background to the 1831 election.

[11] See elsewhere on this site, “Anonymous Abuse - 1830s style” about Tennyson’s decision not to stand for Stamford again in the 1832 election.

[12] In 1847, after a debate about interference in the election in Stamford in that year, the House of Commons passed a motion (by one vote – 178 to 177!) to appoint a Select Committee to “inquire into the allegations ……. complaining of the interference of the Marquess of Exeter,” in the 1847 “and former elections.” The Select Committee Report on the Stamford Election of 1847, (Parliamentary Papers, HC 532, 1847-1848, v.14) is highly critical of the tactics used by the Marquess and his agents, not least the ejection of tenants as a result of their not voting for their landlord’s candidates.  

[13] Stamford Mercury, Friday 29th April 1831, p.3 col.1

[14] The three letters are to be found in Lincolnshire Archives, 2Td’EH26/1, 2 & 4.  Reports of the duel are to be found in the Stamford Mercury 23 June 1831, and many national newspapers, as well as local papers throughout the country. Drakard’s Stamford News, as might be expected from such a radical source, carries in great detail the names and background of many of the Special Constables brought in by the Exeter family, as well as full details of the origins of the duel – DSN 24 June 1831.

[15] Lincolnshire Archives Td’E H/109/32.  Drakard News carries a list of these “ruffians” (many former policemen) DSN 24 June 1831

[16] It is important to remember that messages had to be carried, as did people, and the carriers formed an important part of the structure of any pre-twentieth century community.

[17] Sometimes, usually when a poll was very close, the “State of the Parties” was issued more frequently than daily.  Poll books, often contain a running summary of daily happenings, giving the opportunity for each side subsequently to interpret events as they saw fit.

[18] 10 shillings was half of one pound, so a modern equivalent might be about £50.

[19] A property in St Mary’s parish called the Angel is recorded from the early 14th century (People & Property in Medieval Stamford No.758.28) and it appears to have been an inn by the late 15th.  Early in the Georgian period the name was expanded, first to the Angel and George and then to the George and Angel. 

[20] On 11 March 1831 a new name, Tennyson’s Arms, replaced George and Angel.  A month earlier still, on 10 February, William and Mary Everard had named their son Charles Tennyson at his baptism! (Stamford St John - Registers).

[21] Chronology of Stamford, George Burton (Stamford & London 1846) p.194 – at least £4 million today

[22] The riots occasioned by the close proximity of the two election headquarters form yet another strand to the story of the Stamford elections of the 1830s.  Ultimately the ratepayers of the town had to make good the costs of the damage to the George and Angel, avoiding a law suit threatened by Hortor: LAO Stamford St Michael’s Vestry Book 20 June 1833.

[23] William Augustus Johnson, of Witham on the Hill was a former MP for Boston, and later for Oldham, and a leading figure in South Lincolnshire after 1815.

[24] Henry Handley, of Sleaford was MP for the Southern Division of Lincolnshire 1832-1841

[25] Now the Town Library, originally built to accommodate the Butchers’ shambles.

[26] Italics in original report. In 1831 Stamford’s population was 5,837 according to the census of that year.

There is an appendix to this article which can be viewed by clicking the link below.

A print version can be downloaded HERE