ISSUE OF THE WEEK 4 : 1847 General Election

The 1847 United Kingdom general election was held in July and August of that year, with the Whigs securing 292 seats, the Conservatives 325 and others 39 seats. The election was significant for the strong showing of the Irish Repeal Association, who won 36 seats, which advocated for the repeal of the Act of Union and Irish independence. Richard Dorset has written a book which details the results of the 1847 General Election constituency by constituency. We asked him a few questions about that election.

Was the General Election in 1847 politically important?

Inasmuch as John Russell continued as the Prime Minister, it didn’t ultimately become a landmark General Election which changed politics, but it was an important part of the free trade and protectionism debate. The free traders were broadly the candidates from the Peelites, Liberals, Whigs and Radicals. This was at a time when there was a growing movement amongst entrepreneurs and industrialists to reduce tariffs to allow them to export their goods abroad. The election led to a Government empowered to remove tariffs and that was seen in 1849 when the restricting Navigation Acts were repealed.

Were there any election results that were significant?

The most notable result is perhaps the election of Feargus O’Connor in the second seat at Nottingham, in what proved to be the only Chartist who was ever elected as an MP. There were high hopes for the party following this result, but they gained little over 10% of the vote at the next General Election in 1852. Nationally it was still early days for the political concepts called for by the Chartists and they were only able to field nine candidates.

Also of note was the election of Lionel de Rothschild in the City of London as he was the first practicing Jew to win election to the House of Commons. This proved problematic for Parliament as Jews weren’t allowed at the time to serve as MPs, so John Russell led moves to create the Jews Relief Act to allow Rothschild to take his seat. The Lords resisted and it took until 1858 before change was approved and Rothschild was able to actually sit as an MP. This change also enabled Benjamin Disraeli to become Prime Minister for the first time in 1868.

Was the famine in Ireland a major political issue in the country?

Surprisingly not as large as might have been expected and there’s been some recent research which shows what a lost opportunity this was to tackle the Great Famine at an earlier point. It was notable that the Irish Repeal party led by John O’Connell (son of Daniel O’Connell) secured 36 seats, an increase of 16 from the 1841 General Election. But the political class at the time were generally wealthy and so they were lagging behind in representing the poorest in society who were suffering. The famine was to become important in the years after as demands for Irish independence started to grow.

What were General Elections like at a constituency level?

Raucous and this was in part because of the open nature of the election result as the secret ballot wasn’t introduced until 1872. That led to treating the voters with plenty of food and drink being supplied by those candidates who could afford it. The publication of electors and their votes cast led to corruption and also meant that there was no freedom of expression allowed. The problem of bribery was raised in the House of Lords in July 1847 by Henry Brougham who had previously served as the Lord High Chancellor. He wanted every newly elected MP to have to state on oath in Parliament that they had not bribed any voter, saying that no voter could hold their heads up in public if they were found to have lied about this.

There was also frequent violence at a local level and the amount of free alcohol offered to treat voters also led to a relatively large number of disturbances during campaigning, public meetings and at the count itself. Deaths also weren’t unheard of and at the 1847 general election a young surgeon lost his life when a crowd got excited at the arrival of a beer wagon. There was another issue in Norwich when a group of navvies working on the rail network came to support Peto, himself an owner of the railways locally, and were attacked by residents in the city. The navvies found safety in a pub but the crowd tried to smash their way in and it was only calmed down following the arrival of the police.

Was the 1847 election fought on the same boundaries as the previous election in 1841?

Yes, although with the exception of the Sudbury constituency which had been disenfranchised in July 1844 following reports of corruption. The electors were moved into the Western Suffolk constituency, although a new Sudbury constituency was later created in 1885.

Are you looking to write any further books?

The current book is just a basic list of results from that election with details obtained from a number of different sources. I’m planning a longer book about the election which tells the story of numerous candidates and their experiences of politics in the 1840s. I’m also including details of many of the issues that occurred in constituencies, not least the violence and disruption that I’ve already mentioned.