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The Loyal Brotherhood and the Cocoa Tree: The London Organization of the Tory Party, 1727–1760

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Linda J. Colley
Linda J. Colley
Affiliation:
Girton College, Cambridge
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Extract

In the light of previous historiography any reference to tory organization in the mid-eighteenth century is likely to seem a contradiction in terms. In the Enid Muir Lecture of 1954, Sir Lewis Namier argued that by the 1750s ‘tory’ had become effectively redundant as a party name: that the term could no longer be used to describe a particular set of political beliefs, nor applied to any recognized group within parliament; that those few individual M.P.'s who still called themselves tories should more properly be regarded as independent country gentlemen: ‘a nationwide group without a leader or programme or deeper coherence’. As Namier went on to remark, hardly any political correspondence between leading tories has survived for the period after 1715. The consequent temptation for historians to rely either on the ill-informed and frequently contemptuous assessments of the tory party supplied by whig observers, or to assume that the lack of any easily available evidence presupposes a concomitant paucity of tory organization, has usually proved irresistible.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 77 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 SirNamier, Lewis, ‘Country gentlemen in parliament, 1750–84’, Crossroads of power: essays on eighteenth century England (London, 1962), p. 35.Google Scholar I am grateful to Professor J. H. Plumb and to Dr John Brewer for reading drafts of this article.

2 See for example, the recent and dismissive accounts of the tory party in this period supplied by O'Gorman, Frank, The Rise of Party in England (London, 1975), p. 17Google Scholar and by Browning, Reed, The Duke of Newcastle (New Haven, 1975), p. 317.Google Scholar The eighteenth-century tory party's only serious historian, Sir Keith Feiling, rightly observed that there was ‘a continuous tradition and some elementary framework of party, and a descent of political ideas’, but he still felt obliged to apologize for the retention of ‘the tory party’ as a descriptive term, The second tory party, 1714–1832 (London, 1938), p. v.Google Scholar

3 See Owen, John, The rise of the Pelhams (London, 1957), p. 3.Google Scholar

4 Printed in Sedgwick, Romney (ed.), The history of parliament: the House of Commons 1715–54 (2 vols. London, 1970), ii, 278.Google Scholar By my own estimate, the number of tories elected at each of the six general elections 1727–61, was as follows: in 1727, 127; 1734, 144; 1741,141; 1747, 116; 1754, iii; and 1761, 115. These figures include those tory M.P.'s who were subsequently unseated by petition in the House of Commons.

5 Lady Irwin to Lord Carlisle, 6 Feb. 1729, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 15th report, appendix, part vi, 57.

6 Lord Barrymore to Francis Price, 7 Feb. 1737, National Library of Wales, Puleston MS 22. Old England Journal, 27 Oct. 1744.Google Scholar

7 B.L. Add. MS 29597, fo. 29. The tory leadership made extensive use of whips, although the extant examples do not indicate either a standardized format or an established mode of production, see my dissertation ‘The tory party 1727–60’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1976), pp. 31–2.Google Scholar

8 For a full discussion of the provenance of these figures, see Colley, , ‘The tory party’, pp. 313–15.Google Scholar An account of the principal parliamentary lists of this period is given in Sedgwick, , House of Commons, i, 126–31.Google Scholar

9 I Printed in Thomas, P. D. G., The House of Commons in the eighteenth century (Oxford, 1971), p. 114.Google Scholar

10 North, Roger, Examen, or, an enquiry into the credit and veracity of a pretended complete history (London, 1740), p. iv.Google Scholar

11 Allen, David, ‘Political clubs in restoration London’, Historical Journal, xix, 3 (1976), 574–80.Google ScholarDickinson, H. T., ‘The October club', Huntington Library Quarterly, xxxiii (1969–1970), 155–73.Google Scholar

12 Lord, Walter Frewen, ‘The development of political parties during the reign of Queen Anne’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, N.S., xiv (1900), 117.Google Scholar

13 Geoffrey Holmes is the only historian to have drawn attention to the existence of the Loyal Brotherhood; see British politics in the age of Anne (London, 1967), pp. 21–2, 296–7.Google Scholar There are no secondary accounts of Edward Harley's Board. This article is based on the following manuscript sources: two minute books of the Board of Loyal Brotherhood, 1709–13 and 1748–60, B.L. Add. MS 49360 and M/602; minute book of the Loyal Brotherhood 1735–41 and a list of bets and proposed new members, 1771–1833, Greater London R.O., A/BLB/i–2. There is a list of Board members c. 1731 amongst the papers of Sir John Hinde Cotton, Cambridgeshire R.O., Cotton of Madingley MS 12a and a list of members c. 1763, Oxfordshire R. O., DIL XXV/49A–B. A list of the Harley Board 1727–42 is to be found among Sir Roger Newdigate's papers, Warwickshire R.O., CR 136B/6991. The Board's meetings feature in Newdigate's diaries and in the memoranda of the Wiltshire M.P., Edward Popham, Wiltshire R.O., Acc. 39, bundle 10. For a list of the known members of each Board prior to 1760, see Appendixes IA and IB.

14 Holmes, Geoffrey, The trial of Doctor Sacheverell (London, 1973), p. 95.Google Scholar

15 Sir Coplestone Bampfylde, Henry Bertie, George Dashwood, Sir Cholmeley Dering, William Griffith, Clayton Milbourne, Sir George Parker and Thomas Strangeways.

16 As printed in The parliamentary history, xii (1741), 293.Google Scholar

17 Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, 3 Mar. 1743, Lewis, W. S. et al. (eds.), Horace Walpole's correspondence with Sir Horace Mann (London, 1955), ii, 186.Google Scholar This is the only contemporary whig reference I have found to the Loyal Brotherhood.

18 Fitzmaurice, Lord, Life of William, earl of Shelburne, afterwards first marquess of Lansdowne (2 vols. London, 1815), i, 49–50.Google Scholar Shelburne obtained his information on the ‘the Remitters’ from the Oxford Jacobite Dr William King.

19 The description of Holmes, , British Politics, p. 297.Google Scholar

20 Earl of Chesterfield to Lord Gower, 13 Apr. 1745, N.S., Public Record Office, 30/29/1/11 fo. 290.

21 See Appendix IB.

22 Except that Edward Harley remained president of the Board after he became earl of Oxford in 1741.

23 Edward Harley to his wife, 18 Feb. 1731, B.L. Loan 29/116.

24 For this tory amalgam of reformist zeal and social and political self-interest, see the report of William Bromley's speech for the repeal of the Septennial Act, 12 Mar. 1734, Gentleman's Magazine, iv (1734), 232.Google Scholar

25 Between 1709 and 1713 the Brothers moved fairly indiscriminately between the Queen's Arms Tavern, St Paul's Churchyard, Pontacks, the Thatched House, Star and Garter and Globe Taverns. Subsequently the Board used Cary's at Golden Square and in 1738 moved to the Fountain Tavern, thence to the Bedford-Head Tavern, Southampton Street, the St Alban's Tavern and after 1756, to the Cocoa Tree. All these taverns are known to have had masonic associations, see Lillywhite, Bryant, London coffee houses (London, 1963).Google Scholar Lillywhite gives no information on ‘Cary's’.

26 Warwickshire R.O., CR 136B/6991.

27 Holmes, , British politics, pp. 291–2.Google Scholar

28 There are two main accounts of the St Alban's Tavern meeting: that contained in Thomas Carte's report to the Pretender, printed in Sedgwick, , House of Commons, i, 76,Google Scholar and a more extensive description in a letter from the master of Balliol, Theophilus Leigh, to the dowager duchess of Chandos, 5 May 1749, Balliol College, MS 403. According to Leigh, the tory leadership had been informed on 28 April – three days before the scheduled meeting – that the ministry had called off the visitation, but they determined to go on with the demonstration for its political and propaganda value.

29 Kettle, Ann J., ‘Lichfield races', Lichfield & South Staffordshire Archaeological & Historical Society, vi, 39–41.Google Scholar See the Board's minute book for 31 Aug. 1748, B.L. M/602 (unfoliated).

30 SirIsham's, Justinian diary, Northamptonshire R.O., IL 2686.Google Scholar

31 Sir Roger Newdigate's 1747 election diary, Greater London R.O., ACC/1085/FP/2.

32 Christmas chat (London, 1745), p. 11.Google Scholar

33 This is the meeting described by Viscount Perceval, the future earl of Egmont, in his pamphlet Faction detected by the evidence of facts: containing an impartial view of parties at home, and affairs abroad (2nd edn, London, 1743), pp. 45–8.Google Scholar

34 Maitland, William, The history of London from its foundation to the present time (2 vols. London, 1756), i, 631.Google Scholar A copy of the November 1743 whip is among Sir Roger Newdigate's papers, Warwickshire R.O., CR 136/B 2550.

35 Lord Hartington to the duke of Devonshire, 23 Dec. 1743, Chatsworth MSS, Box 3, 260·27. I am grateful to the duke of Devonshire and the Chatsworth trustees for permission to quote from this document.

36 A letter to the author of the case fairly stated, from an old whig (London, 1745), p. 37.Google Scholar

37 For the Cocoa Tree see Lillywhite, , Coffee Houses, p. 163;Google ScholarWheatley, H. B. and Cunningham, Peter, London past and present (3 vols. London, 1891), i, 439–40;Google Scholar and Timbs, John, Clubs and club life in London (London, 1898), pp. 69–70.Google Scholar

38 Harris, Michael, ‘The London newspaper press, 1725–46’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1974), p. 252.Google Scholar

39 SirNamier, Lewis and Brooke, John (eds.), The history of parliament: the House of Commons 1754–90 (3 vols. London, 1964), iii, 435.Google Scholar

40 James Bonnell to Thomas Hill, 18 Nov. 1749, Salop R.O., Attingham MSS Box 24 (unsorted).

41 Namier, and Brooke, , House of Commons 1754–90, iii, 435.Google Scholar

42 John Dobson to John Mordaunt, 19 Nov. 1754, Warwickshire R.O., CR 1368, Box 6.

43 Thomas Potter to William Pitt, ‘Monday’ (n.d., but from internal evidence, 10 Apr. 1758), Public Record Office, 30/8/53 Part 1, fo. 98.

44 Jackson's Oxford Journal, No. 40, 2 Feb. 1754.Google Scholar

45 Test, 14 May 1757. See also the pamphleteers' progressive absorption of the Cocoa Tree and its associations: Oxford Honesty (London, 1749),Google Scholar dedicated to the ‘Club of Patriots meeting at the Cocoa Tree’, Newcastle upon wonder or the Cocoa Tree's answer to the Surrey oak (London, 1756),Google Scholar and in the 1760s a whole bevy of pamphlets, most notably Butler, J., An address to the Cocoa Tree from a whig (London, 1762)Google Scholar and Francis, Philip, A Letter from the Cocoa Tree to the country gentlemen (London, 1762).Google Scholar

46 Lillywhite, , Coffee houses, p. 163.Google Scholar

47 Sir Robert Burdett, Sir John Hinde Cotton, Sir Charles Kemys Tynte, Sir Charles Sedley, Sir Thomas Stapleton, Sir John Tyrell, Sir Thomas Worseley; James, duke of Hamilton, Hamilton, earl of Cork, Charles, earl of Northampton, Basil, Viscount Feilding, Frederick, Viscount St John, Philip, Viscount Wenman, Hon. Richard Barry and Hon. Thomas Willoughby.

48 Namier, and Brooke, , House of Commons 1754–90, i, 186.Google Scholar

49 Orford to Henry Pelham, 31 Oct. 174a, printed by Coxe, William, Memoirs of the administration of the Rt. Hon. Henry Pelham (2 vols. London, 1829), i, 35.Google Scholar For the same note of embattled whiggery, see A letter from a by-stander to a member of parliament (3rd edn, London, 1743), p. 112.Google Scholar

50 Newcastle to Chesterfield, 5 Mar. 1745/6, printed by SirLodge, Richard, ‘The private correspondence of Chesterfield and Newcasde 1744–46’, Camden Society, xliv (1930), 118.Google Scholar

51 Glover, Richard, Memoirs of a celebrated literary and political character (London, 1814), p. 97.Google Scholar

52 A copy of the whip is among Sir Edmund Isham's papers, Northamptonshire R.O., IC 2918; Henry Fox to John Campbell, 14 Dec. 1756, printed by the earl of Ilchester, (ed.), Henry Fox, first Lord Holland, his family and relations (2 vols. London, 1920), ii, 19.Google Scholar

53 Sedgwick, , House of Commons 1715–54, i, ix.Google Scholar

54 William Hay's parliamentary journal, Northamptonshire R.O., L(C)i735, (unfoliated).

55 Holmes, , British Politics, p. 119.Google Scholar

56 Wheatley, and Cunningham, , London, i, 440.Google Scholar For the tories who joined the Loyal Brotherhood between 1771 and 1833, see Greater London R.O., A/BLB/2.