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IV. Earl Grey's Cabinet and the Objects of Parliamentary Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

John Milton-Smith
John Milton-Smith
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
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Extract

Since the advent of the social sciences, historians have been ploughing up large areas of well-trampled history. Sociology, for example, has lent them an expanding range of hypotheses and interpretations. In particular, studies more concerned with behavioural patterns than with the mere details of what happened have cast the traditional accounts aside. But there are dangers in this rush to produce fresh formulations. The historian, once caught in the tangle of an ingenious general explanation, abandons too easily the normal rigorous standards of historical research. Frequendy, in such cases, he fails to establish the relationship between his evidence and his generalizations. These criticisms often apply when broad concepts from political sociology are used to explain the motives and behaviour of specific politicians and groups of politicians. Any background study of the Great Reform Act is exposed to all these risks.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 1972 , pp. 55 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

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22 Ibid.

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24 Althorp to Grey, 19 Feb. 1830, 6 Mar. 1830, Grey Papers, box 52 file 25; 3rd Earl Grey's Journal, entry for 6 Mar. 1830; see also Flick, Carlos, ‘The Fall of Wellington's Government’, Journal of Modern History, XXXVII, no. 1, p. 63.Google Scholar

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62 Extracts from two letters on the Reform Bill, Russell (?) to Grey, n.d., Clarendon Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

83 Fragment, unsigned, n.d., Russell Papers, P.R.O. 30/22/1B, fo. 211; memorandum, unsigned, 4 Apr. 1831, Ibid. fo. 29. For an important treatment of representation theory, see Goderich to Sir John Colborne, 8 Nov. 1832 (P.R.O.) CO. 43/43, fos. 198–9; Goderich discusses the relative importance of capital, population, interests and geographical area, and emphasizes the role of the latter in restricting the representation of the London metropolitan districts as against ‘the Country at large’ to less than ‘the most perfect nominal equality’.

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71 See Gash, , op. cit. p. 4 ff.; Graham to ? [Grey ?], 17 Feb. 1831, private, Graham Papers, microfilm 26.Google Scholar

72 Grey to Palmerston, 10 Apr. 1831, Broadlands MSS, GC/GR/1973.

73 Durham to Palmerston, 28 Feb. 1831, Broadlands MSS, GC/DU/19.

74 Grey to Holland, 28 May 1831, Holland House Papers, B.M. Add. MSS 51677, fo. 89.

75 Holland's Political Journals, entry for 20 July 1831.

76 Ibid. entry for 21 July 1831 (see also 5 Sept. 1831); Cooper, Leonard, Radical Jack (London, 1959), pp. 100–1, 103, 105. See the 1834 correspondence involving Durham, Grey, Russell, Holland and Taylor on the respective contributions of Durham and Russell in framing the original Bill: Russell Papers, P.R.O. 30/22/IC, fos. 139–143; Holland House Papers, B.M. Add. MSS 51548, fo. 163, 51677, fo. 140; see also Col. Charles Grey to Brougham, 16 Feb. 1852, Brougham Papers.Google Scholar

77 Graham to Grey, 17 June 1831, Graham Papers, microfilm 26; Holland's Political Journals, entry for 22 July 1831; Richmond to Graham, 2 June 1831, private, Graham Papers, microfilm 26; see also the attitude of Graham's uncle, Lord Galloway, to the Bill in Galloway to Graham, 20 May 1831, Graham Papers, microfilm 26.

78 Holland's Political Journals, entry for 14 Aug. 1831.

The revised borough freeholder clause has been the subject of an interesting but limited debate about the motives of the reforming government; see Hennock, E. P., ‘The Sociological Premises of the First Reform Act: A Critical Note’ and ‘D. C. Moore replies’, Victorian Studies, xiv, no. 3, pp. 321–37.Google Scholar Though it may be scarcely illuminating to say that they disagree about ‘the effective dynamics of nineteenth century political action’, to use Professor Moore's characteristic phrase, they certainly both ignore ‘the effective dynamics’ of Earl Grey's Cabinet. It is true that the Cabinet split over the specifications of the proposed reform was patched up in July. Holland's journal entry for 22 July reveals that the Cabinet declined ‘willingly to alter the bill or vary the proportion we had proposed to establish between land ’ and therefore refused, on the one hand, ‘to grant double representation to 26 boroughs’ and, on the other hand, ‘to admit tenants at will to vote for counties’. However, during the debate of 12 August, Sugden expressed objections to the existing borough freeholder clause and touched off a renewed controversy within the Cabinet. Another uneasy compromise was reached. Holland's journal entry for 14 August explains that ‘the reason for so altering our former determination was a persuasion that we should hardly be able to carry a provision so injurious to the rights of persons connected with town populations’. The Whigs within the Cabinet had succeeded in getting their colleagues to endorse a change in the borough freeholder clause, but it was a victory due more to arguments of strategy than of principle.

No doubt the success of the Chandos Clause later that month put the wisdom of this strategy into question. Ministers were caught off guard by its adoption. Possibly it was a reaction against the ministerial proposal. There is some later evidence to show that Palmerston was in contact with Chandos even at this early stage. Palmerston privately approved of the counter-balancing effect attributed by some to the Chandos Clause. The Whig members of the Cabinet opposed the Chandos Clause not so much because they feared its consequences but because they distrusted its sponsors. Furthermore, both Grey and Russell believed it could only do the landed interest harm. Grey thought it would open the way to secret ballot (3 Hansard (3 Oct. 1831), VII, 939–40) and Russell believed it would increase election expenses enormously (‘Memorandum by Lord John Russell’, 20 Oct. 1831, Grey Papers, box 46, Papers on Parliamentary Reform I).Google Scholar

79 Ibid. entries for 20 and 31 Aug. 1831, 5 Sept. 1831.

80 Ibid. entry for 5 Sept. 1831.

81 Ibid. entry for 8 Oct. 1831.

82 Ibid. entry for 10 Oct. 1831; Palmerston to Grey, 9 Oct. 1831, Holland House Papers, B.M. Add. MSS 51548, fo. 117 (copy).

83 Ibid.

84 Graham to Abercrombie, 6 Sept. 1831, private, Graham Papers, microfilm 26.

85 Melbourne to Palmerston, n Oct. 1831, Broadlands MSS GC/ME/12; Holland's Political Journals, entry for 16 Nov. 1831. See also Melbourne to Taylor, 25 Oct. 1831, in Lord Melbourne's Papers, ed. Saunders, Lloyd C. (London, 1889), p. 134.Google Scholar

86 Grey to Palmerston, 14 Oct. 1831, Broadlands MSS GC/GR/2043; Stanley to Graham, 27 Oct. [1831], Graham Papers, microfilm 26; George Grote to Grey, 14 Oct. 1831, copy, Place Papers, B.M. Add. MSS 35149, fo. 111 (see also io. 112).

87 See especially Stanley to Graham, Ibid. Their private correspondence and public speeches suggest that the ministers did not distinguish very often between the various causes of unrest. The labourers' riots of 1830, and the reform riots which became more frequent towards the end of 1831, mostly were treated as part of a general phenomenon. Parliamentary reform was assumed to be the ‘first’ measure for restoring general confidence and harmony; see Althorp's election victory dinner speech reported in The Northampton Mercury, 23 Mar. 1831, in which he stresses the common interest of ‘the peasant and the peer’ in parliamentary reform. For the actual causes of the various riots, see Hobsbawm, and Rude, , op. cit. pp. 87–9, 219, 296–7.Google Scholar

88 Palmerston to Richmond, 8 Nov. 1831, Broadlands MSS GO/RI/II; Stanley, to Graham, , op. cit.Google Scholar; Stanley to Palmerston, 28 Oct. 1831, Broadlands MSS GC/DE/61; Butler, op. cit. p. 300.

89 Greville Memoirs, ed. Reeve, Henry (London, 1889), II, 220, 223Google Scholar (entries for 22 and 23 Nov. 1831); Hobhouse, J. C., op. cit. p. 147 (entry for 5 Nov. 1831) (see also entry for 6 Nov. 1831, p. 153).Google Scholar

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91 Palmerston to Melbourne, 20 Nov. 1831, Lord Melbourne's Papers, p. 134. See also Butler, , op. cit. p. 321.Google Scholar

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93 The Times, 19 and 22 Aug. 1831; Holland's Political Journals, entries for 11 Dec. 1831, 19 and 29 Nov. 1831.

94 Wharncliffe to Grey, 24 Nov. 1831, Grey Papers, box 46, Papers on Parliamentary Reform 11; Holland's Political Journals, entries for 5 Mar. 1832, 9–14 Apr. 1832, 7 May 1832; Palmerston's Memorandum, n.d. (1831), Broadlands MSS CAB/B/5.

95 Palmerston, ‘Memorandum on the Reform Bill’, 29 Nov. 1831, Broadlands MSS CAB/B/6.

96 Holland's Political Journals, entry for 4 Mar. 1832; Butler, , op. cit. p. 318.Google Scholar

97 Ibid., entry for 9 May 1832.

98 Ibid., entries for 10–14 May 1832.

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105 3 Hansard (28 Mar. 1831), III, 1020. My emphasis.Google Scholar

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