The Mid-Victorian Voter

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal ofInterdisciplinary History

The Mid-Victorian VoterAuthor(s): Michael DrakeSource: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Spring, 1971), pp. 473-490Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/202623 .

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Michael Drake

The Mid-Victorian Voter The attractions of voting studies for political scientists are well known, the reasons obvious. In most countries, the basic data are supplied in great profusion by government agencies; survey techniques in this area are sophisticated; above all, the problems readily lend themselves to quantification. In sum, the voting study brings the social scientist closer to the natural scientist than practically any other study, with all the advantages that that implies. The historian's contribution to voting studies is also well known. By their very nature such studies draw on historical data; for example, the longer the run of elections, the more material there is for testing hypotheses worked out initially on contemporary information. The use of historical data is, however, by no means exhausted, and in this article I hope to demonstrate that the advent of computer facilities has opened a rich vein which could well add new dimensions to the study of voting behavior.

From the point of view of the political scientist qua political scientist, one of the major hindrances to voting studies is the fact that the ballot is now secret. To get information on individual voting behavior, historians today must use surveys, and these can, of course, be used only in the case of elections that have taken place in the recent past. Both the political scientist and the historian can, however, overcome this common obstacle if-so far as England is concerned-they study voting behavior before the passage of The Secret Ballot Act of 1872. Up to that time all voting in Parliamentary elections took place in public, and, since it was common for printers to publish lists of the actual votes recorded, access to the lists is relatively easy. The printed information commonly includes the name of the voter, his address, and the name or names of the candidates for whom he voted. Other kinds of nominative information are also available from the population censuses of I851 and i86i. For example, the enumerators' returns give the name, age, sex, occupation, birthplace, marital status, and, though fitfully, if one were

Michael Drake is Dean and Director of Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, England. He is the author of Population and Society in Norway, 1735-1865 (Cambridge, 1969) and edited Population in Industrialization (London, 1969).

This article arises out of work done by Professor Drake and Carol Pearce at the Centre for Research in the Social Sciences at the University of Kent at Canterbury. The Research, which was jointly financed by the University and the Social Science Research Council, is of a socio-demographic character and is concerned with the East Kent town of Ashford in the years I840 to 1870.

4-J.I.H.



474 | MICHAEL DRAKE

an employer, the number of men or women employed; and, if one were a farmer, the acreage of one's farm. The combination of these various pieces of information either for one election, or even more interestingly for a series of elections, provides not only a new insight into mid-Victorian political behavior, but also the possibility of testing a whole series of hypotheses as to voting consistency, rates of abstention, and proportions polled, each of which can be broken down by occupation, age, residence, etc. That such inherently interesting work has not been done earlier is, of course, due to the incredible amount of labor required to relate the separate pieces of information about any individual voter. What follows is an indication of the kind of analysis that we are now able to make, as a result of being able to use a computer to sort and merge the various pieces of information.I

For electoral purposes the County of Kent was divided into an eastern and a western division. In the i85os and I86os both returned two members to Westminster. The names of the candidates in the East Kent division and the measure of their support at the elections of 1852, 1857, I863, I865, and I868 are given in Table I. These are the elections for which we have printed poll books. Electoral activity in these years was, however, somewhat greater than this table indicates. In February I852, there was a by-election to fill a vacancy caused by the retirement ofJ. P. Plumtre. This was the first by-election in East Kent for over 150 years.2 In it, Sir Brook William Bridges defeated Sir Edward Chomley Dering by 2,480 votes to 2,289. Only four months later, however, the Derby ministry dissolved Parliament and in the subse-

i The methodological advance of this article is based on the advent of computers able to store and process alphabetical information (such as names), since this facilitates enor-

mously the recovery and manipulation of the large amount of quantifiable material at present resting in various archives. Such material includes the enumerators' returns from the population censuses of I84I, 1851, and I86I. These give some or all of the following information: name, age, sex, marital status, place of birth, current address, and occupation. Other material includes workhouse admission and discharge sheets; poll books; school registers; court cases; directories; pay sheets; local newspaper reports; parliamentary papers (especially committee hearings); and registers of births, marriages, and deaths. To draw together the information from these various universes involves the preparation of computer programs. Once these two stages (the data collection and the computer programming) have been carried out, the way is open for a variety of studies of such matters as the age, sex, and occupational composition of the labor force and shifts within it at the aggregate and individual level; inter-generational social mobility; intra-regional migration; settlement patterns; the structure of the family and the household; and voting behavior. This article involves the drawing together of the census and poll book data, using a sort and merge program specially produced by the Computer Centre at the

University of Kent at Canterbury.



THE MID-VICTORIAN VOTER | 475

Table i The East Kent Vote

CANDIDATES 1852 1857 1863 r865 1868

/0 /0 /0 Jo /0

Dering 3,063 37 2,358 33 2,778 5I 3,I95 34 Deedes 2,879 35 2,316 32

Bridges 2,356 28 2,379 33 3,208 35 Acheson I87 2 Knatchbull 2,690 49 2,919 31 Pemberton 5,231 27 Milles 5,104 26 Tufton 4,685 24 Croft 4,579 23

Total: 8,298 Ioo 7,240 100 5,468 Ioo 9,322 I00 19,599 Ioo

a The candidates were: Sir Edward Chomley Dering, Bart. (Surrenden); William Deedes, Esq. (Sandling); Sir Brook William Bridges, Bart. (Wingham); Capt. Acheson; Sir Norton Joseph Knatchbull (Mersham Hatch); Edward Leigh Pemberton, Esq. (Frinstead); Hon. George Watson Milles (Sheldwich); Henry James Tufton, Esq. (Hothfield); Sir Frederick Croft (Sittingbourne).

quent General Election, Dering beat Bridges (Table I). Dering was also returned in the General Election held in April 1857 (Table I), but he was a sick man at the time. In fact he took no part in the campaign, being abroad for health reasons.3 He resigned his seat in December 1857, and, in the subsequent by-election, William Deedes was returned unopposed. In the General Election of 1859 there was no contest in East Kent, the

sitting members, Deedes and Bridges, being returned. Deedes died in

1862, which entailed a by-election in January 1863. Dering, having regained his health, returned to the fray and in a memorable campaign defeated Sir Norman Joseph Knatchbull (Table I). The sitting members

(Bridges and Dering) were again returned in the General Election in

I865. In March I868, Bridges was elevated to the peerage as Lord Fitzwalter. In the resulting by-election two new faces appeared: Edward Leigh Pemberton, the Conservative candidate, beating the

Liberal, Henry James Tufton, by 3,606 votes to 3,109. In looking at the list of candidates over this period, it is not the

absence of the new that strikes one, but the persistence of the old. Both

Dering and Bridges stood on five occasions and Deedes on four; Knatchbull, Pemberton, and Tufton each entered the lists on two occa-

sions; Captain Acheson, Sir Frederick Croft, and George Watson

2 Ashford and Alfred News, 28 February I857. 3 Ibid., 14 March 1857.



476 | MICHAEL DRAKE

Milles on one. The candidates were all country gentry, some of long standing in the county. Some were related. Deedes noted in 1852 that he was a friend of both Dering and Bridges, and a relative of the latter.4 On one occasion, in the I84os, Dering actually proposed Sir Edward Knatchbull to the electors of East Kent.5 This was the father of the man he beat in the by-election of 1863.

The traditional character of the candidates in these East Kent elections was remarked upon at the time. The Daily Telegraph, for example, commenting on the by-election of 1863, noted that:

Both candidates represented old county families and names associated with the annals of Kent. A score of Derings, and as many Knatchbulls have sat for the shire in Parliament. Sir Edward traces his origin to the Saxon Ethelward, the King of Deira. The family of Sir Norton have

occupied the manor house of Mersham Hatch from the days of King Richard II to those of Queen Victoria. In the Parliaments of the Revolu- tion the ancestors of the two candidates both took part, and the first baronet of the Dering family was a more advanced Liberal, two hundred and odd years ago, than his descendant is now, for he presented a peti- tion from the gallery of the House of Commons "praying for the

extirpation of bishops, deans and chaplains." There is no country in

Europe, perhaps, except our own, where the names which were to the fore in those days long gone by still lead the van-where, in a county bordering on the greatest city in the world men of the same name and

lineage are chosen century after century as representatives of the popular branch of the national legislature.6

Obeisance to local tradition was present even in the more party- prone elections of the late i86os. Thus Pemberton in presenting himself to the electors of East Kent at the by-election of 1868, which as we have

noted, resulted from the elevation to the peerage of Bridges, remarked that he offered himself only because the recent death of Sir Norton Knatchbull "deprived the county of the man most suited to stand." In this same address Pemberton described himself as a Conservative who would "give a general support to the Government which Mr.

4 Ibid., 20 April I852. 5 Kentish Express and Alfred News, Io January 1863. 6 Cited in ibid., I7 January 1863. It might also be remarked that Dering's main supporter at the 1863 election was E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen, M. P. for Sandwich and brother of Dering's opponent Sir Norton Knatchbull. The tradition commented upon by the Daily Telegraph still continues. Today's M.P. for Ashford is William Deedes whose forbear and namesake was a Member for East Kent, almost without a break from 1845 to 1862. Also the Knatchbull family, like the Deedes, is still prominent in East Kent.




Disraeli has inherited from Lord Derby."7 His opponent, Tufton, while observing that his sympathies were "entirely with the Liberal Party," also remarked that "had Sir Norton Knatchbull been still alive, and the Candidate of the Tory Party, my personal regard for one so long known to the County, and so universally respected would have induced me to hesitate" before accepting the nomination.8

If voting for persons rather than for parties and principles was not uncommon in county elections (not least because of the hold of landlords over their tenants)-and in this regard East Kent appears by no means atypical-the tendency was strengthened in the I85os and early I86os by the state of political opinion generally. The period from the death of Peel to the passing of the Second Reform Act is well known for weak ministries, based on shifting alliances in Parliament, and for the absence of major issues, such as Free Trade or Parliamentary Reform, likely to polarize political opinion. It is, therefore, especially difficult to label the various candidates in these East Kent elections. It is easiest to do so for the later elections. Pemberton and Milles stood firmly on the Conservative platform, and Tufton and Croft stood as firmly on that of the Liberals in the General Election of i868. One Kentish paper noted, after the election, that "the contest was the best stand up fight which has occurred in the county for upwards of forty years. Each party has been true to its principles and the splitting and plumping was very trifling."9 That the party division was generally accepted in the county is illustrated by a comment of Milles earlier in I868. The elevation of Bridges to the peerage left the county with one representative, namely Dering, who by then, at least, was firmly attached to the Liberal party. When Tufton, another Liberal, declared his intention to stand for the vacant seat, Milles could hardly contain himself. In a peroration, at a meeting of Conserva- tives at Canterbury, he was reported as saying that "he thought all moderate men would agree that one seat at least belonged to the Conservative party, and he could scarcely credit the rumour that it was the intention of the Liberals to disturb the peace of the county, more especially as in a few months there must be a General Election."I?

The by-election of I863 also witnessed a fairly clear cut party split between the two candidates. Dering fought under the "watchwords"

7 Kentish Express, 21 March I868. 8 Ibid., 28 March I886. Tufton also asked the electors to note the "close connection of my Family with the landed property of the County." 9 Supplement to ibid., 21 November I868. Io Kentish Express, 28 March x868.



478 | MICHAEL DRAKE

of "Liberal principles and progressive improvement against Tory re- action."I Dering also countered Knatchbull's attachment "to the principle of Stability rather than the principle of Change, because from the former we are sure to receive improvements certain and durable; from the latter, weak alterations attended by ephemeral results,"I2 with the "great truth, that they who resist improvements because they are innovations may be compelled to accept innovations when they cease to be

improvements."13 However, one newspaper, The Standard, believed that Dering's success was not due to his Liberal principles but to an

"ably worked manoevre for dividing the Conservative interest"

whereby a portion of the Tory farmers "out of regard for old associa- tions [were] deluded into supporting the Liberal candidate."'4 Be this as it may, there is little doubt that in the elections of 1852 and 1857 the Conservative interest (if such it was) appears even more divided, for the published statements of the candidates do little to polarize political sentiment. In 1863, Dering was accused of professing principles different from those he professed in I852.'5 He denied this and appealed to his

published addresses of I852 to support his stand. "The watchwords of that day," he said in I863, "were-social progress, financial reform, liberty of conscience and toleration for all. In accordance with these

principles I voted alike for the admission of Dissenters to the Universi- ties and of the Jews to Parliament. Are these Tory principles?"I6 Prior to the by-election of 1852, however, the Kentish Gazette asserted that "in every point but one, Sir Edward Dering's opinions,-political, economical and religious are similar to those of Sir Brook Bridges."'7 When Dering lost to Bridges, however, the same paper observed that he did so "because the electors believed that Sir Edward was, both on the question of protection, and on that of the endowment ofMaynooth, tinctured with 'liberal' principles, as they are called, of the late Sir Robert Peel."I8 Prior to the General Election of I852, the Kentish Gazette again attempted to attach a label to Dering, this time suggesting that he was "representative of that portion of the Conservative party

iI Ibid., io January I863. 12 Ibid., 3 January 1863. 13 Ibid., ioJanuary 1863. 14 Cited in ibid., I7 January 863. 15 Kentish Express, Io January 1863. I6 Ibid. 17 Kentish Gazette, 3 February 1852. I8 Ibid., 24 February I852.



THE MID-VICTORIAN VOTER [ 479

which is prepared to concede something to the spirit of the age."I9 It was perhaps this "something" which caused an advertisement to be placed in the Kentish Gazette by the "Reform Committee" urging all Liberal electors, in the absence of a "TRUE BLUE" candidate, to vote for Dering and so rescue the representation of East Kent from becoming a "Tory Borough." The advertisement solicited support for Dering because in the by-election earlier in the year the "party opposed to him ... [had raised] ... the old bigotted cry of'No Popery'"-the result, no doubt, of Dering's support for the Maynooth grant.20 At the nomination on Barham Downs in July 1852 these subtleties of opinion were reflected in the colors supported by the various candidates. The supporters of Bridges and Deedes wore "the old and distinguished Conservative colours, purple and orange;" Dering's, however, adopted not the Liberal blue, but "pink interspersed with a sprig of oak."2I

While Dering appears, therefore, to have adopted what, ana- chronistically perhaps, can be called a Liberal-Conservative position in I852, he was firmly identified as a Liberal by 1863. Even at the later date, however, he was, like most politicians at some time or another, not averse to playing both sides of the street: "I am in favour of the strictest economy in the public expenditure," he is reported as saying, "consistent with the requirements of the public service ... As a friend to religious liberty, I would vote for the abolition of compulsory Church- rates; and as a friend to the Established Church I believe...."22

Nevertheless one can, with Dering, trace the various features of his appeal at the different elections. The position of Bridges, too, is not difficult to assess. He was a Tory landlord, allegedly in favor of telling his tenants how to vote on the grounds that the "landlords are better educated than their tenants."23 His position did not change over the years. That of Deedes is more difficult to place. As we have seen, his supporters sported the conservative colors of purple and orange on nomination day for the General Election of I852. In his address, announcing his candidacy for that election, he describes himself as an "Independent candidate," going on to say, however, that he supports Lord Derby, "the principles of Conservatism," whilst attacking "the democratic spirit" and the Maynooth grant.24 Nevertheless Dering 19 Ibid., 20 July 1852. 20 Ibid., 6 April I852. 21 Ibid., 20July 1852. 22 Ibid., 3 January I863. 23 Ibid., 3 February 1852. 24 Ibid., 20 April I852.



480 | MICHAEL DRAKE

supports his candidacy, recommending that his own supporters give their second vote to Deedes.25 Deedes, however, did not openly support either Bridges or Dering.26 In 1857, Deedes again made a great show of his independence, asserting that he "always had voted for measures on their merits alone."27 This is possibly why the Blue party, which Deedes alleged had supported him in 1852, now felt he had let them down.28 On specific views Deedes said he would support a ?20 county franchise, though not a 1Io one; that he opposed the ballot and the admission of Jews to Parliament, as "he did not think it right they should legislate for a Christian nation"; and that he was "averse to opening the Crystal Palace and other places of amusement on Sunday, lest it led to irreli- gion."29 Deedes lost his seat at this election. It is worth noting in connection with this that Dering, in thanking the Freeholders and Electors of Kent for supporting him, regretted that the "county of Kent has been deprived of the valuable services of my friend Mr. Deedes."30

In summary, the candidates' relative positions along the political spectrum between 1852 and i86831 appear to be as follows. Dering was by background a traditional Tory but appears even as early as 1852 to have had Liberal sympathies. These were strengthened as time passed and are the dominant feature of his politics by 1863. In i868 he was a member of the committee formed to support Tufton, one of the Liberal party candidates. Deedes occupied a middle of the road position between Dering on the one hand and more obviously Tory candidates like Bridges and Knatchbull on the other. Pemberton and Milles were "straight" Conservative party candidates; Tufton and Croft equally "straight" Liberals.

Having presented the candidates and their inclinations (policies would hardly be an appropriate word), we now come to their impact upon the electorate. It should be remarked at once that what follows can have no general validity since it covers the electoral decisions of but one East Kent town which polled but 2 to 3 per cent of the total votes cast

25 Ibid., 20July I852. 26 Ibid. 27 Ashford and Alfred News, 4 April I857. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., 9 May 1857. 31 Excepting Captain Acheson, who as a candidate in 1857, won a derisory vote. He was reported to have said that his principles were "high Conservative," though they seemed to be a rather mixed bag combining support for Locke King's motion and the admission of Jews to Parliament with opposition to the ballot and to church-rates. Ibid., 28 March I857; 4 April 1857.



THE MID-VICTORIAN VOTER I 481

in the elections we are considering. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the

findings will be suggestive. The first aspect to be examined is the intensity of electoral activity

as measured by the proportion of the registered voters taking part in the elections. Table 2 shows that this varied between 70 per cent in I857 and 86 per cent in i865. Table 2 shows no consistent pattern. There is a decline between I852 and 1857, followed by a rise in 1863 and I865,

Table 2 The Turnout

ELECTION NUMBER ON NUMBER OF NUMBER OF PERCENTAGE OF

ELECTORAL ABSTAINERS VOTERS ELECTORAL ROLL

ROLL WHO VOTED

1852 I23 3I 92 75% 1857 143 43 IOO 70% 1863 153 30 I23 80% I865 I96 28 I68 86% I868 380 71 309 8I%

and then another fall in I868. Nevertheless it should be noted that the three elections in the I86os each recorded higher turnouts than those in the I85os. Burrowing a little deeper into the material reveals, however, a rather interesting difference between the behavior of the resident and the non-resident voters. Table 3 shows that a sizable minority of those who voted in Ashford, because they held property there, did not

Table 3 The Turnout of the Resident and the Non-Resident Voters

ELECTION ON REGISTER VOTING

RESIDENTS NON- RESIDENTS NON-

% RESIDENTS % RESDIENTS

/o /o I852 89 72a 34 28b 71 80C 2I 62d 1857 98 68 45 32 83 85 17 38 I863 II3 74 40 26 98 87 25 62

I865 149 76 47 24 I34 90 34 72 I868 307 8I 73 I9 25I 82 58 80

a Residents as a percentage of total electorate. b Non-residents as a percentage of total electorate. c Percentage of residents on electoral roll who voted. d Percentage of non-residents on electoral roll who voted.



482 I MICHAEL DRAKE

actually live in the town. In 1857, almost a third of the voters were non-resident.

It should not be thought that even the resident voters were locally born and bred. From the census of I851 we are able to elicit the birth-

place of 75 of the 89 Ashford residents on the electoral roll for the General Election in the following year. Analysis shows that under 40

Table 4 Number of Times Ashford Voters Appeared on the Electoral Register, 1852-68

APPEARANCEa ELECTIONS

1852 1857 1863 1865 1868 First 123 49 62 53 2I3b Second 94 37 60 42 Third 54 33 57 Fourth 50 26 Fifth 42 Total: 123 143 153 i96 380

a This table deals, of course, only with the period 1852-68. Some of the 123 electors listed as "First time" voters in 1852 had obviously voted at earlier elections. The table does, however, show the number of first time voters for the elections of 1857, 1863, I865, and I868 and the number who were carried over from one electoral roll to the next. b Of these 144 appear to have been enfranchised under the Act of 1867.

per cent were actually born in Ashford parish (which embraced virtually the whole town) and as many as 23 per cent were born outside the

county of Kent. If one examines the turnout of resident and non-resident

voters, one discovers the residents' turnout rising at every election between 1852 and I865, and then falling in I868. In contrast, the non- resident vote, as a proportion of non-residents on the electoral register, fell sharply between I852 and 1857, and then rose at each election until i868. At each election, one might note, the non-residents polled a lower

proportion of their register than the residents. Returning to the resident voters one is, at first sight, slightly puzzled at the fall in the proportion of resident voters actually going to the polls in I868 as compared with

I865. One explanation of this might be the fact that the election of i868

witnessed the highest proportion of "first time" voters of any of the elections under review-55 per cent (Table 4). The majority of these were voters registered under the Representation of the People Act of

1867. These electors had a lower turnout than those enfranchised under the earlier legislation, but this is largely explained by the fact that a considerable number (3I) were women. Under this act, they had, of




Table 5 Occupations of Resident Voters in 1852 and I868

OCCUPATION

Professional Banker (I); clergy (4); doctors (3); lawyers (3); schoolmaster (I). Rentiers Farmers

Dealers Auctioneer (I); bookseller (I); butcher (I); chemists (3); coal- merchants (2); cornfactor (i); drapers (3); general dealer (i); grocers (6); publicans (3); winemerchants (2); woolstapler (I).

Craftsmen Bakers (2); bootmakers (2); brewer (I); builder (i); cabi- netmakers (2); coachpainter (I); currier (I); millwright (I); plumber (I); tailors (4); up- holsterer (I); watchmaker (I).

Skilled laborers

Unskilled laborers Laborer (i); servant (i).

Total:

1852 1868a OCCPUATION 12 6 Professional

Minister (I); schoolmasters (2); surgeons (3).

5 Io Rentiers Io 3 Farmers-Cowkeeper (i);

dairymen (2). 25 26 Dealers

Auctioneers (2); bookseller

(I); butchers (3); chemist (I); cornmerchant (I); draper (i); fishmonger (I); grocers (6); haberdasher (I); hairdresser

(I); hotel keeper (I); inn-

keepers (2); lodginghouse keeper (I); tradesman (I); winemerchants (2); wool-

stapler (I). I8 32 Craftsmen

Bakers (5); basketmaker (I); brassfounder (I); bricklayers (3); builder (I); carpenters (3); cabinetmaker (I); coach- builder (I); currier (I); da- mask manufacturer (I); draughtsman (I); housepain- ter (I); ironplaner (I); leathercutter (I); millwright (I); plumbers (2); sadler (I); shoemakers (2); staymaker (I); tailors (2); watchmaker (I).

- 3 SkilledLaborers

Engine driver (i); gardener (i); railway clerk (i).

2 6 Unskilled laborers Laborers (4); servant (I); warehouseman (I).

72 86

a Those newly enfranchised under the Act of I867 only.



484 1 MICHAEL DRAKE

course, no right to be put on the register.32 Their inclusion was, however, no oversight for, according to a local press report, the "revising barrister said he did not feel empowered to expunge the names in the absences of objection being made in proper form to their remaining."33 In the event, only four women voters actually went to the polls, all of whom voted for the Liberal candidates Tufton and Croft.

One other explanation of the lower turnout could be that the Act of 1867 enfranchised a new social group-namely the urban artisan class-which took its electoral responsibility less seriously than existing electors. In fact, so far as Ashford is concerned, the occupational charac- teristics of the "new" electors were not significantly different from the old (Table 5). It is true that the comparison between the voters of 1852 and the "new" voters of 1868 is not so precise as one would like it, since the information of the 1852 electors comes from the census of I85I and that for the electors of 1868 from the census of i86i. One has, therefore, census information for a smaller proportion of the 1868 voters (86 out of 144) than for those of 1852 (72 out of 89). Had we had more information (which we shall in fact get when the 1871 census, under the Ioo year rule, is opened to the public) the similarities between the two could well be less close.

The Liberal candidate in i868 secured a very high proportion of the votes of those enfranchised under the Act of the previous year. Of

Table 6 "Old" and "New" Voters' Preferences at Election of I868a

OLD VOTERS NEW VOTERS

VOTES NO. % NO. % Liberalb 131 66.4 77 79.3 Conservativeb 66 33.6 20 20.7 Total: 197 I00o. 97 Ioo.o

a "Old" voters are those who were enfranchised under the Act of 1832, even though some voted for first time in I868. "New" voters are those electors enfranchised under the Act of I867. b The total for Liberal voters was arrived at by adding together all who cast votes for Tufton and Croft, either as paired with each other or singly. Conservative voters include all who voted for Pemberton and Milles either together or singly. Cross votes were not counted in either case.

32 Constance Rover, Women's Stffrage and Party Politics in Britain 1866-1914 (London, 1967), 31-32. 33 Kentish Express, I9 September I868. According to a report in the Kentish Express, (7 November 1868), the East Kent Register as a whole contained I3,107 names (4,578 more than the previous one), of whom 87 were women.



THE MID-VICTORIAN VOTER [ 485

the 98 newly enfranchised electors who went to the polls, 73 voted for both Tufton and Croft, nineteen for both Pemberton and Milles, four for Tufton, one for Milles, and one for Milles and Croft. Two aspects of this voting pattern deserve comment. First, it seems the voters of 1868

Table 7 The Plumper Vote

1852 Election

PLUMPERS DERING-DEEDES DERING-BRIDGES DEEDES-BRIDGES TOTAL

Dering 24 41 5 - 70 Deedes 6 41 - 9 56

Bridges 6 - 5 9 20

1857 Election

PLUMPERS DERING-DEEDES DERING-BRIDGES DEEDES-BRIDGES TOTAL

Dering 28 45 7 - 80 Deedes 3 45 - 8 56 Bridges 9 - 7 8 24

1865 Election

PLUMPERS DERING- DERING-BRIDGES BRIDGES- TOTAL

KNATCHBULL KNATCHBULL

Dering I 0 6 3 - I Knatchbull 3 6 - 45 54

Bridges 2 -3 45 50

1868 Election

PLUMPERS PEMBER- TUFTON- PEMBER- PEMBER- MILLES- MILLES- TOTAL

TON- CROFT TON- TON- TUFTON CROFT

MILLES TUFTON CROFT

Pember- ton o 85 - 2 o - - 87

Milles I 85 - - 3 I 90 Tufton Io - 207 2 - 3 - 222

Croft 1 - 207 - 0 - I 209



486 | MICHAEL DRAKE

enfranchised under the I867 Act were somewhat more inclined to vote Liberal than those enfranchised under the previous act. However, as Table 6 shows, the difference was not acute.

The second feature worth noting is the very small amount of cross voting between the candidates of the two parties, and the very small number of "plumper" voters (Table 7). A plumper voter was one who cast only one of his two votes. Plumping was a possibility in all the elections under review with the exception of that of 1863, which was a straight fight between two candidates. Table 7 shows that in 1868 only 12 of the 309 voters cast plumper votes. This was in marked contrast to the position at the previous election where II1 of the I68 voters cast plumper votes, IIO of them being for Dering. Even for Dering, who always had a large proportion of plumper votes, the I865 election was remarkable. For, in that election, the I Io plumper votes accounted for as much as 92 per cent of his total vote, as compared with 35 per cent in 1857, and 34 per cent in i852. The cause of the high plumper vote for Dering in I865; the absence of either plumping or cross-voting in 1868; and the increasing participation of the electorate, as indicated by the rising turnout at each election between 1852 and I868 is, I suggest, the same one: namely, the sharpening of party political conflict, which resulted in more obvious choices being presented to the electorate.

This explanation is further strengthened if one examines the behavior of electors between elections. Up to now we have made cross-sec- tional studies. If, however, we make a longitudinal analysis, we see that whereas 90 per cent of those electors who cast a plumper vote for

Dering in 1865 went on to vote for Tufton and Croft in i868, only 44 per cent who cast a plumper vote for him in 1852 did so in 1857 (Table 8). Between 1857 and 1863, the figure was 74 per cent, and between 1863 and I865 it was 87 per cent. Table 8 also shows a considerable amount of movement among voters who cast two votes in the elections of 1852 and I857. The same candidates took part in both these elections, namely Dering, Deedes and Bridges. As Table 9 indicates, they received similar proportions of the total vote in both. And yet many of the electors who took part in both changed their voting pattern. Thus of the fifty voters who voted in one way or another for Dering in 1852, only twenty-eight voted for him in identically the same way in 1857. These differences bring out the importance of longitudinal studies if one wants to get to the heart of voting behavior, for without them this sort of variation is totally lost. One would, for instance, never




Table 8 Psephological Trees

Dering Voters (50), 1852 to 1857

1852 I I

D-d D-B 30 4

1857 ..._ . . . .

D D-d D-B 7 2 2

_ . ..... ... ._ .

d Ab. D-B D-d 1 4 1 T

I857 I

D-d D B-d Ab 20 7 I 2

I857

I I B Ab. I I


1857

ID D-d D-B :19 3 ' 4

[ 863

D K Ab. D K Ab. 14 3 2 0 3

I863

D K Ab. 9 I9 3


D(I863)= 70

I865

I I D B-K 6I 2

D-K I

Ab. 6

16



488 [ MICHAEL DRAKE

Table 8 continued

Knatchbull Voters (44), 1863 to 1865

K(I863) =44

I865

i I I I II K B-K B D D-K D-B Ab. 3 29 I 3 3 2 3


I865

II I D D-K D-B 90 4 2

i868 I 868

T-C T M-T P-M Ab. P-M 81 I I 6 I 2

i868

I I I I M-T T T-C P-T

I i I I

Bridges-Knatchbull Voters (40), 1865 to 1868

B-K (1965)=40

i868

P-M P-T T-C Ab. 35 I 2 2

Abbreviations: Dering (D) Knatchbull (K) Tufton (T)

Deedes (d) Pemberton (P) Croft (C)

Bridges (B) Milles (M) Abstained (Ab.)



THE MID-VICTORIAN VOTER 1 489

Table 9 The Ashford Vote in 1852, 1857, 1863, I865, and I868

CANDIDATES ELECTION

1852 1857 1863 I865 I868 Dering 70 / / 53

Dering 70 48 8o 50 74 6o 119 53 Deedes 56 38 56 35 Bridges 20 14 24 15 50 23 Acheson o Knatchbull 49 40 54 24 Pemberton 87 14 Milles 90 15 Tufton 222 37 Croft 209 34

Total: 146 I00 6o0 Io0 123 I00 223 IOO 608 Ioo

suspect in comparing the proportions voting for particular candidates between I865 and I868 on the one hand and I852 and 1857 on the other, that in the former case there was very little switching in the voters'

preferences between the two elections, and in the latter, a considerable amount.

This brief study of voting behavior has not, of course, added any- thing to a general theory. Its aim has been to show how hypotheses based on purely literary evidence-in this case concerning the sharpening of political activity along party lines-can be tested against quanti- tative evidence. The study is, of course, a microscopic one and as such can only indicate the areas that might be worth exploring. These might be listed as follows. Was electoral participation in the i86os higher than in the I85os? Was the polarization of political opinion as evidenced by Dering's electoral history also a feature in other constituencies? How

big and how active was the non-resident vote? Were the voters enfranchised under the Act of 1867 similar, in terms of occupation, to the

existing electorate in Ashford? Did the volatility of voting behavior in the I850s, and the stability in the I86os, occur in other constituencies? These are some of the questions which can now be answered. The

computer has provided the means of analysis. The data are abundant. Vincent has located some 1750 poll books, covering the period 1694 to



490 | MICHAEL DRAKE

1872, and has surmised that from "a third to a half of all contested elections between 1830 and 1872 were reported in a printed pollbook."34 The field would appear a very promising one for the interdisciplinary historian.

34 J. R. Vincent, Poll Books: How Victorians Voted (Cambridge, 1967), 2.



The Mid-Victorian Voter

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