The thriving university and market town of Oxford, whose freeman electorate, reflecting a rapidly growing population, increased by about half in this period, was contested at nine of 13 elections between 1790 and 1831. From 1819 to 1831 there were 1,035 new admissions: 348 (34 per cent) by apprenticeship, 522 (50) by birth, and 155 (16) by purchase. In the election years of 1820, 1826 and 1830 there were 171, 127 and 283 admissions respectively; while in 1825, when the office of town clerk was contested, there were 237. In non-election years, the average number of admissions was 24. Over a third of the voters were non-resident, many of them living in and around London.2 The corporation consisted of four aldermen and eight assistants (one of whom was annually elected mayor), two bailiffs, two chamberlains, 24 common councillors and various officials. The existence of about 40 past bailiffs and about 25 past chamberlains put the total nominal membership of the corporation at over 100.3 Forty-one were required to make a council. The mayor, bailiffs and chamberlains were annually elected by the freemen, as were aldermen as vacancies arose, while assistants were chosen by the corporation at large. Yet, as the municipal corporations report observed in October 1833, the freemen had ‘only the semblance of popular choice’, as the nominees for the various offices were first chosen by the select body. This practice of ‘illusory elections’, it was said, was ‘a source of considerable dissatisfaction’ among ‘the respectable and instructed portion of the freemen (tradesmen and shopkeepers)’, especially as the mode of conducting them, with much drunkenness and rowdyism, had led to ‘a general depravation in the morals and habits of the lower class of freemen’. The ‘almost universal system of treating and bribery’, with public houses opened for days, was reckoned to have been perpetuated into parliamentary elections. While blatant direct bribery seems to have been rare in this period, Oxford contained a substantial venal element and was expensive to contest: treating was routine and essential, while the cost of bringing up non-resident voters was high.4 National political issues became increasingly significant, although the importance of party divisions should not be exaggerated.5

There was no single commanding electoral influence in this period. The interest of the dukes of Marlborough of Blenheim, exercised in uneasy alliance with the corporation since the 1770s, had become very vulnerable, partly as a result of the impoverishment and indebtedness of the 4th duke, whose candidate had been defeated in 1812 by John Ingram Lockhart, a successful barrister of independent views, with a stake in Oxfordshire through his marriage. In 1818, however, the profligate 5th duke, who had succeeded to the title the previous year, reasserted the Blenheim interest and, at considerable expense, secured the return of his cousin, General Frederick St. John, a ministerialist, over Lockhart, who had lost some support among the independents through his support for repressive legislation and the property tax. The other sitting Member, John Atkyns Wright of Crawsley Park, a general but not subservient supporter of the Liverpool ministry, who had the backing of most of the corporation, had topped the poll. The independents, or Blues, had been organized in a club since Lockhart’s initial victory in 1807.6

At the general election of 1820 Charles Wetherell, a leading equity lawyer of extreme Tory views and a native of Oxford (his father had been master of University College), who was disgruntled at having been passed over for the legal office which he thought his due and had been without a seat since 1818, came forward. Atkyns Wright retired, but St. John stood his ground. Lockhart offered again, claiming to have secured the approval of many of Atkyns Wright’s former supporters on the corporation.7 All three candidates denounced radicalism, blasphemy and sedition, and expressed approval of the recent coercive legislation. St. John trailed behind the others from the start of polling and gave up on the third day, so marking the effective eclipse of the Blenheim interest in Oxford.8 Wetherell comfortably topped the poll, with support from 72 per cent of the 1,267 who voted. Lockhart received a vote from 58 per cent, and St. John from 49. Wetherell, who had only 14 plumpers, shared 559 votes with Lockhart (61 and 76 per cent of their respective totals), and 334 with St. John (38 and 54 per cent of their respective totals). Lockhart received 71 plumpers and shared 107 splits with St. John (15 and 17 per cent of their respective totals). St. John’s 182 plumpers represented 29 per cent of those who polled. Sixty-three per cent (804) of the voters were residents, while the 463 out-voters included 189 from London (15 per cent of the total polled) and 140 from Oxfordshire (11). Residents supported Wetherell in a significantly greater proportion (82 per cent) than did the electorate as a whole. He did relatively badly among the non-residents, only 54 per cent of whom gave him a vote. Lockhart and St. John had marginally more support from the out-voters than from the residents overall, with the latter well ahead among the London voters (61 per cent to the others’ 43), and the former the preferred candidate of the Oxfordshire (73 per cent) and Berkshire voters (74). There seems to have been some residual support for the Blenheim interest on the corporation, which does not appear to have adopted any of the candidates as its own, though Lockhart was proposed by two aldermen.9

The mayor refused a requisition for a city meeting to express support for Queen Caroline in late September 1820, and an attempted illumination to celebrate the abandonment of the bill of pains and penalties in November was suppressed, at the cost of some disorder, by the University and civic authorities. The corporation subsequently voted a loyal address to the king.10 In the House, Wetherell, seeking to make a personal point, took a prominent part in the campaign in support of the queen in early 1821, while Lockhart, who continued his independent course, joined him in advocating the restoration of her name to the liturgy, though he did not go so far as to vote in censure of ministers’ conduct. Hostility to Catholic claims was intense in Oxford. Wetherell voted and Lockhart paired against relief, 28 Feb. 1821, and the corporation petitioned both Houses against it the following month.11 At the annual mayoral dinner, 30 Sept. 1822, Wetherell and Lockhart gave satisfactory accounts of their recent parliamentary conduct.12 The corporation and the inhabitants again petitioned against Catholic relief in 1823, when they also petitioned the Commons for repeal of the Insolvent Debtors Acts.13 Some Oxford inhabitants petitioned the Commons for ‘an effectual reform in the system of representation’, 24 Apr. 1823, but no report of a meeting to promote it has been found.14 Wetherell again addressed the mayoral feast on politics, 30 Sept. 1823, when Lockhart’s explanation of poor health as the reason for his prolonged absence from the Commons that session was accepted.15 Three months later Wetherell, who ministers had decided was too dangerous to have as embittered opponent, was appointed solicitor-general. His re-election in February 1824 was uneventful.16 Lockhart encouraged the promotion of a meeting of householders to petition the Commons for repeal of the house and window taxes, 26 Mar. 1824.17 In early 1825 there was a parochial petitioning campaign against them, which Lockhart again supported.18 The corporation (29 Mar.) and the inhabitants (29 Apr.) petitioned the Lords against Catholic claims, which both Wetherell and Lockhart opposed in the Commons.19 Agriculturists in the Oxford area petitioned the Commons against any alteration in the corn laws, 25 Apr.20 There were ‘lively apprehensions’ in Oxford over the implications of the universities police bill, on which Lockhart, prompted by the corporation, consulted Peel, the home secretary and Member for Oxford University, in company with Wetherell in June 1825.21 The inhabitants petitioned both Houses for the abolition of slavery in March 1826.22 In August 1825 there was a severe contest for the position of town clerk on the death of the long-standing incumbent Sir William Elias Taunton, a creature of the Blenheim interest. The victory of Thomas Roberson over Taunton’s son was said by one reporter to prove ‘the strength of the Blue or independent interest’, and by the local liberal newspaper to demonstrate

the extraordinary political strength of the party called the Blues, or those who, on all occasions, have supported the independence of the city representation against the influence of the House of Marlborough; who rescued it from the hands of the peer, and from a domineering city oligarchy without talent, and, speaking politically, without virtue, and gave it to the electors at large.23

At the mayoral election the following month Thomas Slatter was re-elected (apparently the first such occurrence since 1684); but his election was subsequently challenged in the courts and deemed illegal. At the new election in late November 1825 Thomas Ensworth was chosen.24 Soon afterwards Peel was told that Wetherell had ‘declared that he will not stand again for Oxford’.25 In January 1826 Peel’s colleague Richard Heber, who had been compromised by a homosexual indiscretion, announced his immediate retirement from his University seat. Wetherell, a Magdalen man, threw his hat into the ring, prompting Peel’s brother-in-law Robert Henley Eden*, a rising chancery barrister and a commissioner of bankrupts, to offer himself for the city in his room and carry out a canvass. A fortnight later William Hughes, a former London attorney who had recently come into considerable inherited wealth, appeared in Oxford, professing ‘independence’, and canvassed vigorously. Wetherell, who was thought to be in danger of falling between two stools, being very unpopular in the University and almost certain to be ‘turned out of the city for parsimony’, decided not to risk vacating his seat and allowed the University representation to pass him by. Hughes, Lockhart and Eden, who was thought by Dr. Lloyd of Christ Church to have ‘done himself some harm ... in the eyes of the respectable part of the citizens’ by canvassing ‘attended only by the lowest attorney in the place’, confirmed their intentions of standing at the next general election.26 In the ensuing weeks Hughes, a combative and wordy man, bombarded the electors with a series of addresses, in which he reported the progress of his canvass of the out-voters and declared his opposition to Catholic claims and support for the abolition of slavery, revision of the corn laws and a remission of the taxes on necessities.27 At the dissolution Wetherell duly announced his retirement (he came in for Hastings), Eden dropped out of the contest to stand for Fowey, and Lockhart and Hughes seemed likely to walk over.28 However, Samuel Smith, the dean of Christ Church, cynically commented that ‘a large portion of the freemen will be much disappointed if they cannot raise a contest, though I believe they care very little who the contending parties may be’. There was also genuine hostility to Hughes as a wealthy and unscrupulous carpetbagger among some of the more respectable freemen. At the last minute James Haughton Langston of Sarsden, a rich and popular county anti-Catholic Whig, though a lazy parliamentarian, who had just been unexpectedly turned out of his seat for Woodstock by the Blenheim interest, came forward for Oxford, reportedly in response to an approach from a number of leading freemen, after being convinced by them of the strength of support for him in the borough.29 They were vindicated, for he topped the poll, supported by two-thirds of those who voted. Lockhart, who appealed from the hustings for support from the Blues, was always well ahead of Hughes, and the latter retired on the fourth day. The supporters of Langston and Lockhart jointly celebrated their success with town and corporation dinners, while the friends of Hughes also rallied.30 Hughes’s election account book reveals payments to 327 out-voters totalling £1,280 16s. (London voters mostly received £5 10s., while others got an average of £2.) Payments for miscellaneous services came to £213 6s., and tradesmen’s bills to £1,218 4s. 8d. His total costs appear to have been just over £4,000.31

Of the 1,569 who polled, 67 per cent gave a vote for Langston, 61 for Lockhart and 46 for Hughes. Langston-Lockhart splits totalled 691 (44 per cent of those who voted), while Hughes received 245 plumpers (16 per cent). Langston, who got 80 plumpers, shared 44 per cent of his vote with Lockhart and 27 per cent (284) with Hughes. Lockhart, whose plumpers were 69, had 72 per cent of his votes in common with Langston, and 200 splits with Hughes (21 per cent of his total). Hughes, whose plumpers made up 34 per cent of his total, shared 39 per cent with Langston and 27 with Lockhart. Oxford residents (990) accounted for 63 per cent of those who voted: Langston and Lockhart polled significantly better among them (73 and 69 per cent respectively) than among the electorate as a whole, and Hughes markedly worse (41 per cent). The 579 non-residents divided in the proportions of 57 per cent for Langston, 47 for Lockhart and 56 for Hughes: the latter was overwhelmingly the favourite with the 246 London voters (16 per cent of those who polled), with the support of 76 per cent, as against 42 for Langston and only 24 for Lockhart; but he was supported by only 26 per cent of the 164 Oxfordshire voters, of whom 84 per cent voted for Langston and 76 for Lockhart. Members of the corporation overwhelmingly preferred Langston and Lockhart. Of 86 voters who had plumped for the Blenheim candidate in 1820 and can be identified as voting in 1826, 54 (63 per cent) supported Langston, 33 (38) Lockhart and 41 (48) Hughes, who received 28 of these votes from 33 such voters based in London.32

Oxford corporation petitioned the Lords against Catholic relief, 6 Mar. 1827.33 Langston opposed it in the Commons that session but Lockhart, whose failing health seriously interfered with his attendance in the 1826 Parliament, was absent. Langston presented Oxford Dissenters’ petitions for repeal of the Test Acts, 7 June 1827, 21, 26 Feb. 1828, when he voted for that measure. The Lords were petitioned in the same sense, 6 Mar.34 Lockhart did not vote, but he was present to vote with his colleague against Catholic claims later in the session. The corporation petitioned the Commons (2 May) and the Lords (17 Apr.) against them, but some Catholic and Protestant inhabitants of Oxford sent up favourable petitions, 7 May, 5 June.35 At the mayoral feast of 1 Oct. 1828 Lockhart stated that he had decided to take a neutral stance on the Catholic question until ministers settled it, and Langston hinted that he had come to favour concessions. The corporation and the inhabitants got up several anti-Catholic petitions ahead of the meeting of Parliament in 1829, when both Members voted for emancipation, Langston after publicly announcing his conversion in the local press. Hughes, who had continued to cultivate Oxford, let it be known there that he remained utterly opposed to concessions. Lone petitions in favour of emancipation were again presented to both Houses. The new mayor, Sir Joseph Lock, was reported to have tried to turn his inaugural feast, 30 Sept. 1829, into an anti-Catholic jamboree; but the explanations of their pragmatic support for emancipation given by Langston and Lockhart appear to have been favourably received by the majority of their audience.36

In the 1830 session Langston was more active than previously in the division lobbies, siding mostly with the reviving Whig opposition, but Lockhart, still in indifferent health, remained something of a lame duck, though he did present and endorse an Oxford parish petition for repeal of the beer and malt duties, 17 Mar.37 Both offered again at the general election later in the year. Hughes, who was engaged at Rochester, did not initially do so, but his leading Oxford supporters kept his name before the freemen and hinted that he might yet come forward. At a meeting of the Young Civis Society, 12 July, Lockhart, who throughout the campaign insisted on his right to exercise ‘independent’ judgement as a Member, was attacked by Hughes’s friend Deodatus Eaton, a wine merchant, for absenteeism. At the last minute Hughes, having evidently been assured by his promoters that he had enough support, especially among the out-voters, to defeat Lockhart, abandoned Rochester and started for Oxford, despite having already announced his withdrawal. On the hustings, Lockhart could not get a hearing. Langston boasted of his support for reform and retrenchment, though he discountenanced ‘factious’ opposition to the Wellington ministry. Hughes, for once, seems to have had little to say. He led the poll for three days, before being overtaken by Langston, but was always well ahead of Lockhart, who finished over 300 votes behind him.38 Of the 1,779 who voted, 62 per cent supported Langston, 59 Hughes and 42 Lockhart. Langston, who had 85 plumpers, shared 519 votes with Hughes (47 and 49 per cent of their respective totals) and 503 with Lockhart (45 and 67 per cent of their respective totals). Hughes received single votes from 425 electors (almost a quarter of those who voted), which made up 40 per cent of his total. He shared 110 votes with Lockhart (ten and 15 per cent of their respective totals). Lockhart got 137 plumpers. Oxford residents (1,106) accounted for 62 per cent of those who voted. They supported Langston in a greater proportion than did the electorate as a whole (70 per cent), and placed Hughes (56) ahead of Lockhart (46). Hughes’s advantage among the 673 non-resident voters was marked: he had the support of 65 per cent, as against 50 for Langston and 35 for Lockhart. Of the 277 London voters (16 per cent of those who polled), 236 (85 per cent) voted for Hughes, including 164 who gave him plumpers. Thirty-six per cent supported Langston and only 13 Lockhart. The 199 Oxfordshire voters, however, divided in the proportions of 74 per cent for Langston, 51 for Lockhart and 49 for Hughes. Of 76 members of the corporation identified in the pollbook, 60 (79 per cent) voted for Langston and Lockhart (52 giving them split votes), and only 12 (16 per cent), for Hughes.39

The controversy over Hughes’s abandonment of Rochester rumbled on in both constituencies for several weeks.40 Lockhart, who was fêted by his friends, 4 Oct. 1830, presented a petition against Hughes’s return, 12 Nov., accusing him of illegal treating and paying or promising to pay for the admission of a large number of freemen, complaining that Lock, the returning officer, had prematurely closed the poll when about 400 remained unpolled and throwing in for good measure Hughes’s conduct in giving the false impression that he was committed to Rochester. Consideration was deferred from 3 Jan. to 22 Feb. 1831, but Lockhart failed to secure a further postponement, 11 Feb., on account of his illness. He gave up the petition, partly because its success was supposed to depend on his arguing his case in person, and partly because the prospect of reform from the Grey ministry had diminished interest in it. Hughes was duly confirmed in the seat.41 Several Oxford petitions for the abolition of slavery were presented to both Houses in November 1830.42 Langston and Hughes voted against the Wellington ministry on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830, but it was Daniel O’Connell who, to Hughes’s surprise, was entrusted with the presentation of two Oxford parish petitions for parliamentary reform, 26 Feb. 1831.43 Langston and Hughes did not attend the city reform meeting, 15 Mar., when several leading members of the corporation expressed their support for the ministerial bill, but Hughes sent a public letter of apology, in which he endorsed the measure, while reserving his right to try to amend its details, particularly its proposals to disfranchise non-resident and future freemen. Langston presented its petition, 19 Mar., and both Members voted for its second reading, 22 Mar.44 Hughes subsequently canvassed opinion in Oxford, and at a dinner there, 11 Apr., he explained that he had been trying, with other Members, to persuade ministers to allow the vote to the future apprentices and children of existing freemen. Complaints were made of a recent hole-and-corner attempt to nullify the Oxford reform petitions by pushing an anti-reform one through a meeting of the council. It was said to have been rejected, after a tied vote of 30-30, by the casting vote of the mayor, Thomas Wyatt, but the episode is not recorded in the council minute book.45 Langston and Hughes voted against Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment to the bill, which precipitated a general election, 19 Apr.; and on 28 Apr. 1831 the corporation resolved to address the king in support of the dissolution and reform.46 It was reported that some London voters had tried to ‘find some candidate to contend for the preservation of their threatened privileges’, but Langston and Hughes, who both declared their support for the bill, were unopposed. There was an ‘extraordinary’ scene on the hustings when Thomas Robinson of Begbroke, who had failed in a bid to thwart the corporation’s address to the king, accused Langston of sacrificing the privileges of Oxford freemen by committing himself to support the bill without qualification. Hughes pointed out that no resident freeman would lose his vote, suggested that the high rents prevalent in Oxford would enable the future children of freemen to qualify as £10 householders and argued that in the last resort the success of the whole measure was of supreme importance.47 In the following months he was careful to give maximum publicity in Oxford to his dogged attempts to secure changes to the details of the measure, which frequently led him into conflict with ministers, but were successful as regarded the problem of future freemen’s rights.48 At the city elections in September 1831 Robinson was defeated by Ensworth in a contest for an aldermanic vacancy, while Eaton was beaten in the subsequent election for Ensworth’s vacant assistantship.49 Nothing came of plans for a meeting to petition the Lords to pass the reform bill.50

The boundary commissioners recommended the addition to the existing constituency of the parish of St. Clement and part of Cowley parish, in the south-east, which gave the new borough a population of 21,345 and a registered electorate in 1832 of 2,389.51 At that general election Langston easily topped the poll, but Hughes was beaten into third place by Thomas Stonor, a Catholic Liberal, while Wetherell’s belated bid to come in again ended in humiliating defeat. Hughes, who eventually gravitated to the Conservatives, was seated on petition.52 Oxford, which remained largely in Liberal hands for 50 years, developed a reputation for electoral malpractice in the post-Reform Act period.53