Rochester, which had long been a significant strategic and commercial port, was part of one continuous settlement that included the much larger Chatham, the site of the expanding naval dockyards, directly to the east, and the smaller Strood across the Medway to the north. The three towns were generally regarded as one entity and, despite mutual rivalries, their inhabitants often petitioned Parliament together. In the absence of any manufactures, most inhabitants were engaged in crafts, retailing or the local fisheries.1 Dickens had Mr. Pickwick say of the towns that

the principal productions ... appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers and dockyard men. The commodities chiefly offered for sale in the public streets are marine stores, hardbake, apples, flatfish and oysters. The streets present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly by the conviviality of the military.2

As a diocesan centre it had a high concentration of clergymen, which probably contributed to its predominantly anti-Catholic outlook. Under its charter of 1629, the common council of the corporation consisted of a mayor, 11 aldermen and 12 assistants. The franchise was in the freemen, whose qualification was obtainable by birth, apprenticeship, purchase or gift; 664 were admitted in the 20 years to 1832.3 Several allegations were made that the common council used its patronage over local employment and the admission of freemen to bolster its support in municipal and parliamentary elections. However, it was also assiduous in its attention to local matters; for example, in 1820 two councilmen were removed for non-fulfilment of their duties, and in 1828 an application was made to Parliament concerning the management of Watts’s charity.4 The corporation usually aligned itself with the Liverpool government, and the admiralty, with the assistance of the ordnance, controlled one seat. Against them was arrayed a considerable Whig and independent interest, supported by such local landowners as the 4th earl of Darnley of Cobham Hall, near Gravesend, the father of the Canterbury Member, Lord Clifton. Rochester was a medium-sized borough in which national issues and high turnouts produced frequent contests and contributed to local party development.5 The Times recorded on 10 June 1826 that ‘the Purple or ministerial party predominates in the corporation, and have always returned one Member, their faithful organ and suppliant to the minister for the time being. The Blue or opposition party likewise return a Member’.

In the two months before the general election of 1820, when there were reckoned to be 630 electors, 38 freemen were admitted, but no serious challenge to the existing de facto compromise was expected.6 The sitting Tory Member, Lord Binning, only son of the 8th earl of Haddington, who was a Canningite and a commissioner of the board of control, offered again. The Whigs nearly split after the retirement of James Barnett† of Dorset Square, Marylebone. However John Calcraft, a former Member who now sat for Wareham, and Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Torrens*, the political economist, who had briefly come forward in 1818, both withdrew their pretensions. This allowed Ralph Bernal, a West India planter, to succeed to the Blue interest. After Robert Gunsley Ayerst of Shorne Villa and Sir John Gore, the port admiral, had each declined to enter as a third man, Bernal and Binning were returned unopposed.7 On 12 June the corporation requested the city Members, and those for the county, Sir Edward Knatchbull and William Philip Honywood, to safeguard their privileges during the passage of the Kent coal meters bill.8 One serious long-running issue was what a local newspaper called the ‘greatest of all possible nuisances, Rochester Bridge’.9 For some time the stone structure had been in need of repair, and it was also intended to reduce the number of arches in order to hinder the development of dangerous shoals and the silting up of the estuary.10 A select committee was appointed to inquire into it, 16 June. At six sittings, evidence was heard in favour of the changes from the engineer John Rennie and various river users, though officials of the local navigation company denied that there had been any fall in water levels as a result of their new lock at Aylesford, just above the bridge. The report, presented on 11 July 1820, found that the repairs would cost £100,000 and recommended that the admiralty should survey the river first.11 Remedial action was taken by ordering the removal of the central pillar of the bridge in 1821 and of the surrounding shoals in 1824.12

After the mayor, Samuel Nicholson, had refused to call a common hall for the purpose of agreeing a laudatory address to Queen Caroline, one was adopted at an unofficial meeting, 21 July, and was presented to her by Bernal, 26 July 1820.13 Another gathering, 27 Nov. 1820, congratulated Caroline on her triumph, and agreed a petition to the Commons complaining of her treatment and for retaining her name in the liturgy, which was brought up by Bernal, 26 Jan. 1821.14 John Ashley Warre presented a Rochester petition for reform of the criminal law, 17 May 1821.15 Petitions were lodged from the shoemakers for relief (by Binning), 24 Apr. 1822, from the brewers against the alehouses licensing bill, 24 May, and from two publicans against the beer bill (by Bernal), 15, 18 July.16 Anti-slavery petitions were brought up, 14 May 1823, 16 Mar. 1824, 3 Mar. 1826.17 A meeting of the clergy of the diocese unanimously agreed a petition to the Lords against the Unitarian marriage bill, 1 May, and this was presented, 4 May 1824.18 The Thames and Medway Canal between Gravesend and Rochester, which opened in 1824, was one of the matters which the corporation referred to its Members to monitor on their behalf.19 Binning brought up victuallers’ petitions against their excise licenses and the beer bill, 11 Mar., 7 May, and one from the butchers in favour of the hides and skins bill was presented by Bernal, 3 May 1824.20 Tradesmen’s petitions against the combination laws were brought up by Bernal, 19 Mar. 1824, 5 May 1825.21 After the presentation of a petition from the inhabitant householders to light Rochester with gas, 14 Feb. 1825, Binning, as requested, helped to sponsor the bill which passed that session.22 Petitions from the owners and occupiers of land in the vicinity of Rochester against any changes to the corn laws were presented, 25 Apr. 1825 (by Knatchbull), 18 Apr. 1826, as was one from the city’s inhabitants in favour of their alteration, 23 Feb. 1826 (by Bernal).23

During the speculation in late 1825 over the expected dissolution, Binning announced that he would retire and Edward Knight junior of Godmersham Park, possibly the man of Protestant principles whose candidacy had been announced in an anonymous handbill, came forward to replace him. In addition to Bernal, a number of other Whigs were briefly rumoured to be interested, including Clifton and Torrens.24 Bernal was forced to apologize for his pro-Catholic votes in order to secure his re-election and he promised in future to remain neutral on the subject in Parliament.25 In late May 1826 it became clear that Knight, who had recently wed the daughter of his brother-in-law Knatchbull, was ‘married and cannot come’. Instead, Henry Dundas, the eldest son of Lord Melville, the first lord of the admiralty, accepted a requisition to stand. This was much to the disappointment of Major-General Sir John Malcolm*, who had been led to think that he would be given the government’s nomination.26 Meanwhile Major-General William Armstrong entered as an independent and, at a common hall, 7 June, he argued in favour of altering the corn laws and preventing further Catholic relief, against which the local activist Charles Larkin, a land surveyor, cited Bernal’s proven conduct.27 On 5 June 62 freemen were admitted and allegations were also made at the time that the ‘Purple party’ had formed a so-called ‘constitutional club’ to channel official places to Dundas’s supporters.28 However, the tacit compromise continued, and Malcolm was right to think that ‘Bernal will get the [Tories’] second votes, to give the ministerial Member an easier and securer seat than he would under other circumstances’.29 During the five days of the poll, which were punctuated by disturbances, Dundas built up a decisive lead and finally received support from 80 per cent of the 840 voters. Although Armstrong (37) came close to Bernal (42), he eventually retired on the sixth morning, by which time 81 per cent of the electorate had voted.30 Dundas received roughly 190 plumpers, 28 per cent of his total vote, the rest of which was made up of about 240 splits with each of the other two candidates. Bernal’s roughly 100 plumpers represented 29 per cent of his total vote and almost all his other votes were splits with Dundas (68). Armstrong had about 50 plumpers (16 per cent of his total) and his splits with Dundas represented a large majority of his votes (77). Freemen living within Rochester, Chatham and Strood accounted for 55 per cent of those who voted, compared to 25 per cent for Kent out-voters and 20 per cent for out-county voters. Both Dundas and Armstrong polled much better amongst resident voters (each at about 60 per cent of their total vote), than did Bernal (48), who fared proportionately better (30 per cent) among the out-county voters.31

Bernal presented the petition of the mechanics and inhabitants for free trade in corn, 16 Feb., but petitions from local landowners against any changes were brought up, 26 Feb., 8 Mar. 1827, and, following a meeting of the local agricultural association, 15 Apr. 1828, its petition for continued protection was lodged on the 25th.32 As they had in 1826, the mayor and corporation requested the city’s Members to oppose the alehouses licensing bill, and a hostile petition was presented by Dundas, 30 May 1827.33 They objected to the city’s magistrates losing their exclusive authority, and a committee of common councilmen was appointed to prepare petitions against this and other bills and to watch over their progress in Parliament, 12 Apr. 1828. The deputation unsuccessfully argued their case before Peel, the home secretary, 26 Apr., but subsequently received the support of Bernal and Dundas, the latter bringing up another petition against the alehouses licensing bill, 28 Apr. On Bernal’s motion in committee, the clause granting powers to county magistrates was defeated, 19 June. On receiving their committee’s report, 20 Oct. 1828, the corporation agreed to thank the Members, all honorary freemen, who had defended their interests, namely Bernal, Dundas, Knatchbull, Honywood, Clifton, Calcraft and Alderman Matthew Wood.34 A similar committee was appointed to follow the progress of the Sheerness pier bill, 20 Apr. 1829.35

A common hall agreed to address the king to congratulate him on the change of ministers, 29 May 1827, and the complaint that it increased the likelihood of Catholic emancipation was ridiculed by Samuel Newson, a surgeon, who was a friend of Bernal and was later described by him as ‘once a great politician there’.36 Bernal brought up a petition against the friendly societies bill, 18 Apr. 1828. Anti-slavery petitions were presented from the city, 8 July 1828 (by Bernal), 28 May 1830 (by William Smith).37 A petition against Catholic relief was brought up by Knatchbull, 2 Mar. 1829, as was one in its favour by Bernal, 16 Mar. A large number of local clergy signed a petition against any concessions, to which Darnley strongly objected on the grounds that the issue was political and not religious, but it was presented by Knatchbull, 18 Mar. The corporation voted an anti-Catholic address to the king, 18 Mar., and a similar petition to the Lords was presented, 30 Mar., by the Ultra Lord Winchilsea, who had led the county opposition to emancipation.38 The survival of hostility over the matter was illustrated at what became a ‘refractory party’, 13 Aug. 1829, when Larkin raised the toast to the duke of Wellington, the prime minister, while several of those present sat in silence, including the chairman, John Batten, a rival to Larkin in his other occupation as an auctioneer.39 Lord Blandford presented a Rochester petition for the removal of disabilities against the Jews, 2 Apr., and Sir Robert Inglis brought up another from the clergy of the deanery of Rochester against Protestants in the army abroad being forced to attend Catholic ceremonies of worship, 17 June 1830.40

The corporation’s relations with the freemen deteriorated as a result of their refusal to allow inspection of the accounts, the public support given to the distressed freemen of Queenborough and the enforcement of fines against non-freemen trading in the city.41 This contributed to the expectations of a fierce contest at the general election of 1830, as did the admission of 114 new freemen in the month before the poll.42 Armstrong addressed the freemen from Paris in favour of moderate reform and economies, 23 Apr., but nothing came of this, nor of the report that Lieutenant-Colonel George Augustus Frederick Fitzclarence, an illegitimate son of William IV, would stand. Bernal offered again, but Dundas retreated to Winchelsea rather than face a contest, and was replaced as the government nominee by a man whose maternal grandfather, the 10th earl of Westmorland, had remarried Dundas’s aunt. This was Lord Villiers, the eldest son of the 5th earl of Jersey, who was made lord chamberlain of the household in July. He received the support of the London freemen at a dinner, 13 July. The barrister William Hughes Hughes* of Ryde, Isle of Wight, accepted a requisition to enter as an Ultra and received a significant degree of support at a meeting, 29 June. The possibility of Bernal being displaced by the other two candidates led to energetic canvassing, but Hughes Hughes was also in contention at Oxford, and after much indecision he finally ‘bolted’ there a week before the poll, 28 July. He was replaced by John Mills* of Bisterne, Hampshire, who many mistakenly thought would be sympathetic to government, but who in fact proved to be a stoutly independent Whig.43 Bernal was forced on to the defensive on the hustings, 2 Aug. 1830, when he spoke in justification of colonial slavery. Villiers denied that his father had told Hughes Hughes that two-thirds of the 1,500 Oxford electors would be for him, with all his Rochester expenses paid, if he cleared the way for Villiers, or that the lease of Boley Hill (which had in fact been settled years before) had been granted to the influential alderman Samuel Baker, in order to secure his return. Mills declared his independence, but was also careful not to make too explicit his support for economical and parliamentary reform.44 The candidates were nearly equal at the end of the first day, but although many Pink plumpers were given for Mills on the second, the large number of splits between Purples and Blues meant that he was forced to retire on the third.45

Lord Mahon’s* prior opinion, given in an undated letter to his mother Lady Stanhope, that Villiers ‘will have a sharp contest and must spend several thousands’, was confirmed by Edward Ellice*, who informed Lord Grey at about this time that ‘the Jerseys are very angry with Johnny Mills, and Villiers was only secured by coalescing with Bernal, and at a great expense’ of almost £10,000.46 One estimate put Villiers’s expenses at only £2,500, with Bernal’s at £4,000 and Mills’s at £1,200, while another reckoned £10,000 to have been spent in total.47 Mills received support from 44 per cent of the total of 778 voters (a turnout of 73 per cent), compared to 55 and 54 per cent respectively for Bernal and Villiers. Both successful candidates received just over 70 per cent of their total number of votes in splits with each other, while Bernal got 20 per cent in plumpers and Villiers 12 per cent. About 70 per cent of Mills’s votes were plumpers (at least 25 fewer than the 265 that he claimed after the contest), and the rest of his votes were split roughly equally between the other two. The county and out-county voters comprised about the same proportion of the electorate as in 1826, but unlike then the Whig and Tory candidates each did better among them (they accounted for 55 per cent of Bernal’s total number of votes and 52 per cent of Villiers’s), and the third candidate did proportionately better among the voters resident in Rochester, Chatham and Strood (they represented 59 per cent of his total votes). About 580 (or 69 per cent) of the voters in 1826 can be identified as having voted again in 1830, revealing the extent of bipartisan splitting. Thus 42 per cent of Dundas’s plumpers of 1826 split for Bernal and Villiers, 20 per cent plumped for Mills and only 18 per cent plumped for Villiers. Similarly, although 45 per cent of Bernal’s plumpers of 1826 plumped for him again in 1830, 41 per cent split between him and Villiers. Surprisingly, 13 per cent of those who had split for Bernal and Dundas in 1826 voted for Bernal alone in 1830, but 65 per cent of them split between him and Villiers. Of those who had split between Dundas and Armstrong, 22 per cent split for Bernal and Villiers, but Bernal gained 47 per cent of them as plumpers in 1830.48

After the distress experienced in the city early the previous year, to the relief of which both Members had contributed, Rochester saw some of the disturbances that swept through Kent in late 1830. Clifton attempted to establish a Cobham troop of yeomanry cavalry at a meeting there in November, but the east Kent farmers called instead for an abatement of rents and tithes in order to restore order.49 In consequence of a number of meetings in Rochester, several anti-slavery petitions were presented from its inhabitants and Dissenting communities, 25 Mar. 1831.50 The continued existence of a high proportion of non-resident electors was considered an electoral abuse and, not surprisingly, local opinion favoured parliamentary reform; as shown, for example, by the petition of the inhabitant householders in its favour, which was presented by Thomas Law Hodges, the county Member, 26 Feb.51 However, in the Grey ministry’s original proposals, the borough was intended to be united with Chatham and Strood to create a much larger two Member constituency. Although not opposed to moderate reform, the corporation decided that this would be prejudicial to the privileges of the freemen, 17 Mar., and its petition against the bill was brought up in the Commons by Bernal, 19 Mar., and in the Lords by the 9th earl of Haddington (as Binning now was), 21 Apr.52 A Chatham reform petition was presented by Hodges, 16 Mar., but Villiers brought up the Rochester resident freemen’s petition against the bill, 22 Mar.53 In the prevailing pro-reform mood at the general election that spring, Villiers, after an initial canvass, decided to withdraw to a safe seat at Minehead. Bernal and Mills were adopted as reform candidates, 25 Apr., and there was no expectation of a contest.54 A subscription, which was headed by 100 guineas from Barnett, was begun to return them free of expense, 2 May. Although Mills hinted that he might not agree with his constituents on all the details of the bill, both candidates pledged to support reform and were elected unopposed.55 On 3 May The Times commented that

local jealousies and differences (upon which third men have been supported lately) were thrown aside and forgotten. The reformers felt that they had a duty to do and they did it, heedless of the ghost of an old Tory party which still flits about Rochester, and they are honestly proud of the result of their exertions.

Both Members spoke at a Rochester reform dinner, 8 June 1831.56 The corporation offered to make the new Kent Member, Thomas Rider of Boughton Place, near Maidstone, an honorary freeman, but he declined because he would have been obliged by his oath to defend the rights of the non-freemen, whereas he supported the bill under which they were due to be disfranchised; however, he took up his freedom after the passage of the bill the following year.57

The corporation appointed a deputation to attend Lord John Russell, the paymaster-general, on his proposals, 15 June 1831, and its memorial to the prime minister, 25 June, argued that Rochester should continue as a separate borough as it already had a sufficient number of houses valued at over £10, and because its freemen would be outnumbered by the addition of those from Chatham.58 When the matter was discussed in the House, 9 Aug., Bernal was in the chair and therefore neutral, but Mills and Villiers argued that, especially given strong local animosities, the technically distinct jurisdictions of Rochester and Chatham should be respected and that the admiralty influence at Chatham should be excluded from the original constituency. Tory opponents of the bill took the chance to charge government with inconsistencies over combining boroughs and joined with local Members such as Hodges, who stated that he had a Chatham petition to present for a separate representation, and Charles James Barnett, son of James and Member for Maidstone, who however thought that the dispute should not be allowed to endanger the bill.59 After its defeat in the Lords, a meeting of at least 4,000 people agreed reform addresses to the king and to ministers, 12 Oct. Thanks were also given to the city and county Members, as they were by the corporation, 17 Oct., to whom they promised to continue to support the measure.60 In the revised bill, the only changes proposed for Rochester were the additions of the extra-parochial precincts of the city and parts of Strood and Frindsbury parishes, raising the population of the borough to an estimated 12,058, with just over 1,000 £10 houses. Chatham, with a similar number of £10 houses and an estimated population of 19,000, was given one seat.61 This appeased the reformers in Rochester, but opinion in Chatham was divided and a meeting there called to support the change ended by voting to address ministers to unite the towns, 17 Jan. 1832.62 A spontaneous gathering at a common hall in Rochester, 11 May, the establishment of political unions there and in Strood, 9, 28 May, and the petition of the working classes of Rochester, Chatham and Strood for the speedy passage of the bill, which was presented to the Lords, 4 June 1832, indicated a widespread degree of reforming zeal.63

The latent divisions within Rochester were displayed during the contested mayoral election in September 1831, when Larkin attempted to have Alderman Charles Saunders chosen ahead of Edward Manclark, who had previously served in the office. Larkin was attacked by Alderman Nicholson for being connected with Bernal, who had supported Hume’s proposal to disfranchise ordnance officers, of which he was himself one, and Saunders was resoundingly beaten.64 Hostilities were also resumed over the bridge. Since 1827 the trustees had supported a plan to carry out only minor repairs and to reserve funds for building a replacement. They had also several times applied to government for funds, but, despite being unsuccessful, and having angered the local population by planning to take the approach road away from Strood, they persisted in the project.65 In early 1832 they prepared an application to Parliament for the construction of a new bridge and annoyed the corporation by failing to consult them first.66 The trustees were forced to hold a public meeting, 27 Feb., and to publish Reports and Documents relating to Rochester Bridge, but they failed to convince their detractors, and a pamphlet war ensued on whether the owners of the so-called contributory lands would be obliged to make large future payments towards the costs of the development.67 The row led to a sharp contest over the election of trustees, 4 May, when the senior warden, Larkin, defended his tenure, but was strongly opposed. At Darnley’s suggestion, Rider was elected with a substantially new committee of assistants and all plans for a new bridge were subsequently postponed.68 Because of dissatisfaction with Mills’s anti-government votes, especially on reform, attempts were made to displace him at the general election of 1832, when Rochester had a registered electorate of 973, but he and Bernal were eventually returned against the rival Whig, George Lewis Newnham Collingwood of Hawkhurst. Lieutenant-Colonel William Leader Maberly* of Shirley House, Surrey, was elected at Chatham, where the electorate numbered 677, after a contest with the Whig lawyer Thomas Erskine Perry†, son of James Perry of the Morning Chronicle.69 The municipal corporations report of 1835 recommended against uniting the local authorities of the two boroughs, because of the divisions which remained between the towns, and commented on the relative economic decline of Rochester.70