Warwickshire’s population increased by 23 per cent from 274,392 in 1821 to 336,610 in 1831, when almost 60 per cent of its 72,357 families were employed in trade, manufacture and handicraft, and 22 per cent in agriculture.1 Its politics reflected the rivalry between the commercial and manufacturing interests of unfranchised Birmingham (population 85,416 in 1821; 110,914 in 1831),2 known for its anvil, arms and metal trades, which dominated the populous north-western hundred of Hemlingford (population 150,124 in 1821; 193,174 in 1831), and the mainly agricultural hundreds of Barlichway, Kington and Knightlow to the south and east, where the gentry guarded their independence from aristocratic intrusion. The county’s peers included the Tories Francis Seymour Conway†, 2nd marquess of Hertford, lord lieutenant, 1816-22, and his heirs; Hertford’s successor in the lieutenancy, Henry Richard Greville†, 3rd earl of Warwick; Heneage Finch†, 5th earl of Aylesford (from 1821 Warwick’s brother-in-law); Henry Peyto Verney, Lord Willoughby de Broke, and the Grenvillite Henry Willoughby, 6th Baron Middleton. A minority compromised the Whig Craven influence, and the 2nd Viscount Hood was their main spokesman in this period. From Edgbaston, the Gough Calthorpe family (Barons Calthorpe), who gravitated from Whiggism to Toryism after 1820, sought to influence Birmingham, while concentrating on the development of their newly acquired Hampshire estates. Families with traditional stakes in the representation and electioneering included Bracebridge of Atherton, Dugdale of Merevale, Evelyn of Shuckburgh Park, Gregory of Stivichall, Holbech of Farnborough, Lawley of Canwell Priory, Leigh of Stoneleigh Abbey, Lucy of Charlecote, Mordaunt of Walton, Skipwith of Newbold Pacey, Townsend of Honington Hall and Eardley Wilmot of Berkswell Hall. The borough of Tamworth, influenced by the Peels and Middletons, was situated at the northern extremity of the county on the Staffordshire border. To the south, the county and assize town of Warwick had become increasingly susceptible to Birmingham’s influence since the opening of the Warwick-Birmingham canal (1793), while the manufacturing town of Coventry was a county corporate whose freeholders’ right to vote at Warwickshire elections was tested in this period.3

The hundred of Hemlingford had determined the result at the last poll in 1774, and it was subsequently accepted that one Member should attend to Birmingham interests, though neither could ignore them. Members’ conduct was closely monitored in the local press and reviewed at pre-election county meetings in Warwick.4 These were boisterous gatherings, where nominations were brokered with a view to influencing policy and avoiding the expense and disruption of a contest. Both sitting Members, the anti-Catholic Dugdale Dugdale, first returned as a replacement for Sir John Mordaunt in 1802, and his colleague since 1804, Mordaunt’s son Charles, had tended to support Lord Liverpool’s administration, albeit not slavishly, and were requisitioned to stand again in 1820.5 The informal election of Sir Charles Wolseley of Wolseley, Staffordshire as the Birmingham reformers’ ‘legislatorial attorney’ in July 1819, unrest after Peterloo and manoeuvring by the Birmingham banker and political economist Richard Spooner*, a principal speaker at a recent radical ‘distress’ meeting in the town, rendered Mordaunt’s retirement ‘inauspicious’ despite his failing health.6 The Members issued a single address and were proposed jointly at the county meeting, 8 Mar. 1820, by the quarter sessions chairman and heir to Newbold Pacey Hall, Sir Gray Skipwith, with John Eardley Eardley Wilmot seconding, and at the election by Skipwith and his father-in-law Gore Townsend of Honington Hall. Mordaunt, the main speaker on both occasions, praised Dugdale, expressed support for the ministry’s repressive Six Acts and promised action to remedy agricultural and commercial distress.7 Addresses of condolence and congratulation to George IV, proposed and seconded by Aylesford and Middleton, were adopted at a poorly attended meeting chaired by Dugdale, 18 Mar. 1820.8

Distress was rife in all sectors of the economy when, in Mordaunt’s absence, 4, 11, 16, 17 May 1820, the landowners’ numerous petitions for agricultural protection were presented by Dugdale. He and Spooner, who had come in for Boroughbridge, brought up conflicting ones from Birmingham opposing commercial restrictions and the corn laws, 12 May, 5 June, and their promoters, the Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce, sent a delegation to lobby ministers for inquiry.9 The Lords received similar petitions, 25 May.10 Spooner was unseated on petition, 7 June, and, to the dismay of his banking partner Thomas Attwood† and the Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce, the prayer of a controversial Birmingham petition entrusted to him seeking safeguards (by means of standing orders) against the covert introduction of legislation and restrictive clauses hostile to trade was understated by its Commons presenter Dugdale and did not yield the major debate and concessions envisaged, 12 June 1820.11

A Birmingham meeting chaired by the high bailiff and future political unionist Joshua Scholefield† rallied behind Spooner when Mordaunt’s retirement on health grounds, privately announced in August, but effected, 7 Oct. 1820, created a vacancy. A subscription was raised for Spooner and handbills circulated professing his independence from aristocratic influence and commitment to agriculture, manufacturing and trade.12 A campaign was already under way to bring in Middleton’s brother-in-law Francis Lawley, a Whig moderate popular with the squires and resident at Middleton Hall. He currently had little independent property in the county, but his lineage (his father had represented the county, 1780-93, and his brother Sir Robert Lawley† canvassed), a recent inheritance of £200,000 and a London house in Grosvenor Square equipped him for a contest.13 The tradesmen of Birmingham mustered for Spooner at public meetings, supported by the freeholders of Coventry, and organized by the ‘liberal’ ribbon manufacturer Charles Lilly to promote their local interests; and committees for both candidates met in the market towns of Alcester, Birmingham, Brailes, Coleshill, Coventry, Nuneaton, Rugby, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon, Tamworth and Warwick.14 By hiring all available transport, Lawley’s committee foiled an attempt to deny him a hearing by swamping the nomination meeting with Birmingham agitators. Spooner’s friends retaliated with handbills cautioning ‘the Birmingham traitors’ against travelling in these ‘hearses and mourning coaches’ and reserved transport, including canal boats, for the election.15 At Warwick, 24 Oct., Skipwith and the Member for Dundalk, George Hartopp of Sutton Coldfield, nominated Lawley, who promised diligence and support for agriculture, commerce, the constitution and temperate reform. Spooner’s sponsors Sir Robert Peel† of Drayton, Staffordshire, and Charles Bowyer Adderley of Hams Hall16 commended his commercial expertise and high social standing. Abraham Spooner Lillingston, squire (by right of his wife) of Elmdon, testified to his kinsman Spooner’s understanding of and commitment to agriculture. Spooner reserved his vituperative rhetoric for Skipwith, forced a few remarks from Lawley and won the show of hands. The sheriff, Christopher Roberts Wren of Wroxhall, announced a poll for 31 Oct.17 National party labels were not applied and the contest was variously portrayed as one between agriculture and commerce, the high and low parties, country and town.18 The candidates were proposed as previously on the hustings, a wooden four-booth structure, 27 yards by 16, fronting the George inn. Attwood, an additional speaker for Spooner, praised him as a local commercial man and criticized the aristocracy for setting the county and country on the road to ruin. A hostile mob denied Lawley a hearing, but it was made known that he would ‘poll to the last’.19 Anti-Spooner squibs and speeches associated Dick Spooner with free trade, ‘visionary policies’ and the unruly Birmingham rabble, and criticized the henpecked ‘hay dealer’ Lillingston; others puffed ‘Lawley and the constitution - patriot and friend’. Spooner’s supporters highlighted his independence and business acumen and attacked ‘the Lawless enemy’, the corn laws and peers of all parties.20 The outcome, had it been in doubt, was settled on the second day when the sheriff’s assessor Clarke rejected Spooner’s request for additional polling booths for the hundred of Hemlingford and accepted Lawley’s counsel Harrison’s submissions against accepting Coventry freeholds as voting qualifications. The Coventry ‘voters’ remained a ‘formidable presence’ at the election, but only the small minority with freeholds elsewhere were polled. The rest (2,544 according to Spooner’s lists; 673 rising to 893 according to Lawley’s; 1,556 according to The Times) had their names and preference for Spooner registered.21 On 3 Nov., with the poll at Lawley 1,338, Spooner 557,22 the attorney John Harris informed Spooner’s kinsman the 3rd Lord Calthorpe, who with George Lucy* of Charlcote and others had directed his tenants to remain ‘neuter’:

The high party have outmanoeuvred their antagonists in the polling arrangements: it seems each hundred has its separate polling booth, and ... Lawley having nearly all the landed interests proceeds with great dispatch in his country voters, which secure him a daily majority. But Hemlingford, although equal perhaps to all the other hundreds, has only one booth; and at this ... Lawley’s party have planted a very tedious and snappish lawyer as examiner in chief of the goodness of the votes. Here ... Spooner’s chief strength lies, and his unfortunate friends as they present themselves to tender their qualifications, are obliged to go into quite a history of their property. In the meantime, this delay occasions a great crush at the bar, so that it is almost impossible to imagine the inconvenience and vexations which the crowd without and the lawyer within are joint means of creating. Indeed several whom I have seen have declared the county shall be without Members for them, rather than they would again subject themselves to such annoyances.23

Harris also noted the resentment generated by the parsimony towards their freeholders of Spooner’s committee, of which Attwood was treasurer, and how this contrasted with their generous use of subscription funds for their own accommodation. He also thought that their attorneys feared they would be unpaid and that a backlash against the Birmingham bank was likely.24 Troops and special constables kept the poll open for seven days until 7 Nov. 1820, when Lawley was declared the victor by 2,153-969. Handbills claimed the same by 3,513-2,146 for Spooner, subject to a favourable Commons ruling on the Coventry votes.25 Writing that day to John Wodehouse*, Mordaunt described the proceedings as

a most blackguard attempt of a party at Birmingham to assert their right to a commercial Member in the person of an adventurer for a seat in Parliament without worth or principle of any sort, ending in cajoling about 700 lower freeholders, chiefly of that town. The county is strangely circumstanced as to proper people, with the exception of two - Sir Gray Skipwith, and W. Holbech. The former an old heir apparent to about £4,000 a year, with 15 children, and at present nothing. The latter not ambitious of the honour, and also with a large family. All the rest are too old, too young, or mad, or fools.26

The pollbook was authorized for publication by Lawley’s agent Unett and omits the Coventry freeholders. It shows the expected overwhelming majorities for Lawley, who led throughout, in the hundreds of Barlichway (353-94), Kington (535-64) and Knightlow (751-141). Spooner carried Birmingham by 367-32 and Hemlingford, where he outpolled Lawley by 180-85 on the last day, by 670-514. With the single exception of Solihull (17-36), Lawley had clear, if reluctant, majorities in the market towns and carried Warwick decisively (142-26).27 Petitions from Spooner and certain Coventry freeholders, 8 May 1821, argued that the city had ‘anciently formed part of the county’ and could not subsequently be deprived by charter of that status. They appealed to precedents established in rulings on Gloucester, Durham and York. No evidence submitted showed that Coventry freeholders had voted at previous elections, contributed directly to the land tax and county rates or attended the sheriff’s court. On 11 May 1821 a committee, chaired by Canning’s nephew Lord Titchfield, ruled that the ‘right of voting ... is in the freeholders of the county of Warwick only, and that no person, in virtue of any freehold situate in the county of the city of Coventry has any right to vote at any election of Members for the county of Warwick’.28

The roles of Lord Hood as chamberlain of Queen Caroline’s household and Dr. Samuel Parr of Hatton as her chaplain heightened interest in her prosecution. Mass meetings in Birmingham, Coventry and Warwick supported the campaign on her behalf and Stratford-upon-Avon was also illuminated in November 1820 to mark the abandonment of the bill of pains and penalties. The Commons received petitions for restoring her name to the liturgy from Southam, 13 Feb., and Birmingham, 30 Apr. 1821. The latter, from the gunsmiths and radical manufacturers, also advocated parliamentary reform and Birmingham’s enfranchisement as remedies for distress. Birmingham and Stratford-upon-Avon sent loyal addresses to the king.29 A distress petition proposed by Attwood, an advocate of a paper currency, at a Birmingham town meeting, 20 Aug. 1820, created a stir when presented to the Commons, 8 Feb. 1821, and landowners and occupiers countywide petitioned both Houses in 1821 and 1822 for action to combat agricultural distress.30 The omission of Dugdale and Lawley from the agriculture select committee fuelled local unease, and the only Warwickshire witness heard was Attwood, whose testimony and supporting statistics highlighted the harm caused to agriculture by the post-war recession in the Birmingham metal trades and the precipitate return to the gold standard. He failed to influence policy.31 Publication of the 1822 committee’s reports prompted petitioning against both Ricardo’s and the government’s proposals, and the admission of bonded corn for milling and re-export was a particular grievance.32 The market towns petitioned against corn law reform, 26-28 Apr., and Nuneaton and the Birmingham Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce for it, 25 Apr., 9 May 1825.33

The Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce forwarded most Birmingham business to Dugdale and the Staffordshire Members, Littleton and Spooner’s brother-in-law Sir Charles Wrottesley (from 1823), who were assisted, from 1824, by Lawley. They submitted petitions to the Commons advocating the revival of the select committee on foreign trade with a view to ending the East India Company’s monopoly, 11 Feb., abolition of the navigation laws, 24 May 1822, equalization of East and West Indian sugar duties, 22 May 1823, and lower duties on legacies, 19 Feb., excise licences, 13 Mar. 1824, and metals, 11 Mar. 1825.34 The silk and ribbon weavers of Bedworth, Bucklington, Chilvers Coton and Nuneaton joined Coventry in petitioning against the silk manufacture bill, 16 July 1823, and for protection, 4 Mar. 1824, 23 Feb. 1826.35 The artisans of Birmingham petitioned for repeal of the combination laws before Hume secured it in 1824, and against their re-enactment in 1825, when, amid mounting violence, the manufacturers and master builders advocated ‘partial reinstatement’ and complained that the workers were ‘bound together by secret oaths’ and insisted on closed shops. Their petitions were presented and forwarded to the select committee, 29 Apr., 11 May, and they petitioned again, 4 July 1825.36 The Lords received a petition favourable to the Equitable Loan bill from Birmingham’s merchants and artisans, 26 May 1825.37 A Midland branch of the Catholic Association was established in Birmingham in 1824. With the Roman Catholic chapels it encouraged petitioning for Catholic relief after Daniel O’Connell* visited the town in 1825, but elsewhere, petitions submitted to both Houses and entrusted to Dugdale and the home secretary Peel for presentation to the Commons in 1821, 1822, 1823 and 1825, reflected the hostility of their instigators: the warden and Society of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, Atherstone, Charles Curtis, the rector of Solihull, and the clergy and parishioners of the Bedworth and Lichfield archdeaconry.38 Petitions were forthcoming for abolition of the death penalty for forgery, 23 May 1821, and repeal of the Insolvent Debtors Act, 14 Feb., 17 Mar. 1823, against the indictment in Demerara of the Methodist missionary John Smith, 27 May 1824, and annually between 1823 and 1826 against colonial slavery.39 The Quaker corn merchant and future political unionist Joseph Sturge became secretary of the Birmingham branch of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1826. Petitioning resumed in June 1828, and Dissenters and Wesleyan Methodists countywide made a significant contribution to the 1830-1 campaign.40 A petition to the Lords, 20 Dec. 1830, from the town and inhabitants of Stratford-upon-Avon also requested compensation for the planters.41

In the 1820 Parliament the Members successfully handled eight road bills renewing and extending turnpike trusts, chiefly in the Stratford-upon-Avon, Birmingham and Rugby areas. Legislation to improve the Stratford-upon-Avon and Birmingham and Liverpool junction canals was enacted in 1821 and 1826, the contentious Birmingham gas light bill, successfully opposed in 1824 by promoters of Gostling’s rival scheme, was carried in 1825 and the controversial Rugby School (estates) bill in 1826.42 The 1824 Birmingham Assay Masters Act regulating the hallmarking of gold and wrought silver plate was steered successfully through the Commons by Lawley.43 This, together with his prompt assistance and intervention with the Bank of England during the 1825-6 crisis, when Gibbins, Smith and Goode of Birmingham failed, Galton, Galton and James briefly closed and the Bank summoned Attwood, Calthorpe, Sir Robert Peel and Spooner for consultation, prompted the Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce publicly to endorse Lawley’s conduct and candidature with Dugdale in 1826.44 Eighteen months previously Lawley had ensured that there was no prospect of Coventry obtaining a new charter redefining its franchise.45

A notice in the Whig Warwick Advertiser, 2 July 1825, had urged ‘every freeholder to call on the assessor of his parish, and see that his own name or that of his tenant, is inserted ... [in] the land tax’ register to safeguard their votes; but the sudden economic downturn, fears of industrial unrest and the involvement of Birmingham and Warwick in the close contests at Bridgnorth and Coventry augured against a challenge at the 1826 general election.46 The Members issued perfunctory notices independently, 2, 3 June, and were readopted at the county meeting, 13 June, and returned unopposed on the 16th.47 Lawley was sponsored by Skipwith and the Rev. Walter Davenport Bromley of Wooton Hall at the county meeting, and by Skipwith and Chandos Leigh of Stoneleigh Abbey at the election. He acknowledged that his recent pro-Catholic votes and alignment with the Whig opposition had dismayed some of his previous supporters and cautioned against making corn law reform a strict party or urban-rural issue. Dugdale’s sponsors, Eardley Wilmot, the high bailiff of Birmingham James Taylor, and William Phillips Inge of Thorpe Constantine, praised his diligence and anti-Catholic votes.48 Exasperated by the combined failure of the Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce and the government to remedy distress, a delegation appointed at a Birmingham manufacturers’ meeting, 13 July 1826, lobbied ministers for assistance.49

Birmingham’s silverplate workers and Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce petitioned for corn law revision, 28 Nov., 6, 11 Dec. 1826, and the farmers of Alcester and Barlichway and at Warwick market did so against it, 26 Feb. 1827.50 Petitions to the Lords from Birmingham’s carpenters, joiners and sawyers, 16 Feb., 13 Mar. 1827, called for free trade but requested restrictions on the mechanization of their own trade that was threatening their employment.51 Both Members kept a low profile pending Canning’s succession to Lord Liverpool as premier in April 1827. In June, acting with Littleton, they endorsed and promoted Tennyson’s proposal to transfer East Retford’s seats to Birmingham under the disfranchisement bill, and a well-attended meeting convened by the 1827 high bailiff George Attwood and addressed by Timothy Smith, Scholefield, Attwood, George Nicholls, Spooner and the Quaker Richard Cadbury (all current or recent committee members of the Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce) petitioned unanimously for it, 29 June. The speeches and petition stressed the importance of representation by men of local knowledge, well-versed in commerce and manufacturing, and urged Parliament to determine the franchise and legislate to prevent ‘tumult, unnecessary expense and delay’. As in Manchester, which aspired to Penryn’s seats, a local committee (of 31) was appointed, which Attwood as chairman and the attorneys Joseph Parkes and Unett as secretaries soon dominated. They liaised between the ratepayers and Tennyson, who, following the proposal’s repeated rejection by the duke of Wellington’s ministry, despite strong lobbying by interested Members, Lord Calthorpe and a Birmingham delegation, declined attendance at a Birmingham public dinner in September to avoid becoming a hostage to the ratepayers’ demands for a ‘scot and lot’ franchise and the ballot. In October 1829 Birmingham Tories, their 1828 high bailiff Charles Shaw and the Birmingham Journal expressed no regret at the loss of the East Retford bill and dismissed ‘the advantage of sending representatives’ as ‘merely theoretical’ and ‘surely attended with disorder’.52 The same faction failed to prevent Birmingham adopting an address of condolence to the king, 24 Aug. 1827, following Canning’s death.53 Birmingham’s parties, Unitarians and Roman Catholics forwarded conflicting petitions on relief to both Houses, 24, 25 Apr., 16 May, 3 July 1828, 9, 10, 27 Mar., 6 Apr. 1829.54 Elsewhere, encouraged by the Birmingham Journal and Coventry Mercury, petitioning by the market towns and parishes on Catholic emancipation in 1829 remained heavy and predominantly hostile. Most petitions were forwarded to its diehard opponents Dugdale (whom Wellington had turned down for a peerage) and Lord Eldon for presentation.55

Several Birmingham congregations and the inhabitants and Dissenters of Nuneaton, Ruby, Sutton Coldfield and Stratford-upon-Avon petitioned the Commons for repeal of the Test Acts in 1827 and 1828, and the Lords in 1828.56 Increasing juvenile crime, especially in urban areas, was a major concern and the subject of a petition, backed by Dugdale, from the quarter sessions, approving their chairman Eardley Wilmot’s proposals for the summary conviction of juvenile first offenders to avoid demoralizing pre-trial committals, 6 Mar. 1828.57 Birmingham and Deritend petitioned for inquiry into alleged frauds exposed by Parkes, operated by the Birmingham court of requests, 26 June 1828.58 The Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce promoted petitioning for equalization of the sugar duties and against the East India Company’s trade monopoly, 14, 15 May, 20 June 1827, 7, 12 May 1829, 4, 5 Mar., 14 June 1830, and their counsel on the latter was heard at the bar of the Commons, 5 Mar. 1830.59 Birmingham meetings recommended the continued circulation of small bank notes, 15 July 1828 (for which Leamington also petitioned, 11 July), and the implementation of Attwood’s 31-point plan (afterwards 25-point) to reverse the damage caused by the 1819 currency change, 4 June 1829. Attwood’s theories found little support outside Birmingham, and although he commended the petition for drawing attention to genuine distress, its Commons presenter Lawley declined to endorse Attwood’s views.60 Lawley had no misgivings about voicing the arms manufacturers’ opposition to restrictive clauses in the Foreign Enlistment Act, 3 July 1828, and the proposed closure of the Birmingham ordnance proof house, 25 Mar. 1830.61 On 14 Dec. 1829, following an autumn of underemployment and unrest in Birmingham and Nuneaton, Attwood’s ‘Political Union for the Protection of Public Rights’ was founded. A mass meeting chaired by the wealthy rolling-mill owner George Frederick Muntz, after the high bailiff William Chance had refused a requisition, confirmed its rules, 25 Jan. 1830.62 Spooner and initially Parkes held aloof. Lord Blandford* declined membership, 29 Jan. 1830, but reform was included in Birmingham’s distress petition to the Lords, 29 Mar., and the Union promoted Attwood’s reform scheme at meetings in May and at the general election of 1830.63 With poor relief costs mounting, quarter sessions intervened and distress petitions prompted by the Warwick Advertiser, advocating repeal of the beer and malt duties as relief measures, were forthcoming from most rural parishes 18, 19 Feb., 2, 5, 17, 26 Mar. 1830.64 Similar ones presented on 5 Mar. from Nuneaton (which had also petitioned, 20 Mar. 1829) and the ‘respectable inhabitants and weavers of ribbons’ of Attleborough, Chilvers Coton and Stockingford, identified protection as the remedy.65 In a flurry of activity before the dissolution Birmingham sent up petitions seeking criminal law reform, 23 Mar., Jewish emancipation and changes in the prosecution of debtors and in rating, 17 May, and for compensation for trading losses sustained in the 1807 attack on Copenhagen, 1 July (and 22 Nov.) 1830.66 A new Birmingham improvement bill, which certain ratepayers had opposed, 22 Apr., received royal assent, 23 May 1828, and changes to several road and canal bills were enacted during this Parliament.67 However, the 1829 Warwick-Napton canal bill, which the Oxford canal’s shareholders, opposed proved impossible to carry despite numerous favourable Warwickshire petitions, and the ill-fated 1830 Birmingham-London canal bill breached standing orders. Its promoters, including the Birmingham attorney Eyre Lee, were found guilty of fraudulently entering fictitious names on the subscribers’ list.68 A new Birmingham-Liverpool canal bill was enacted, 22 Apr. 1831.69

Growing dissatisfaction with Lawley, who had supported emancipation, promoted the Whig revival in the Commons under Lord Althorp’s leadership, spurned protection as a remedy for distress and ridiculed Attwood and Blandford’s theories, prompted the Political Union, which had established branches in Coventry, Kenilworth, Leamington, Nuneaton, and Stratford-upon-Avon, to try their strength at the 1830 general election. Sponsoring a campaign against him, they directed members to attend the election and regaled Sir Francis Burdett*, a Warwickshire freeholder, and Edward Davies Davenport* at Birmingham’s Royal Hotel, 26 July.70 Dugdale’s nomination, 3 Aug., by the 1828-9 sheriff Sir George Chetwynd* of Grendon Hall and William Palmer Morewood of Ladbrooke, went off peacefully. Lawley’s, by Eardley Wilmot and a newcomer to the county, the Manchester cotton baronet Sir George Philips* of Weston House, was disputed by political unionists present, who criticized Dugdale’s support for the Ultra Tories and forced a firm, defensive and loudly applauded speech from Lawley, in which he paraded his diligence, independence and attention to local issues and select committees. At the election Lawley was sponsored as previously and Dugdale by Morewood and Charles Bertie Percy* of Guys Cliffe. They were returned unopposed, but not before a hoard of political unionists from Birmingham, Coventry and Nuneaton rushed in and had Lawley vigorously cross-examined and castigated by Attwood and the reforming cleric Dr. Arthur Savage Wade. Pledges on reform and retrenchment were demanded and refused, and violence erupted. Making himself heard above the mob, Lawley defended his voting record, especially his support for reform.71 The quest for separate representation for Birmingham again dominated speeches at a dinner in honour of Peel and Wellington, 23 Sept. 1830, which Tennyson attended at the high bailiff’s request.72

Dugdale voted in the Wellington ministry’s minority on the civil list and Lawley against them, 15 Nov. 1830. During Lord Grey’s ministry, most constituency business was entrusted to Lawley. As previously (1829), he failed to carry legislation for the Birmingham poor, or the King Edward Grammar School that Parliament, after restrictive clauses, breaching chancery rulings, were identified and drawn to the attention of Grey and lord chancellor Brougham by the astute Parkes, who also instigated hostile petitioning by the Dissenters and guardians.73 The loss of the Birmingham-Basford railway bills that session and the next and successive failures, since 1824, of schemes for railways to Liverpool and London became a major issue in Birmingham following the opening of the Liverpool-Manchester.74 The Political Union dominated Birmingham reform meetings on 13 Dec. 1830, 7, 11 Mar. 1831, when differences over the ballot and currency were aired but omitted from the resulting petitions to both Houses for reform, 1, 10 Mar., for the ministry’s bill, 19 Mar., and against any amendment to its principle in committee, 21 Mar. 1831.75 Wellington was reassured that interest in reform derived solely from distress and the under-representation of the manufacturing districts.76 The government’s bill proposed to increase the county’s representation to ten, giving two seats to Birmingham, which in 1830 paid £28,350 in assessed taxes, and doubling the county representation by dividing it in two. Coventry and Warwick’s representation was unchanged. Meetings in Nuneaton and Rugby and elsewhere endorsed it in petitions (approximately 15 before 26 Mar.), and canvassing for the new constituencies commenced immediately.77 Eardley Wilmot, who under the guise of establishing a county agricultural society with Lord Warwick as its patron had been manoeuvring since January, was the first candidate to declare.78 Dugdale, an unlikely reformer, voted for the bill’s second reading with Lawley, 22 Mar., and attended the county reform meeting at Warwick, 4 Apr., convened by the Tory sheriff Lucy in response to what originated as rival requisitions: to consider the bill and to petition for it. Many, including Burdett, whose name headed the former, Robert Knight* of Barrells, Philips and Spooner were signatories to both. Attwood, fellow union leaders, the Warwick Member John Tomes, Philips’s son and Edward Bolton Clive* only signed the latter, which was headed by Hood. The meeting, which Burdett failed to attend but Henry Hunt* witnessed, was adjourned from the county hall to Warwick racecourse to accommodate the political unionists (estimated at 10,000). It afforded an opportunity for Chetwynd, Philips, Knight’s son-in-law Edward Bolton King* of Umberslade, Chandos Leigh and Skipwith to prove their credentials as candidates, vetted by the squires and the Union. Lawley’s speech praising the bill was cheered. Dugdale’s was mistrusted, despite his pro-reform vote and endorsement by Lawley. The resulting petition, signed by Lucy on the meeting’s behalf, and entrusted to Lawley, approved the ‘whole and entire’ bill and contained a resolution pledging future votes to its supporters. Hood presented it to the Lords, 18 Apr. In the Commons, it remained unpresented when the bill’s defeat, 19 Apr., precipitated a dissolution and Dugdale’s resignation.79 Meanwhile, hostile notices highlighting Eardley Wilmot’s refusal to sign both requisitions and to attend at the racecourse, 4 Apr., proved telling despite his continued endorsement by what Nicholls termed ‘Attwood and his myrmydons of the Political Union’.80 From 23 Apr. the Midland Representative and Birmingham Herald, a stamped weekly reform paper edited by Bronterre O’Brien and ‘printed by Charles Watson of Aston, price 7d.’, was issued to counter unstamped sheets and the radical claims made by Hunt on the unionists’ behalf.81 Writing to Brougham after the county meeting on 4 May had placed his own and Eardley Wilmot’s aspirations on hold, Philips explained:

There was a great division amongst the reformers, which our adversaries would no doubt have taken advantage of. Sir Eardley Wilmot, I found, was so unpopular that his election was quite out of the question, though Attwood and the Birmingham Union had promised him their support: a circumstance which, Joseph Parkes told me, would operate much more to his injury than to his advantage. For a considerable time before the meeting in the county hall I saw no chance of an amicable arrangement, for no hint had been given that ... Wilmot would withdraw. At the solicitation of several gentlemen and ... Parkes among the best, I had agreed to allow myself to be put in nomination and to advance such a sum of money as they assured me would (added to their own subscriptions) be sufficient to ensure my election. Soon after these gentlemen had left me ... Lawley came to me and proposed to try whether he could bring about an accommodation with Attwood and others as might prevent a contest and relieve us from all the risks and expenses ... The result of his exertions and my own to the same object was a determination to have Sir Gray Skipwith nominated for his colleague, who next to himself is the most popular man in the county. To this determination I had such difficulty in obtaining the assent of Parkes and those who had acted with him and wished to nominate me that I had actually ended my speech in the county hall before they informed me that they would agree to support ... Skipwith. After many speeches, all in favour of reform and Lawley, interspersed with a good deal of compliment to myself, Parkes began to catechise ... Skipwith, whose answers satisfied him and everyone else. An unanimous vote of thanks was passed to ... Dugdale ... (without any allusion to his political conduct), and thanks ... voted to me for the part I had acted, which had saved them from that division among themselves which there had been so much cause to fear.82

According to newspaper reports, West of Oscote and Arthur Francis Gregory of Stivichall were other possible contenders. Lillingston, whose son Isaac had been expected to offer, was the first publicly to suggest Skipwith. Lawley, who travelled to the meeting with Skipwith, promoted this. The absent Eardley Wilmot’s proposer William Henry Bracebridge agreed and, assisted by the younger Lillingston, he obtained and circulated Eardley Wilmot’s endorsement of Skipwith. Gregory deemed Eardley Wilmot or Philips preferable and insisted that Skipwith was ‘on probation’.83 Having approved the candidates, the political unionists, a powerful force at the Warwick election for Tomes, Bolton King and the bill, stayed away from the county election, 10 May 1831. No opposition was raised to the return of Lawley, sponsored by Philips’s son and John Shuckburgh, and Skipwith, whose proposers Lillingston and Bracebridge hailed him as the heir of the 1769-80 Member, Sir Thomas Skipwith. The Members dined at the Warwick Arms, where the reported speeches were devoted to reform. Stratford-upon-Avon, where Skipwith was recorder, celebrated on the 13th.84 Warwickshire ‘reformers’ hostile to the bill issued a declaratory address that month, which the pro-reform Times dismissed as long in preparation and covertly procured. It described the 232 signatories as nine peers (Aylesford, Bradford, Calthorpe, Digby, Eastnor, Howe, Redesdale, Warwick and Willoughby de Broke), 15 clergymen, two bankers, two attorneys, four doctors, five surgeons, four surveyors, two gentlemen, two farmers, three freeholders, one merchant and others.85

Leamington Spa, 5 Oct., and Nuneaton, 11 Oct. 1831, petitioned the Lords for separate representation, and Leamington also petitioned the Commons for inclusion in the Warwick constituency, 28 Feb. 1832, but no alterations affecting Warwickshire were incorporated in the reintroduced or revised reform bills.86 Both Members supported them steadily, but voted for Lord Chandos’s clause to enfranchise £50 tenants-at-will, 18 Aug. 1831. Denials from ministers and the Members failed to quell the anti-reformers’ complaints that the Political Union controlled Warwickshire’s representation (17, 18, 24 Aug., 17 Dec. 1831).87 Opinion was divided over the merits of an east-west or north-south county division. In September the boundary commissioner Lefevre advised the latter ‘because it separates the agricultural from the manufacturing population’.88 A letter to The Times cautioned:

Lord Warwick, with his possé commitatus of deputy lieutenants and clerical magistrates may, in half the county ... heal the sore wounds of his brother, Sir Charles Greville, received in the recent family defeat in their county town; and if his lordship wants a little help ... Chandos Leigh with 22,000 acres may assist him. Sir George Chetwynd and the marquess of Hertford may appropriate and divide the other half.89

A meeting at Stratford-upon-Avon, 29 Sept., petitioned the Lords in the bill’s favour, the magistrates, clergy, bankers and inhabitants of Birmingham, Nuneaton and Rugby followed suit, and to prove that the Midlands were for the bill the Birmingham Political Union did the same, after consulting Grey, at a hurriedly convened mass meeting of delegates from the Staffordshire and Warwickshire unions on New Hall Hill, 3 Oct. Brougham presented their petition, signed by Attwood, next day.90 Parkes, who on 30 Sept. had rallied the leading Birmingham reformers to petition for peerage creations to carry the bill, wrote to Benjamin Grote, 4 Oct.:

You will see that we are, as usual here, acting politics wholesale. I had hard work to get the ‘Big Wigs’ up last Friday, but we had then an excellent meeting. ... One hundred thousand persons is no trifle! The tone just went up to the mark and not beyond. I had taken great pains to put Attwood and Edmonds in the right tune on the documents and speeches. I never saw anything so imposing, and shall never see the like again ... Two or three of us were up most of the night and again at six this morning, to get the report composed and fit to go to the printer which at half past seven we accomplished and sent it off to The Times and Chronicle. William Hone happened to be here so we set him to write to Barnes ... I have written to Althorp today saying that if Lord Grey, like the pilot, jumps overboard in the storm to save his character, we shall go to the bottom all together.91

Directly it was defeated, the bill’s architect Lord John Russell, Althorp and Skipwith wrote publicly to Attwood explaining that the measure had the king’s approval, urging moderation and requesting assistance. He obliged, and succeeded in damping down unrest with an address expressing support for the king and confidence in ministers and the bill’s enactment and by making light of the delay.92 Meetings countywide addressed the king in protest at the bill’s defeat and paid tribute to the Members for voting for it, as did the county meeting, 8 Nov. 1831, for which 144 signed the requisition headed by Charles Thockmorton, Charles Clifford and Skipwith. The Birmingham people ‘stayed away so as not to swamp it’ and Gregory, Hood, Sir George Philips, Bolton King, George Edmunds, Attwood, Chetwynd, Parkes and Wade were the main speakers. Lucy signed the address as sheriff, but stated his opposition to reform. Eardley Wilmot moved its presentation to Grey.93 Local ‘reaction’ was evident in the abortive attempt to form a Conservative Political Union in Birmingham in October 1831, disagreements over O’Connell’s criticism of the New Hall Hill petition, fears that the Birmingham proof house would be stormed, the timing of a dissolution and peerage creation.94 When the revised bill was jeopardized by defeat in the Lords, Grey’s threatened resignation and the king’s abortive overture to Wellington, Birmingham political unionists, who had massed with others on New Hall Hill on 7 May to press for its passage and the £10 vote, met spontaneously, 10 May 1832, and petitioned for withholding supplies pending its passage. Notices declared: ‘No taxes paid here until the reform bill is passed’. Talk of insurrection and a march on London persisted, but Attwood held the mob in check and rallied them to celebrate Grey’s ‘reinstatement’. The episode prompted a surge in Political Union membership.95 Concessions to the Dissenters facilitated the enactment of the 1831 Birmingham poor and grammar school bills.96 The struggle to carry other local legislation that Parliament crossed party lines and centred on the proposed London-Birmingham railway bill, which, despite both Members’ endeavours, foundered in the Lords, 12 July 1832, after falling prey to interested landowners.97 Bedworth, Chilvers Coton and Nuneaton, 23 Feb., 1 Mar., and Atherstone, 28 Feb., petitioned again for protection, which neither Member endorsed, and inquiry into the silk trade, which was conceded, 5 Mar.98 Interest in the anti-slavery campaign and the Maynooth grant, the subject of favourable Atherstone and Stratford-upon-Avon petitions, and opposition to the newspaper tax and the corn laws all revived with the bill’s passage.99

Its objective achieved, the Midland Representative and Birmingham Herald merged with the Birmingham Journal, 9 June 1832. Amid reform celebrations countywide, Lawley announced his retirement, 22 June. Attwood, Edmonds and Scholefield had previously declared for Birmingham, and Chetwynd, Eardley Wilmot, Philips and Skipwith for the county, and canvassing for the first post-reform election escalated.100 That month Lord Redesdale encouraged the Conservatives Evelyn John Shirley* of Ettington and Sir John Mordaunt (the late Member’s son) to test Warwickshire South. Dugdale’s son William Stratford Dugdale* declared for the Northern division in November.101 The boundary commissioners confirmed the arrangements for Birmingham, Coventry, Warwick and the county division: the Northern (population 255,855), comprising Hemlingford hundred (excluding Birmingham borough) and the Kirby and Rugby divisions of Knightlow (excluding Coventry borough), with polling to take place at Birmingham, Coventry, Dunchurch, Nuneaton, and the election town of Coleshill; the Southern (population 81,103), comprising the hundreds of Barlichway, Kington (excluding Warwick borough) and the Kenilworth and Southam divisions of Knightlow, were to poll at Henley-in-Arden, Kineton, Southam, Stratford-upon-Avon and the election town of Warwick.102 The registration of 3,740 voters in Warwickshire North and 2,550 in Warwickshire South before the 1832 general election was tightly fought.103 The Conservatives Eardley Wilmot and Dugdale defeated the Liberal Dempster Henning in the Northern division, where, though it was contested nine times, the Conservatives retained both seats until 1885. The Liberals Skipwith and Philips defeated Shirley in the Southern division in 1832, but the Conservatives took one seat in 1835 and the second in 1836. Contests in 1841, 1847 and 1852 failed to dent the Conservative majorities. Shared representation resumed briefly in 1857, but two Conservatives prevailed from 1859 and the Liberals next took a seat in 1880.