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Where you are: Local History -
Snippets - 1741 Parliamentary Election |
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Tickhill and the 1807 General Election |
Sixty six years after the County
Constituency of
Yorkshire
had a contested parliamentary election, as outlined in the previous
Newsletter, 1807 saw another electoral contest.
Yorkshire was one of only 13 counties which held a poll
for this General Election. Many people in Tickhill eligible to vote
between 1741 and 1807 would not have had the opportunity to do so in
their lifetime. The three candidates for the two seats in the 1807
election were Henry Lascelles, son of the Earl of Harewood, Charles
William Wentworth Fitzwilliam known as Viscount or Lord Milton, son
of Earl Fitzwilliam, and William Wilberforce. 1807 was the year that
Wilberforce's efforts led to an Act abolishing the slave trade a few
weeks before the election was called. Wilberforce had been returned
unopposed at four previous elections, having served as one of
Yorkshire's MPs since 1784. Wilberforce topped the poll,
held between 20 May and 5 June 1807 at
York Castle, with 11,808 votes, followed by
Lord Milton with 11,177 votes, both of whom were duly elected. Henry
Lascelles only just missed being elected with 10,990 votes. He had
previously been MP for
Yorkshire from 1796-1806.
This election was the most costly one fought in
Yorkshire
to that point, with the three candidates spending nearly £¼ million
between them, food, alcohol, transport and printing accounting for
some of the costs. A whole range of posters, broadsheets, handbills
and even song sheets were circulated, such as a handbill in
which Wilberforce wrote: 'My
conduct will continue to be governed by those constitutional and
independent principles which have received your approbation during
three and twenty years'.
In 1741 the great majority of Tickhill's 61 voters had supported the
Tory candidate. In 1807 the local voters' preferences now favoured a
Whig candidate, as shown in the table below. Only 28 of the 85
voters voted for 2 candidates, 22 of them for Wilberforce and
Lascelles. As in 1741 the Tickhill voters were predominantly
involved in farming (42) and trade (34), (the poll book and the copy
printed in York
now recording occupations, unlike the 1741 poll book). Five voters
were listed as esquire or gentleman, while 4 were in professions: a
surgeon, a land surveyor, a schoolmaster and Tickhill's vicar, the
Revd T F Twigge, who voted for Wilberforce and Milton.
Overall these local results show that Wilberforce's considerable
efforts to abolish the slave trade did not carry the most weight in
this area, but, of the two Tory candidates, Wilberforce was more
popular than Lascelles, except in Bawtry. Presumably the Fitzwilliam
family from Wentworth had a greater influence in this part of the
county than had the more northerly based Harewood family. More
significantly, the chairman of Lord Milton's election committee in
this area was William Wrightson of Cusworth Hall, a man with
considerable local influence. Every one of Wadworth's 17 voters
chose Lord Milton, no one using their second vote; this was not the
only village in south Yorkshire
with a similar voting pattern. In the local communities the number
of men who travelled to
York
to vote had increased since 1741, except for Maltby and Wadworth.
The new parliament following the 1807 election saw a narrow Tory
victory.
|
Total Voters |
Votes Cast |
|
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Wilberforce
(Tory) |
Lascelles
(Tory) |
Milton
(Whig |
| Bawtry |
34 |
15 |
21 |
13 |
| Doncaster |
208 |
82 |
53 |
151 |
| Maltby |
9 |
3 |
0 |
9 |
| Rotherham |
107 |
32 |
3 |
104 |
| Tickhill |
85 |
36 |
24 |
55 |
| Wadworth |
17 |
0 |
0 |
17 |
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