14 - Choosing Robert Lowe

Summary

After the hope that a seat in the House of Commons would be given to the University of London was disappointed, in 1859–61, it was to be five years before the mood in Parliament shifted decisively, again, towards further reform of the representation of the people. After Palmerston’s death in October, 1865, Russell’s short-lived Government tried to introduce legislation, but its members were divided, and took the opportunity of defeat by the Opposition on an amendment to resign. Lord Derby formed an Administration, with Disraeli leading in the Commons, in June, 1866, and fourteen months later the Royal Assent was given to the Second Reform Bill. The Liberal proposals on redistribution, in 1866, and the Conservative Bill of 1867, both provided a seat for the University of London, but the settling of its details was not without drama.

The University was not backward in demanding attention to its claim. A special meeting of Convocation was requested of the Chairman in February, and held on 21 March 1866, when a petition was called for, to be presented to Parliament, asking for two seats, which would have given London the same representation as Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin. Senate met a week later, and set up a committee to prepare a memorial in consultation with the Annual Committee of Convocation. This was done at high speed; a memorial was sent to the Prime Minister, and petitions were despatched to both Houses of Parliament, in the first week of April. They rehearsed at length the history of the University and of the earlier agreements in principle by Governments to grant representation. And they packed the paragraphs with statistics of matriculation, of graduation, and rate of growth, in support of its comparability with the older universities and its entitlement to two seats. The Petitions to Parliament were presented by Granville in the Lords and by Lord Stanley in the House of Commons.

But when Gladstone introduced the proposals for redistribution, on 7 May 1866, they provided only one seat for the University. As would have been expected, there was an immediate demand in Convocation for pressure to be brought by a deputation to Russell and Gladstone for the addition of a second seat; but in the Annual Committee, on 11 May, Storrar suggested that the joint comittee of Senate and Convocation ought also to settle some other important issues.