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Resisting “Arithmocracy”: Parliament, Community, and the Third Reform Act

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Matthew Roberts
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 381 - 409
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2011

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References

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15 The phrase belongs to the late-Victorian idealist Sidney Webb and is the title of Den Otter’s monograph (British Idealism). For the recent emphasis on community by political historians, see Biagini, Eugenio F., Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge, 1992), chap. 6Google Scholar; Biagini, Eugenio F., ed., Citizenship and Community: Liberals, Radicals and Collective Identities in the British Isles, 1865–1931 (Cambridge, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bromund, Ted R., “Uniting the Whole People: Proportional Representation in Great Britain, 1884–5, Reconsidered,” Historical Research 74, no. 183 (February 2001): 77–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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72 Gladstone, speech to the House Commons, 6 November 1884, PD, vol. 293 (1884), col. 1127.

73 Manchester Courier, 15 October 1884; The Times, 15 October 1884, calculated that, on the basis of population, Ireland was entitled to 95 MPs (not 103), Wales 25 (not 30), and Scotland 69 (not 58).

74 Gladstone to Hartington, 29 December 1883, Gladstone MS 44146, fol. 267, reprinted in The Gladstone Diaries: With Cabinet Minutes and Prime-Ministerial Correspondence, ed. Matthew, H. C. G., 14 vols. (Oxford, 1968–1994), 11:87Google Scholar; Spencer to W. V. Harcourt, 30 December 1883, Harcourt MS 42, reprinted in The Red Earl: The Fifth Earl Spencer, ed. Gordon, Peter, 2 vols. (Northampton, 1987), 1:260Google Scholar.

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82 Newcastle Chronicle, 29 February 1884, cited in Biagini, Liberty, 317 n. 28.

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86 Salisbury to Northcote, 10 October 1884, Salisbury Papers, HH.

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98 General meeting, Proportional Representation Society, 3 December 1884, Electoral Reform Society, London, ERS/P7/1.

99 Chadwick, “Role of Redistribution,” 681.

100 Rossiter et al., Boundary Commissions, 42.

101 Wright, Democracy and Reform, 107. They escaped the attention of even Seymour’s fastidious eye; although he was one of the first historians to note that the population principle had triumphed only in a qualified sense by 1885. Seymour, Electoral Reform, 516.

102 Boundary Commission, Instructions to the Commissioners, Parliamentary Papers (PP), 1884–85 [C. 4269], 1–2.

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117 Gladstone’s memorandum of 3 January 1884, Gladstone Add. MS 44768, fol. 3, BL; Gladstone to Hartington, 29 October 1884, Devonshire MS 340.1562, Chatsworth House.

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122 Stanhope to Northcote, 21 November 1884, Salisbury MS E/7/730–31, HH. There seems to have been a difference of opinion, though, over just how many Tories were hostile to single-member constituencies. Lord Cranbrook by contrast believed there “to have been a strong Conservative current towards one member constituencies and the test of population” (Diary of Gathorne Hardy, 546).

123 Salisbury to Balfour, 30 November 1884, Salisbury MS E/2/119, HH.

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129 Press cuttings, 14 January 1885, ERS P7/1.

130 Liverpool Courier, 2 December 1884.

131 Yorkshire Post, 5 December 1884.

132 Leonard Courtney, speech to the House of Commons, 4 December 1884, PD, vol. 294 (1884), cols. 664–65.

133 George Goschen, speech to the House of Commons, 4 December 1884, PD, vol. 294 (1884), cols. 719, 721.

134 Courtney, speech to the House of Commons, 4 December 1884, PD, vol. 294 (1884), col. 674.

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138 Viscount Crichton, speech to the House of Commons, 4 December 1884, PD, vol. 294 (1884), cols. 692–93; Sir John Lubbock, speech to the House of Commons, 2 March 1885, PD, vol. 294 (1885), cols. 1814–15.

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154 Salisbury to Dilke, 18 November 1884, Dilke Add. MS 43876, fols. 19–20, BL. Dilke confided to his diary that Salisbury’s hesitancy would have enabled the government to avoid single members had they fought upon the point, but Dilke owned that “as I liked them myself, I fought the other way.” Gwynn and Tuckwell, Sir Charles Dilke, 2:74.

155 Northern Echo, 3 December 1884.

156 Dunbabin, “Electoral Reforms,” 108.

157 Birmingham Daily Gazette, 2 December 1884; Birmingham Daily Mail, 2 December 1884; Birmingham Daily Post, 2 December 1884.

158 Gladstone, speech to the House of Commons, 4 December 1884, PD, vol. 294 (1884), col. 685.

159 Courtney, speech to the House of Commons, 4 December 1884, PD, vol. 294 (1884), col. 669; John Bryce, speech to the House of Commons, 4 December 1884, PD, vol. 294 (1884), cols. 743–44.

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173 Grey, “Proportional versus Majority Representation,” 19–20.

174 Chamberlain to Dilke, n.d., Dilke MS 43886, fol. 262, BL.

175 Hayes, Third Reform Act, 286.