1883 Reform Act

The two-member Parliamentary constituency of Chester, at first solidly Liberal and still much influenced by the Grosvenors, was riddled with bribery until events at the election of 1880 brought matters to a head. Votes in Chester being freely bought for beer by both parties. Through the middle half of the 19th Century records kept by the candidates as elections approached show large sums being paid to local inn-keepers. There was a further source of corruption:: vast sums were also spent on "ribbons, cockades and favours" which signified voting intent, and which voters were often bribed to wear. Although freemen retained their parliamentary votes until 1918 and were already a significant proportion of the electorate before 1867, many (such as small shopkeepers) were too poor to qualify under the £10 householder franchise, and party agents on both sides paid admittance fees and a day's wages when they took up the freedom. There were almost 1,000 freemen voters in 1880 with many showing by cockades &c which side had bought their votes.

Reform
There had been calls for reform of the "Rotten Boroughs" for years. The introduction of the Secret Ballot in 1872 certainly reduced the level of corruption in parliamentary elections. However, some politicians still spent large sums of money persuading people to vote for them. Prime Minister William Gladstone believed this was unfair and in 1883 his government introduced proposals to stop candidates using their wealth to win elections. The Corrupt Practices Act of 1883 specified how much money candidates could spend during election time and banned such activities as the buying of food or drink for voters. The Corrupt Practices Act even stated the number of conveyances that could be used for bringing voters to the polls.

Events in Chester had a direct influence on the passage of the act - particularly as Gladstone's son was an MP for Chester. William Henry Gladstone (3 June 1840 – 4 July 1891) was born at the Gladstone home in Hawarden. He was the eldest son of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone and his wife Catherine née Glynne, and, MP for Chester from 1865 to 1868. In that election the Conservative, Chester-born Henry Cecil Raikes (his grandfather and namesake was buried under a literally "over-the-top" monument in Overleigh Cemetery), came fourth after vigorous interventions for W. H. Gladstone, by his father, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, against the normal understanding (at the time) that cabinet ministers did not campaign outside their own constituencies. The 1867 Reform Act more than doubled the electorate to some 6,000, adding more natural Conservatives than Liberals among the newly enfranchised working men, though also boosting support for Earl Grosvenor (especially given the beer he was buying for voters). Of the two candidates who stood in both 1865 and 1868 the Earl put on 900 votes, but Raikes added 1,600. Again in 1868 the second Liberal vote was divided between the Radical Liberal Enoch Salisbury and a Whig Liberal, and Conservative Raikes got in. Raikes died in 1891.

The Grosvenors withdrew from the Chester seat in 1874, when the Liberal candidates were the senior party politician J. G. Dodson and one of the local party leaders, Sir Thomas Frost (of the mill-owning family: see Industrial Revolution), but in 1880 the Grosvenors came back, partnering Dodson with the first duke of Westminster's nephew Beilby Lawley. In 1874 Raikes, who was building up a strong local following, cleverly chose to run alone and won narrowly. The local Liberal party determined to organize better for the 1880 election through a Liberal Association established in 1879; on the model of those elsewhere, it comprised a large representative (but nominal) ruling body, the '300', and a small executive committee. Sir Thomas Frost was its president, but the key figures were two of the vicepresidents, Enoch Salisbury and A. O. Walker, and William Brown (of the department store family), who was chairman and treasurer of the finance committee. Salisbury is a local character worth noting: he collected books relating to Wales and the border counties, and his library went to the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire by purchase, in 1886. He died at his house, Glen-aber, Saltney, near Chester, on 27 October 1890, and was buried at Eccleston.

After the 1880 election, the Conservatives immediately petitioned against the result. A short hearing in Chester uncovered much evidence of corruption.

Municipal Elections
The corrupt parliamentary election of 1880 also affected municipal politics. Its immediate impact was to boost the Liberals, who had a net gain of five seats in the four wards contested in November that year. One Liberal supporter boasted:


 * 'We've fought 'em with beer and licked 'em, and now we've fought 'em without beer and licked 'em.

The main issue now became the domination of the mayoralty by William and Charles Brown. Their uncles had been prominent councillors after 1835, and from the 1870s the huge success of their department store gave them the leisure and the money to secure great influence within the Liberal party and the council. Both brothers were scheduled for bribery at the 1880 election.

However, before the Royal Commission reported, Charles was nominated as mayor and beat off a challenge from a fellow Liberal but a non-briber, nominated by the Tories. He was mayor again for two terms in 1883-5 when no-one else was willing to serve at a time of much pressing business over the Improvement Bill and the abolition of the bridge tolls. After only a year's interval William was elected mayor in 1886, then re-elected the following year in order to carry through the public library extension, his gift to the town. Only two years passed before Charles was again made mayor in 1890. Opposition to the brothers' 'perpetual mayordom' was not limited to those with scruples about handing over the office to men struck off the parliamentary register for bribery. Even the Liberal Chester Chronicle had misgivings. There was, moreover, unpleasant squabbling in 1891 between Charles Brown as mayor and the bishop and dean, and allegations in 1892 that he wished to serve yet again because he hoped to be knighted if still in office when the Royal Agricultural Show came to Chester during the ensuing year. Particular resentment was voiced at the way that both Charles and William had turned the mayoralty into almost a full-time job and spent their own money lavishly on public projects, making it difficult for men with business or professional responsibilities, or less money, to aspire to the position.

Return to Parliament
The Chester constituency was suspended after its M.P.s were unseated and the matter was referred to a Royal Commission which exonerated the candidates but imposed a seven-year disqualification from voting on 914 individuals who had given or received bribes or treats. Chester was left unrepresented in parliament until 1885. The redistribution of 1885 left Chester with one seat, for which the electorate grew steadily from 6,300 to 8,100 by 1910. The first new MP elected was Walter Foster but he was unseated by the "faggot votes" of the duke of Westminster's tenants at the Liberal defeat in the 1886 election. A "faggot voter" was a person who qualified to vote in an election with a restricted suffrage only by the exploitation of loopholes in the regulations. Typically, faggot voters satisfied a property qualification by holding the title to a subdivision of a large property with a single beneficial owner. Faggot voting was a common electoral abuse in the United Kingdom until the electoral reforms of the late 19th century. Faggot voting was abolished by the Representation of the People Act 1884. The duke not only refused to endorse the new member, Walter Foster, but lent transport to the Conservatives during the election, and made two powerful Unionist speeches in Chester. Partly as a result, the Conservative, Robert Yerburgh, won by a narrow margin. Both Gladstone and the Liberal leadership in the county bitterly condemned the duke's 'interference', which they believed had cost them the seat.

Robert Armstrong Yerburgh, DL, JP (17 January 1853 – 18 December 1916), was a British Conservative Party politician and the next MP for Chester. The son of Reverend Richard Yerburgh and Susan Higgin, he was educated at Rossall School, Harrow School and then University College, Oxford. After he was elected to the House of Commons for Chester in 1886, he held the seat until 1906 and again from 1910 until his death in 1916.