Welsh Electioneering and the Purpose of Parliament: ‘From Radicalism to Nationalism’ Reconsidered.*

MATTHEW C R A G O E University of Hertfordshire

The general election of 1868 was an ‘overwhelming’ triumph for the Liberal Party throughout Britain.’ Fought principally around the disestablishment of the Irish Church,’ the election saw the Liberals increase their 1865 majority of 70 seats by a further 40.3 Nowhere was the triumph more marked than in Wales, where the Liberals took 23 of the 33 seats.

The election occupies an ambiguous place in the political history of the principality. To Lloyd George and other turn of the century nationalists, the election of 1868 was the moment when the political power of the landowning classes was shattered by the emergent voice of the Welsh nation, but modern historians have been more c a ~ t i o u s . ~ They point out, for example, that the men returned to parliament in 1868 were very similar to those who had preceded them:5 of the 33 members, 24 were landowners, and no fewer than 30 belonged to the Church of England. The 23 ‘Liberals’ returned, meanwhile, ‘were, in almost every case . . . representative of the Whig element, which was to remain so powerful in the party for twenty years or more’. The result, far from being a triumph for ‘nationalist’ feeling was merely an expression of the deep sympathy which voters in Wales, as nonconformists, had with the proposed disestablishment of the Church in Ireland. More significant for the future course of Welsh politics is considered to have been the rash of evictions which followed the contest, as tory landowners revenged themselves upon tenants who had voted for Liberal candidates. The evictions provided both a cast of demons and a roll call of martyrs around which the radicals were able to rally support during the next two decades, and which contributed materially to the shift ‘from radicalism to nationalism’.6 Nationalism proper, as this

* The quotation 1s from K. 0. Morgan, Wales in British Politics, 1868-7925 (3rd edn., Oxford, 1980). ch. 2. I would like to thank Professor Ieuan Gwynedd Jones, Nigel Aston and Arthur Bums for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

H. J . Hanham, Elections and Party Management: Politics in the Time OfDisraeli and Gladstone (2nd. edn., Hassocks, 1978), p. 114.

For the place of disestablishment: H. C. G. Matthew, Gladstone 1809-74 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 142-8; J. P. Parry, Demonacy and Religion: Gladstone and the Liberal Party, 7867-1875 (Cambridge,

’

1986), pp. 261-88. M. Pugh, T h e Making OfModem Brifish Politics, 1867-7939 (Oxford, 1982), p . 65. K. 0. Morgan, Rebirth Ofa Nation: Wales, 1880-1980 (Cardiff, 1981). p. 11 . The rest of this paragraph is based on Morgan, Wales in British Politics, pp. 22-7. Although this paragraph is based on Morgan, the same story is told in almost all Welsh history books, ‘

most recently, P. Jenkins, A History ofModem Wales, 15361990 (1992). pp. 3 2 1 4 .

114 Matthew Cragoe

implies, is a concept reserved for the 1880s. R. Merfyn Jones recently described the process thus: ‘During the 1880s and 1890s, the middle-class nonconformist elite, through the agencies of chapel and press, re-defined the idea of Wales in its own image’.7 It was at this stage, in the era of ‘Cymru Fydd’ (‘Young Wales’), that nationalist sentiment came to the fore in Victorian Wales.

In this article, however, it will be suggested that the process of modification has been taken too far. It will be argued that the process of redefinition belonged not to the 1880s, but to the 1860s, and that the general election of 1868 showed clear evidence of this. There was a revolution in some candidates’ conception of precisely what interests a member of parliament ought to represent in the house of commons. Whereas M.P.s traditionally spoke in terms of safeguarding the interests of their constituencies, several radical Liberal canldates in 1868 urged that the primary duty of a member of parliament returned &om the principality was to represent the interests of Wales. What these interests were, and how the transformation came about, is the subject of this article.

The article begins by examining the manner in which M.P.s from Wales represented their constituencies in the period before 1868, and explores the way in which candidates approached the business of electioneering at this time, concentrating upon the campaigns of the radical Liberals during the election campaign of 1852 to illustrate the argument. The actions of the radicals are of particular interest, since it was from this section of the party that the ideas of ‘Welsh’ representation emerged in 1868. These are examined in section three but, to set them in context, section two explores the growth of Welsh nationalist feeling in the two decades before 1868; it will be argued that, far from being delayed until the 1880s, the nonconformist middle class had completed this process even before the 1868 election. The article ends by considering briefly what the ‘Welsh’ M.P.s did to further their hustings promises during the parliament of 1868-74.

1. Patriotism and Politics in Wales bejore 1868

Although it will be the argument of this article that nationalism first became a force in Welsh politics in 1868, the political language of the principality contained a noticeably patriotic inflection even before this. The aristocracy of Wales, who, for the most part, controlled politics, were a notably patriotic Clite. As Prys Morgan has demonstrated, many were ardent patrons of native culture during the eighteenth century, whilst the mania for genealogy among families of rank during the nineteenth was almost legendary.8 This patriotism impinged directly upon the political life of Wales. It was considered an almost essential prerequisite in a candidate that he could boast a Welsh family tree: direct descent was preferable, but an impressive lineage

’ R. M. Jones, ‘Beyond Identity? The Reconstruction of the Welsh’,Journal of British Studies, XXXI

P. Morgan, ‘The Hunt for the Welsh Past in the Romantic Period‘, in The Invention .f Tradition, ed. E. Holsbawm and T. Ranger (Cambridge, 1983). pp. 43-100. The Phillips-Robinson MSS, Bodleian Library, Oxford, containing the papers of the antiquarian, Sir Thomas Phillips, demonstrate the love of genealogy very clearly.

(1992), 338-9.

Welsh Electioneering and Parliament 115

acquired through marriage or inheritance was considered acceptable. As the editor of the Welshman expressed it trenchantly in 1842: ‘No mushroom, with merely money to recommend him, will stand any chance - blood, good Welsh blood, is a sine qua

Yet, prior to 1868, the idea of Wales as a ‘nation’ on a par with Scotland and Ireland would have been unthinkable to the British political establishment.” Statesmen from all four countries spoke of political representation in terms of three nations: England, Scotland and Ireland.” It is quite clear from the actions of the M.P.s returned by Welsh constituencies that, blood lines notwithstanding, they too had no conception of Wales as a ‘nation’ with specific grievances requiring separate legislative attention. Issues affecting the principality, or parts thereof, such as the abolition of the court of great sessions in 1830, or the South Wales Turnpike Act of 1844, were occasionally discussed. In general terms, however, M.P.s from the principality behaved as the representatives of their constituencies rather than of their country, and though they looked after local interests tolerably we11,12 they sought little in terms of public legislation for Wales. Whereas Scotland was the exclusive subject, on average, of some 18 bills per session between 1859 and 1868, and Ireland of approximately twice that number, the sole piece of public legislation applicable to Wales alone was an act of 1863 which empowered bishops to insist that candidates for heavily Welsh-speaking parishes have an adequate knowledge of the native t ~ n g u e . ’ ~ In the wider sphere of party politics, meanwhile, M.P.s from Wales were not regarded as a bloc whose interests had to be conciliated in the same way as did those of the Irish or Scottish representative^.'^ Instead they were invariably backbenchers who remained silent on important issues and were obedient to the party whips in divisions.

In terms of electoral politics, local virtues, and not the promise of outstanding parliamentary performances, were the order of the day. At the general election of 1852, one of the most keenly contested in the period between the first and second Reform Acts, candidates from both parties were presented in an entirely traditional manner. John Henry Phillips of Williamston, for example, was recommended to the electors of Haverfordwest borough as ‘a gentleman, . . . [a] considerable landed proprietor, who belongs to an ancient family long resident in the county’, who, besides, was ‘a most active magstrate’. In Flintshire, the Hon. E. Mostyn was praised in similar terms as he sought re-election for the county: ‘Take him in any capacity

M. Cragoe, An Anglican Aristocracy: the Moral Economy o f t h e Landed Estate in Carmarthenshire

l o Morgan, Wales in British Pohtia, p. 1; I . G. Salmon, ‘Welsh Liberalism 1868-96: A Study in

l 1 StirlingJoumal, 23 Oct. 1868, editorial; Bucks Advertiser, 14 Nov. 1868, speech ofHon. H. Cowper. l2 M. Cragoe, ‘ “A Cheaper Sort of Member?” Welsh MPs, Select Committees, and the Representation

of Local Interests in Parliament, 185245’. Parliaments, Estates and Representation, XIV (1994). 13-8. l3 P[arliamentary] P[apers], 186&9, L, 281-93. I* J. H. Whyte, The Independent Irish Party, 1850-59 (Oxford, 1958); Cragoe, ‘ “A Cheaper Sort of

Member?” ’. pp. 137-8; K. Robbins, Nineteenth Century Britain: England, Scotland, Wales, the Making O f a Nation (Oxford, 1989), pp. 100-2, by adopting the holding of office under the government as an index of political success, rather ignores the achievements of Scottish M.P.s in securing legislation for their country.

l5

non. 79

15

(Oxford, 1996). pp. 136-7.

Political Structure and Ideology’, University of Oxford D. Phil., 1983, p. 8.

Cambrian, 27 Feb. 1852, letter of ‘Mercator’; Wekhman, 7 May 1852, editorial.

116 Matthew Crugoe

- whether as a member of the Senate, as a magistrate, as the Chairman of our Board of Guardians, as a landlord, as a resident country gentlemen, a friend, or master - his whole energes are constantly devoted to the advancement of our best interests.’16 The fact that Phillips was a Conservative, and Mostyn a Whig, was less important than the fact that they were both members of their respective counties’ landed klites. Even in industrial areas, however, the same formula was applied, albeit in a subtly modified form: thus the Liberal Colonel Talbot was recommended as an ideal member for Glamorganshire, not only as ‘a man ofbirth and family’ but also ‘of large possessions both in land and minerals’. Electoral politics in Wales, therefore, were very similar to those in England.”

Though the klite continued to dominate electoral politics throughout this period, not every one was enamoured of the status quo.’’ At the 1852 election, there were two boroughs in which sitting Liberal M.P.s of a Whiggish character faced a challenge from more radical candidates. In both cases, the challengers stood on a platform which was recognisably part of that long-standing radical tradition which, as Eugenio Biagini has demonstrated, posited a central conflict between the idle, parasitic aristocracy on the one hand, and the ‘people’, middle and working class alike, on the other.”

In the borough of Flint, for example, E. G. Salisbury of the Temple challenged Sir John Hanmer, on an identifiably radical platform:

the time has come when the people should have entrusted to them the management of their own affairs - honest, industrious, and intelligent as the masses are, it is unjust and invidious that they should be taxed to support the State, and have no voice whatever in the election of those who are to manage state affairs: to be called upon to obey the laws, and have no voice in making them. It is no theoretic or abstract right, then, we are upholding when we say that taxation and the suffiage should be co-extensive, but a great fundamental doctrine of our Constitution.*’

He went on to demand universal suffrage; triennial parliaments; the reorganisation of electoral districts; an extension of Free Trade; non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries; secular education under local control; tolerance for Roman Catholics; and the entire separation of Church and state, a platform which, to say the least of it, merited the ‘decidedly Liberal’ tag given it by one editor.

Salisbury eventually withdrew before the poll; in Carnarvon Boroughs, however, Richard Davies ofBridge stood a contest against the sitting Liberal M.P., W. Bulkeley Hughes. Although Davies eventually lost by 356 votes to 276, the length of the campaign ensured that his radical Liberal opinions were explained in some detail. Davies was ostensibly brought forward to spearhead the nonconformists’ opposition

Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 26 June 1852, letter of ‘Hen Ffarmwr’. N. Gash, Politics in the Age 4 P e e l (1952); H. J. Hanham, Elections and Party Managemenf: Politics

in the Age of Gladstone and Disraeli (1955); T. J. Nossiter, Influence, Opinion and Political Ideas in Reformed England: Case-studies from the North-East (Hassocks, 1975).

R. Wallace, Organise! Organise! Organise!: A Study ofRefoorm Agitations in Wales (Cardiff, 1991) E. Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and ReJoorm (Cambridge, 1992); E. Biagini and A. J. Reid, Currents

Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 10 Apr. 1852, advertisement.

l 6

l9

of Radicalism (Cambridge, 1991).

Welsh Electioneering and Parliament 117

to the education policy of Lord Derby’s government?l the latent hostility of his supporters for the aristocracy, however, and their own identification of themselves a ‘the people’, were key features in the campaign. Thus when Davies presented himself to the electorate at Carnarvon as one of ‘the people’, the implications were drawn out by another speaker, Robert Evans, of Poole Street, who lingered on the people’s shared ‘painful experience of the domination of the aristocratic classes’ and commented that Davies, ‘far from priding himself on “high blood”, was possessed of the merits and virtues of a man (cheers)’. The same point was made by Davies’s seconder at the nomination, Thomas Lewis of Bangor. If the electors wished to be ‘properly’ represented in parliament, he argued:

22

let them send up a man from amongst themselves (hear). They wanted more like Mr. Cobden and Mr Davies, - men who knew the wants and feelings of the poor (applause) - men who were conversant with business, practically - men who knew what it was to strive in the world, and what it was to work for their daily breadz3

The aristocracy, of course, did not work. If the origns of the radicals’ philosophy is clear from the language in which they

chose to portray their own merits, it is equally so in the terms they used to deride their opponents. The reference to ‘high blood’, for example, stemmed from a report in the Carnawon and Denbigh Herald which claimed that, when out canvassing, Hughes had made constant references to the fact of his being ‘a man of blood’, ‘forgetting how offensive the latter boast must sound in the plebeian ears of his attendant^'.^^ Although Hughes claimed that he never uttered the fateful phrase,25 his opponents’ exploitation of it is significant. Another example was provided by the same newspaper when it gave an account of Hughes’s parliamentary performance over the past three sessions and Cobden’s to reduce taxation; Trelawny’s to abolish church rates; Drum- mond’s to reduce taxation; D’Eyncourt’s for triennial parliaments; Hume’s to extend the franchise; Cobden’s in favour of international arbitration; and Osborne’s for applying the revenue of the Irish Church to the education of the poor. Finally, he voted against Mr Berkeley’s motion for the ballot.26 These divisions all reflected the concerns marked out by Salisbury.

Despite Davies’s defeat, his campaign demonstrated the extent to which radicals in Wales shared a common platform with their English brethren: the battle lines were drawn between the productive and the unproductive, those who contributed to the

Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 1 May, letter of ‘Wickliffe’; ibid., 29 May 1852, advertisement. Yr Amserau, 26 May 1852, letter of ‘Gwas Brynhindda’; ibid. , 2 Mehefin 1852, editorial ‘Y Ddau Ymgeisydd’. This was the fiat time dissenters had united in this way in North Wales, and was very controvenial: Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 8 May 1852, letter of ‘A Dissenter’. In the south it had been a feature of politics since the 1830s: M. Cragoe, ‘Conscience of Coercion? Clerical Influence at the General Election of 1868 in Wales’, Past and Present, No. 149 (1995), 140-69.

Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 12 June 1852, ‘Reception of Mr Richard Davies, the Liberal Candidate, at Camarvon’.

Ibid., 10 July 1852, nomination. Ibid. , 12 June 1852, editorial; letter of ‘An Elector’, ‘An Affair of Blood’. Ibid., 10 July 1852, nomination. Ibid., 19 June 1852, editorial.

*’

23

24

25

26

118 Matthew Cragoe

‘common weal’ and those who were merely parasites on the body politic. The aim of radical candidates at election time was to break the stranglehold of the aristocracy and return the control of government to those who represented the people. Whilst some of the denominational, Welsh-language papers did argue that Wales should be represented by Welshmen, this was not a suggestion that imposed itself onto public disscussion.28 By 1868, however, the situation had changed, and Welsh radicals had now developed a platform, at least partially independent of the British radicalism evident in 1852: it was a platform which highlighted the needs of the Welsh nation, and the extent to which this could only be achieved by retuning men of the nation. To explain how this change came about, it is necessary to examine the growth of nationalist sentiment in the principality in the years between 1847 and 1868.

21

2. The Growth ofNationalism in Wales, 1847-68.

The report of the education commissioners for Wales in 1847 has long been recognised as the starting point for the growth of nationalist sentiment in Wales.29 The com- missioners attacked the backwardness and immorality of the Welsh, and ascribed the prevalence of these characteristics to the strength of the Welsh language and of nonconformity. The report precipitated a widespread defensive reaction. As Prys Morgan writes, however, although the barricades were manned by anglicans as well as dissenters, the former were dismissed by the leaders of nonconformity as alien^'.^' ‘Welshness’ had become internalised, the exclusive property of dissenters and Welsh- speakers; nationalism, in Kenneth Morgan’s words, arose from this ‘fight against contempt rather than physical oppression’.3’

The process was not wholly negative and defensive, however: buoyed up by the prosperity of the mid-Victorian period, Welsh culture flowered under the increased attention it now received, the reform of the National Eisteddfod in 1858 a sign of this new ~ o n f i d e n c e . ~ ~ The promoter of this project, Rev. J. Williams (Ab Ithel), was also responsible the following year for an initiative to commemorate the heroes of a specifically Welsh past, in the first instance Prince Llywelyn, ‘our last ruler’, who had so strongly defended the ’institutions, rights, language, and ’’ E.g., Seren Cymru, 27 May 1852, p. 84, editorial; ibid., 10 Mehefin 1852, p. 92, editorial; 24

Mehefin 1852, p. 100, ‘Diddymiad y Senedd’, concentrates solely on the possibility of a returning tory government reimposing the Corn Law, and warning that this would lead to civil war; Diurygiwr, XVII, 206 (Medi 1852), 278-9, letter of 3. R.’, ‘Ffeithiau Pwysig i’w hystyried cyn Pleideisio mewn Etholiad’, concentrates on the tax burden.

Y Traethodydd, XXXI (Gorphenaf 1852). 387-8; Yr Amserau, 9 Mehefin 1852, letter of ‘R. J. D.’ [i.e., R. J. Derfel], Manchester, ’Yr Etholiad CyEiedinol’.

PP, 1847, XXVII, Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales. For a useful digest of the report’s most offensive observations, see Sir Thomas Philipps, Wales: 711e Language, Social Condition, Moral Character, and Religious Opinion ofthe People (1849). pp. 65-7. The most recent scholarly treatment of the report is I . G. Jones, ‘1848 and 1868: “Brad Y Llyfrau Gleison” ’, in idem, Mid-Victorian Wales: The Observers and the Observed (Cardiff, 1992), pp. 10345.

29

P. Morgan, ‘The Hunt for the Welsh Past’, pp. 97-9. Morgan, Wales in British Politics, p. 16. D. Tecwyn Lloyd, John Griffith, Y Gohebydd’, Transactions of the Honourable Society .f Cymmro-

31

32

dorion (1977), 224-8.

Welsh Electioneering and Parliament 119

faith of our country’.33 Taken up in the 1860s by the London correspondent of the radical Welsh-language newspaper, Baner Ac Amserau Cymru, John Grifith (better known by his pen name ‘Y Gohebydd’), subscriptions were set afoot throughout the 1860s to commemorate not only political figures such as Llywelyn but also religious Welshmen such as Daniel Rowland, the eighteenth century Methodist, and cultural figures, such as the Welsh hymm-writer Ann G r i f i t h ~ . ~ ~ Other nations honoured their great figures, he asked, why does not Wales?35

The past which was commemorated by the activities of men such as Gohebydd, however, was a very specific one: it was that past which dissented politically and religiously from England and anglicanism. And the importance of the subscription movement was that it also embraced contemporary causes which linked that history with a very specific set of grievances in the present. In 1862, for example, a subscription was raised to relieve the occupants of Soar chapel in Montgomeryshire, allegedly turned out by the Conservative landowner, Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, on whose land the chapel was built, when he discovered that two of the deacons had voted for the Liberal candidate at that year’s b y - e l e ~ t i o n . ~ ~ In 1865, subscriptions were raised to pay for a commemorative portrait of David Williams of Castell Deudraeth, who had stood unsuccessfully for Merioneth in both 1859 and 1865;37 whilst other figures presented with testimonials included two nonconformist ministers who had had long careers a radical journalists, David Rees of Llanelli (editor of Y Diwygiwr) in 1866 and Samuel Roberts of Llanbrynmair, (editor of Y Cronicl) in 1867.38 The effect of the subscription campaigns, read against the broader background of Baner’s champi- onship of Liberal causes, was both to create a distinct historic pedigree for what it always referred to as the ‘Welsh nation’ and to locate that ‘Welsh nation’ firmly within the contemporary political world. And from here, it was argued that the Welsh nation, though as real as those of Scotland or Ireland, and having problems as real as either, was not properly represented in parliament. Baner ran several leading articles on the subject, condemning the fact that, though Wales boasted of being a ‘nation of nonconformists’, she allowed her representation to remain in the hands of Con- servatives and anglicans. Something beyond the proper representation of nonconformist interests, however, was implied by the newspaper’s rhetorical flourishes: ‘The English choose Englishmen, the Scots choose Scots, the Irish choose Irishmen’, declared Baner in 1862, ‘why do the Welsh not choose Welshmen?’ Only thus, argued the paper, could the Welsh ‘nation’ ever gain the respect of other nations.39 And other agitations were afoot, such as that to secure a national university. No other country of similar

33

34 Baner Ac Amserau Cymru, 24 Gorphenaf 1861, p. 467, ‘Llewelyn Em Llyw Olaf. For Gohebydd, see: D Tecwyn Lloyd, ‘John Griffith, Y Gohebydd’; R. Griffith, Y Gohebydd

Cofiant a Dyfniadau o’i Uythyrau f e l Gohebydd Uundain ‘Baner Ac Amserau Cymru’ (Denbigh, 1905); for the commemorative impulse in nonconformity, J. Harvey, The Art .f Piety: The Visual Culture .f Welsh Nonconformity ( C a d & 1995), pp. 38-58. Baner Ac Amserau Cymru, 22 EbriUl863, p. 250, ‘Cofadail i Ann Griffiths’; ibid., 13 Ionawr 1864, pp. 19-21, ‘Cofadail i Daniel Rowlands, Llangeitho’.

35

36

37

38

39

Baner Ac Amserau Cymru, 24 Gorphenaf 1861, p. 467, ‘Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf. Baner Ac Amserau Cymru, 20 Ebrill 1864, p. 4. This was denied strongly by the firm of solicitors

Ibid., 14, 28 Chwefror and 7 Mawrth 1866. Ibid.. 14 Mehefin 1865, 14 Chwefror 1866, I Ebrill 1868. Ibid., 20 Awst 1862, p. 530, ‘Cynnrychiolaeth C y m ’ ; ibid., 27 Awst 1862, p. 547 (Letter 11).

who managed the estate on Wynne’s behalf, ibid., 24 Chwefror 1864, p. 117.

120 Matthew Cragoe

size in Europe was without one, argued its promoters: it was a ‘national want’, for which a provision ‘truly national’ must be made.40

These ideas had, therefore, gained a wide circulation within Wales by the mid-1860s. In 1866, however, they were given concrete form in a series of articles written by Henry Richard, for the Morning Star.41 The articles, which were translated for the Baner and drew widespread praise within Wales,42 were published under the collective title, Letters on the Social and Political Condition of the Principality of Wales, a year later. Richard, a native of Cardiganshire, had been an independent minister but resigned his ministry in order to concentrate upon politics. As secretary of the Peace Society, and an active member of the Liberation Society, he was at the heart of radical politics in England. What is interesting about his Letters is the extent to which the two halves of his heritage combined to produce an original synthesis. As we shall see, many of his observations about Wales came straight from the stock-in-trade ofBritish radicalism, including his basic model of life in the principality as involving ‘the people’ versus ‘the aristocracy’. Richard’s analysis was made unique, however, by the extent to which it was modified in the course of defending his countrymen from the charges made by the education Commissioners in 1847. Richard’s Letters emerged as the blueprint for a Welsh nation and its political requirements.

Richard’s view of the Welsh people illustrated well the influence of the 1847 Report. The commissioners, as noted above, had argued that the Welsh were immoral, and that this stemmed from their stubborn adherence to the Welsh language and to nonconformity. To Richard, however, the Welsh people were a classless ‘nation’, known as the ‘ ~ e r i n ’ , ~ ~ whose shared cultural and religious habits lent them, as a nation, a unique moral homogeneity. The Welsh language he presented as the foundation of a flourishing literary culture, as witness both the large number of newspapers circulating in the principality and the eisteddfod tradition.44 Noncon- formity, meanwhile, had so far instilled into the ‘werin’ a sense of virtue that crime was almost unknown in the principality: indeed, the dissenting ministers were regarded as the ‘unpaid policemen of the countryside’.

In Richard’s Letters, therefore, the ‘people’ of the British radical tradition had become defined in a narrower, cultural sense: to be ‘Welsh’, a member of the ‘werin’, required something more than simple residence or birth within the geographical boundaries of Wales. In keeping with his radical origins, however, Richard explicitly juxtaposed the ‘werin’ with the traditional enemies of the people, the aristocracy. Yet here, too, the model was adapted to the particular purposes of Wales. The consequence of the Welsh people having been defined in cultural

45

40

41

42

Ibid., 2 Rhagfjn 1863, p. 764, letter of M. Lloyd, 0. Morgan, T. Nicholas, H. Owen. C. S. Miall, Henry Richard: A Biography (1889). remains the classic account. Motions thanking Richard for his Letters were passed by several nonconformist bodies: Baner Ac

Amserau Cymru, 27 Mehefin 1866, p. 7, ‘Cymmanfa Llanidloes’; 4 Gorphenaf 1866, pp. 6 7 , ‘Cymmanfa y Bedyddwyr yn Nglynceiriog’; 7 Gorphenaf 1866, p. 5, ‘Cymmanfa Flynyddol yr Annibynwyr yn Meirionydd‘.

43

44 G. A. Williams, When Was Wales? (1985), pp. 237-8, for a good definition. H. Richard, Letters on rhe Social and Political Condition of the Principality of Wales (1867). pp.

39-51. For the debate over the Welsh language, 1. G. Jones, ‘Language and Community in Nineteenth- century Wales’, in idem, Mid- Victorian Wales, pp. 54-79.

45 Richard, Letters, pp. 5 3 4 1

Welsh Electioneering and Parliament 121

terms, was that the corresponding unfitness of the aristocracy also took a cultural form unique to Wales. Although many of the aristocracy had been born in Wales they were certainly not ‘Welsh’ in Richard’s understanding of the term. O n the contrary, the aristocracy were defined in terms diametrically opposed to those of true Welshmen: whereas the latter spoke Welsh, were nonconformists and found a natural political home in the Liberal Party, the aristocracy were English-speaking, anglican and Conservative. This sense of cultural alienation from the people of the nation was central to Richard’s explanation of the aristocracy’s unfitness to lead the Welsh nation.

The signs of this unfitness Richard enumerated in great detail. He dwelt at length upon the ills that beset the ‘werin’. As tenants, they were depicted ‘writhing under the harrow of an arrogant and tyrannical landlordism’ in everyday estate

In political terms, their condition was equally wretched: all, by virtue of their nonconformity and adherence to the Welsh language were naturally, claimed Richard, Liberals. Yet the tories repressed all opposition, be it of speech, conscience, worship, trade or voting4’ This, Richard, conceded, was equally typical of the aristocracy in England, but in Wales, he argued, the tones’ intimidation was employed ‘in more severe and summary forms, and with more open and daring defiance of justice and decency’. Their hostility to the people of Wales thus established, Richard moved on to demonstrate how ill-suited the aristocracy were to represent the nation in parliament. And, in contrast to the list of votes against the ‘common weal’ attributed to William Bulkeley Hughes examined in the previous section, Richard instanced a series of measures of interest to the noncon- formists alone which the aristocracy had failed to support, including church rates, the admission of dissenters to Oxford and Cambridge, and the burials question. Their position as the nation’s parliamentary representatives was, he concluded, ‘utterly anomalous and unsati~factory’.~~

In Richard’s Letters, therefore, the traditional radical canon familiar from the 1852 election was refined by two decades of national self-defence provoked by the 1847 commissioners’ damning report. The result was a hybrid at once distinctively radical, but also uniquely Welsh, tailored to the key cultural characteristic of life in the principality, the ubiquity of nonconformity, and the principal reality of political life, the domination of the aristocracy. This much was made clear in Richard’s closing call to arms. The only way that the Welsh could shrug off the oppression of the landlords was to return men to parliament who shared their cultural imperatives and could thus represent the nation properly. Yet the achievement of this would un- doubtedly require the blood of martyrs: it was scarcely to be anticipated that the aristocracy, so vindictive at the best of times, would meet such an unprecedented challenge to their authority with equanimity. As Richard warned his readers, those who sought liberation on his terms might have to pay a high price: ‘it may be their [the people’s] duty to suffer for political, as it was their fathers’ to suffer for religious freedom’, he wrote. The martyrs would, however, be sacrificed for a distinctively

46 Ibid., p. 91. 47 Ibid., pp. 98, 105 48 Ibid., pp. 84-6.

122 Matthew Cragoe

Welsh cause, and Richard underlined this with a parting shot, as he quoted an old Welsh cry: ‘Trech gwlad nag Arglwydd’ - ‘A Land is mightier than its Lord’.49

3. The General Election of 1868.

The second Reform Act had a considerable impact on Wales. Borough constituencies saw large increases in the number entitled to vote, whilst the traditional complexion of the county seats was altered by the enfranchisement of pockets of industrial workers such a q~arrymen.~’ At the first general election under the new system, 1868, the new electorate seems to have boosted the Liberal vote, captivated by the appeal of Gladstone and the depth of nonconformist feeling in favour of disestablishment. The result, as noted earlier, was a convincing victory for Liberal candidates across the principality.

Throughout the election there was a distinctly ‘national’ feeling to the campaign in Wales. In part this was due to the congruity which some identified between the religious situation in Ireland and Wales: in both cases, it was argued, the anglican church was in a minority, and disestablishment for one must set a precedent for the disestablishment of the other.51 But in many areas, the cry of ‘Justice for Wales’ went further than the disestablishment of the church, and was couched in the ideological and rhetorical terms made familiar in the writings of Gohebydd and Henry Richard examined in the previous section. Although these ideas did surface to some extent in southern constituencies such as Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire and Merthyr Tydfil, where Richard himself was a candidate, they were most in evidence in the north where the Liverpool-based Welsh Reform Association played an important organis- ational role and the influence of Baner was strongest. The consequence was that the 1868 contests in these areas were very different from those of 1852. The full extent of the new ‘Welshness’ in politics can be gauged from another election between two ostensibly Liberal candidates, that for the Anglesey borough seat of Beaumaris, between the sitting M.P., W. 0. Stanley, and his radical challenger, the lawyer Morgan Lloyd. To set that contest in context, however, the different cultural climate in which these elections took place must be discussed.

In fact the ‘nationalist’ candidates were identifiable both by their unique interpre- tation of Welsh history and by their celebration of Welsh culture, factors which combined to inform a very particular view of the duties that devolved upon those who held Welsh seats in parliament. Whereas the English radicals celebrated such stalwarts of liberty as Pym and Cromwell, in Wales emphasis was placed upon the peculiar political and religious heritage of Welshmen.52 Speakers at political meetings

Ibid., p. 123; I. G. Jones, ‘The Dynamic of Welsh Politics’, in idem, Explorations and Explanations: Essays in the Social History of Victorian Wales (Llandysul, 1981), p. 297.

In Wales, the average increase was nearly 250 per cent, but in Merthyr TydGl the electorate increased from 1,387 to 14,577. A. James and J. Thomas, Wales at Westminster: A History of the Parliamentary Representation of Wales 280G-1979 (Llandysul, 1981). p. 66; I. G. Jones, ‘Merioneth Politics at Mid- Century’, in idem, Explorations and Explanations, pp. 153-9.

49

50

51

52 Baner Ac Amserau Cymru, 26 Me& 1868, p. 7, letter of ‘Rhyddfrydwr’, ‘Etholiad Sir Aberteifi’. Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform, pp. 31-83, for the historical imagination of English

Welsh Electioneeiing and Parliament 123

frequently urged voters to emulate the old princes of Wales and fight against the oppression of the English invader, or to be true to the memory of their eighteenth- century forebears. The Independent minister, Rev. T. Johns of Ebenezer chapel, Llanddeiniolen, Camarvonshire believed:

that the sprit of Llywelyn, the last of the Welsh princes, and that of Sir Griffith Llwyd, of Dinorwic, were hovering above their armies [the Liberal voters], encouraging them to fight in a manner worthy of their forefathers, who had spilt their blood on the hills ofEryri for freedom and the rights oftheir country o cheer^).'^

Appeals to the heroes of early dissent in Wales were particularly potent since, if nonconformity was the fount of Welsh virtue, the true Welshman owed a special homage to these spiritual ancestors. Simon Jones of Bala brought forward almost the entire cast at a meeting in Dolwyddelan. He asked the audience whether they were ‘worthy descendants of Llywellyn, our last prince’, and continued: ‘Mr Charles of Bala, Mr Rowlands, of Llangeitho, Mr Jones of Llangan, Mr John Elias, Mr Williams of Wern, Mr Jones of Talysarn, Mr Jones of Treborth, were watching from the battlements of heaven, to see how they acted (great a p p l a ~ s e ) . ’ ~ ~ The gist of these messages, as the Rev. Robert Ellis of Carnarvon told an audience at Llanrug, was that ‘it had always been the natural impulse of the Welshman to seek f i - e e d ~ m ’ . ~ ~

Another peculiarity of meetings conducted by radical Liberals was the noticeable tie-up between Welsh cultural nationalism and politics. Welsh Liberals made much of the eisteddfod movement: Henry Richard set its importance as second only to the influence of nonconformity in cultivating the ‘national mind’ of Wales, whilst Morgan Lloyd stressed the extent to which the cultural sensibility displayed by the Welsh was unique: ‘The word eisteddfod was untranslated and untranslatable to any other language. An eisteddfod was essentially a Welsh in~titution.’~’ The eisteddfod ilite returned the compliment, and a particularly striking feature of the 1868 election campaign in several constituencies was the extent to which radical candidates enjoyed their support. Many of the reported speeches at Liberal meetings quoted the speakers’ bardic names alongside their given names, and it was not unusual for these poets to treat the audience to a sample of their wares in the course of the day’s events. O n the nomination day for Merioneth, for example, when the Liberal, David Williams,

56

Footnote 52 (continued) radicals. Cromwell was not wholly ignored: Thomas Love Jones Parry was recommended to the electorate in part because one of his ancestors had fought with ‘the great reformer, CROMWELL’. Baner Ac Amserau Cymru, 23 Medi 1868, p. 8, ‘Cynnrychiolaeth Sir Gaemarfon’; Cromwell was also the subject of popular lectures: Baner Cymnr, 15 Ebrill 1857, p. 80, ‘Bala - Darlith ar Oliver Cromwell’.

53 Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 7 Nov. 1868, meeting of 28 October. The speech was apparently so effective that nine voten went to the steward afterwards to retract earlier promises of support for the tones.

54 Ibid., 24 Oct. 1868; for other examples, ibid., meeting at Penmachno, Caernarfon, speech of Rev. R. Parry; ibid., 14 Nov. 1868, Criccieth, speech of Rev. W. Nicholson; ibid., 28 Nov. 1868, speech of J. Roberts, Bryngwenallt; Welshman. 28 Aug. 1868, speech ofE. M. Richards; ibid., 18 Sept. 1868. speech of B. T. Williams.

55

56 Richard, Letters, pp. 44-51. 57

Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 17 Oct. 1868

Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 2 Jan. 1869, speech at Liverpool and Birkenhead Eisteddfod.

124 Matthew Cragoe

was returned unopposed, Mr Jones of Brynmelyn recited englynion composed especially for the occasion by Ioan Madog; similarly, the news of the Liberal candidate’s triumph at Camarvon brought the victor onto the balcony of the Queen’s Hotel, accompanied by Rev. D. Roberts, who took the opportunity to recite an engfyn to the assembled crowd.58 Many of these later appeared in the columns of Baner, the editor having to apologise that he had not room for them all.59 The political sympathies of the eisteddfod tlite were similarly made clear at the Liverpool and Birkenhead Eisteddfod in January 1869, the agenda for which was drawn up whilst the election was underway, when a prize was offered for the best essay ‘on freedom of thought and speech in connection with the political rights of the Welsh nation’.60

Much of the rhetoric of Welsh radical candidates and their supporters in 1868, therefore, emphasised their shared membership of an historic Welsh nation, whose vibrant present-day culture rested on an historic tradition of resistance to oppression, temporal (Llywelyn) and spiritual (nonconformity) alike. As Henry Richard, who was to remain at the forefront of the debate, put it: ‘The people who speak this language [Welsh], who read this literature, who own this history, who inherit these traditions, who venerate those names, who have created and sustained and worked those marvellous organisation [the chapels] - have they not the right to say: “We are the Welsh nation”?’6’

The issue in 1868, however, was the representation of the nation in parliament. The central contention of the radicals’ campaign was that the nation, though as real as the Scottish or Irish nations, had never been represented. Richard drew the attention of one audience to the ‘unworthy, humiliating . . . degrading condition of their beloved country as respected its political representation’; ‘even the best of our Liberal members’, he argued, ‘very imperfectly understood or sympathised with their prin- ciples’:

if you send men to the House of Commons to represent the principles, the convictions, the aspirations and desires of living human souls, then I say that many of those from Wales sit on those benches on false pretences; for not only do they not represent, but they grossly and habitually misrepresent the most cherished principles and aims of the great majority of those in whose names they occupy those seats.”

To Henry Richard, therefore, the paramount duty of M.P.s from Wales was to represent the spiritual values of the nation, that moral essence which lent the nation its homogeneity and unity. These were markedly different criteria from those usually

58 Ibid., 21 Nov. 1868. Similar readings took place during Thomas Love Jones Parry’s meetings at Trefiew, Fourcrosses and Llanielhaiarn: ibid., 14 and 24 Nov. 1868. Many of the election songs also carried patriotic overtones, such as that composed to the tune of ‘Hen Wlad fy Nhadau’ by John Lewis (Ab Cledan) for the electors of Cardiganshire, ‘Dydd Trangc Toryaeth Ceredigion’, which dwelt on the blood spilt by their ancestors for religious liberty: Baner Ac Amserau Cymru, 19 Rhag. 1868, p. 2.

59

“

‘’ ‘*

Baner Ac Amserau Cymru, 23 Rhagfyr 1868, p. 8, ‘At Ein Gohebwyr’. Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 2 Jan. 1869. Jenkins, Modern Wales, p. 323 Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 6 June 1868, speeches of Richard at Welsh Reform Association

meeting, Hope Hall, Liverpool, and at the evening meeting for John Bright at the Amphitheatre.

Welsh Electioneering and Parliament 125

employed to judge a candidate’s fitness. In 1852, as noted earlier, membership of the hlite and a strong record of active participation in local society, perhaps through membership of the magistrates’ bench, were the crucial qualifications; these continued to form the yardstick used in most placesh3 Many moderate Liberals mocked Richard’s line. In Merthyr Tydfil, where Richard was a candidate, Henry Austin Bruce ridiculed the idea that a man should be sent to parliament simply because he was a Welshman and a nonconformist, whilst his supporters sought to dampen popular enthusiasm for Richard by pointing out that he would be a poor representative for the constituency as he had no knowledge of the mining industry.64 Likewise, in Anglesey, the retiring Whig M.P., Sir Richard Bulkeley Williams thought that, ‘in the nineteenth century, to analyse what was every man’s blood was simply ridiculous’.

Yet Henry Richard was not the only candidate to play the ‘nation’ card. All over north Wales the more advanced Liberal candidates and their supporters claimed that the most important principle at stake in the election, beyond the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland, was the representation of the nation in parliament. Osborne Morgan (who fought Denbighshire), Watkin Williams (Denbigh Boroughs), Richard Davies (Angelsey) and David Williams (Merioneth), all at various times made liberal use of Henry Richard’s arguments concerning the interests that required representation in parliament. The gist of their case was summed up by a supporter of another candidate, Thomas Love Jones Parry, in Carnarvonshire, who stated: ‘it is impossible for an Englishman . . . to represent a Welsh county, as one of our own nation can, who speaks our common language and looks upon all questions &om our own standpoint’.@‘

Nowhere, however, were the implications more clearly stated than in the Anglesey borough constituency of Beaumaris. Here, the sitting Liberal M.P., W . 0. Stanley, was confronted with an opposition from an aspiring Welsh lawyer, Morgan Lloyd. Lloyd, who was intimately connected with the campaign to establish a university for Wales, adopted many of the radical views noted above, whereas Stanley maintained a very traditional view of the role of the representative in parliament. A short examination of the ideas of these two men on the subject of representation will serve to underline precisely what the concept of the Welsh ‘nation’ involved, and the extent to which its existence was only perceived by those on the radical wing of the Liberal Party in Wales.

In Morgan Lloyd, the whole range of ‘Welsh’ issues already discussed in this section 63 Newport Gazette, 25 July 1868, editorial; Camarvon and Denbigh Herald, 24 Oct. 1868, meeting

of MI Mainwaring’s supporters at Wrexham; Pembrokeshire Herald, 24 July 1868, and Welshman, 20 Nov. 1868 for meetings of Mr Meyrick‘s supporters at Pembroke Dock; Cardf land Merthyr Gazette, 8 and 15 July 1868, editorials.

65

64 Swansea and Clamorgan Herald, 29 Aug. 1868; Oswestry Advertiser, 2 Dec. 1868. Camarvon and Denbigh Herald, 18 July 1868, editorial; ibid., 1 Aug. 1868. letter of ‘ABC’.

66 Ibid., 7 Nov. 1868, Rev. Evan Evans, Salem Chapel, Caernarfon. Pany himself was recommended by Gohebydd: Baner Ac Amserau Cymru, 30 Medi 1868, p. 4, ‘Llythr y “Gohebydd’ ’. For more on the contemporary thoughts on racial differences between Welshmen and Englishmen, M. Cragoe, ‘A Question of Culture: The Welsh Church and the Bishopric ofSt Asaph, 1870’, Welsh History Review, XVIII (1996), 243-4.

126 Matthew Cragoe

found an articulate champion. He had, for example, a keen sense of Wales’s separate historical identity. Addressing an audience at Holyhead, he maintained that because Wales was a part of Britain, people imagined there to be no difference between Welshmen and Englishmen. Yet their histories were, in fact, quite different: the Welsh, that ‘ancient race’, had never bowed their heads to the Norman yoke and had ‘maintained their liberty and language to this day’.67 Furthermore, he held there to be ‘a different mode of thinking in the two peoples’. He clearly perceived this difference to be innate: Welshmen of all classes, by definition, shared the same point of view: ‘An educated man belonging to one nationality might perhaps come nearer an educated man belonging to another. But there were certain idiosyncrasies in the minds of Welshmen, educated and uneducated, which made them differ [h-om Englishmen].’ He went on to draw out the moral that a Welsh constituency must necessarily be represented in parliament by one of its own nationals: ‘therefore it is necessary to have a man who understood the minds of the Welsh, who could think like they did, and feel like they did, and therefore knew by instinct when a question came before parliament, how the Welsh people think of

Lloyd echoed Richard in his belief that the Welsh ‘nation’ was not currently represented in parliament. He was heavily critical of her existing M.P.s. ‘The repre- sentatives of Wales,’ he told a meeting at Holyhead, ‘had acted in the Senate as if they were the representatives of England and not of Wales. If there was a word to say about Wales, it was not a Welsh member who said it, and if there was any defence to be made, it was not a Welsh member who made it’.

O n another occasion he apparently raised an audience in the British schoolroom at Dyffryn Ardudwy to the ‘highest pitch’ when he claimed that ‘the Welsh nation had hitherto been oppressed almost as much as the Irish . . . it had been accustomed to think it a matter of course that it had nothing to do with the government of this country except to obey the laws made by others.’ ‘How was it’, he asked, ‘that Wales never gets any favour [in parliament]?’ The answer was very simple: ‘Because it had no members that would press and ask for them.’70

As evidence of this, he instanced the failure of Welsh M.P.s to secure any help fiom government towards the colleges and the university that Wales needed so badly. O n another occasion, he criticised them, rather unrealistically, for having allowed the anglican church in the principality to retain its endowments unchallenged, despite the fact that Wales was a ‘nation of nonconformists’: these resources should be applied to educational purposes.71 The whole thrust of Lloyd’s campaign was that he wanted Wales to be represented in parliament on equal terms with Scotland and Ireland. His supporters aimed to leave no-one in any doubt that Lloyd was a true Welshman and thus perfectly suited to ensure this parity of treatment. He had, Mr Richards of

69

67

68 Ibid., 14 Nov. 1868. 69

Carnaruon and Denbigh Herald, 21 Nov. 1868, nomination.

Ibid., 31 Oct. 1868. There was some truth in this: much of the work often fell to expatriate Welshmen such as William Williams, M.P. for Coventry 183547, and Lambeth 1850-65. D. Evans, Lie and Works of William Williams (Llandyssul, 1939).

’O

” Carnawon and Denbigh Herald, 17 Oct. 1868. Ibid., 31 Oct. and 7 Nov. 1868

Welsh Electioneering and Parliament 127

Bangor told a large open air meeting at Holyhead, ‘risen from the ranks . . . he is a Welshman in blood, a Welshman by descent, a Welshman in heart . . . if they gave their votes to Mr Morgan Lloyd . . . Wales would have a champion in parliament in one of her own sons’.

W. 0. Stanley’s campaign offered a sharp contrast, and concentrated throughout on the local qualities which entitled him to the distinction of representing the constituency in parliament. Shortly after Morgan Lloyd’s candidature had been an- nounced, Sir Richard Bulkeley Williams, the retiring M .P. for Anglesey, chaired a meeting in favour of Stanley, and recommended him in familiar terms. Mr Stanley, he said, ‘was a gentleman of high position in the county, possessed of a large property, always residing on that property, dispensing his hospitality to the rich, and his bounty to the poor, and discharging all the duties of his station to the infinite advantage of all around him.’ Morgan Lloyd, by contrast, he dismissed as the representative of ‘sectarian prejudice’. As for Lloyd’s commitment to education and the university of Wales, Williams questioned whether, once elected, he would ‘devote the twentieth part of the time to the education of the poor’ that Mrs Stanley did.73

Stanley thus stood upon traditional ground, rooted in the locality; Morgan Lloyd aspired as much to the representation of the ‘imagned community’ of Wales as the real one of Beaumaris. Stanley’s attempt to answer Lloyd’s nationalistic approach underlined the conceptual gulf separating the two men. He told an audience at Holyhead: ‘I understand from others that Mr Morgan Lloyd appeals to Welsh nationality, but mind you, the only difference on that point between Mr Morgan Lloyd and myself is that he can speak Welsh fluently, whilst I cannot, and I only wish I had been born and bred in your country.’

To Lloyd, the Welsh language and birth in the country were the essence of belonging to the nation. Stanley also sought to defend his ability to represent the needs of Wales properly in parliament: ‘One of the great points put before you by Mr Morgan Lloyd is, that you should have a pure Welsh representative, one under- standing the feelings of the Welsh people, and one knowing their wants.’ To this he responded

72

He was just as well acquainted with the wants and social needs of Wales as Mr Morgan Lloyd. He had lived among them a great while, and mixed with influential Nonconformists in Anglesey, and had asked them to point out to him at all times, anything; he had never been an unwilling listener, was never opposed to their views. What could they require more?74

Lloyd, as noted earlier, believed that a real Welsh representative would know what the Welsh people wanted without having to have it pointed out to him. Whereas Stanley clearly saw nonconformity as being only one of the interests that a member of parliament had to represent, Lloyd considered it the essential starting point for any proper consideration of Welshness, and thus any adequate representation of Wales in the house of commons.

72 Ibid., 14 Nov. 1868. ” Ibid., 31 Oct. 1868. 74 Ibid.

128 Matthew Cragoe

Lloyd was beaten in Beaumaris by 941 votes to 650, a result which may nevertheless be taken to indicate a considerable amount of support for his nationalistic ideas.75 Several of the other ‘Welsh’ candidates, however, were successful, including Henry Richard at Merthyr Tydfil, Watkin Williams in Denbigh Boroughs, Osbome Morgan in Denbighshire, E. M. Richards in Cardiganshire, David Williams in Merioneth and Richard Davies in Anglesey. Thomas Love Jones Parry, meanwhile, many of whose supporters made free use of Richard’s ideas, won in Camarvonshire.

The distinctiveness of this group of M.P.s was clear to contemporaries. As one Montgomeryshire man remarked: ‘Wales has succeeded in doing something new . . . namely, sending 22 [sic] Liberals to represent her in Parliament, and seven or eight of them fair Welshmen, the kind that seek fair play for Wales and the Welsh language.’76 John Grifith, ‘Gohebydd’, was similarly exultant at the return of this ‘Welsh Brigade’,” and suggested that a big eve of parliament banquet be held in London for the Welsh Liberal M.P.s in order to ‘teach the English, and all the other nations of the earth, that there is such a place on the earth as Wales; that there is such a nation on the earth as the Welsh; that this nation has its notables, has its views on matters of politics - in a word, that we live here, and are determined to live’.78 And he urged that, once the Session began, these M.P.s work together to represent the interests of Wales.

4. Conclusion

At the 1868 election, therefore, the rhetoric of the radical candidates was enriched by a new, nationalistic inflection. In some respects, their ideas marked a development of beliefs that had long held currency across Britain on this wing of the party, emphasising the conflict between a parasitic ‘aristocracy’ and the unrepresented ‘people’, the latter being a group comprising the ‘middle’ as well as the ‘working’ classes. Yet it is clear that this had assumed its own peculiar form in Wales by 1868. The ‘people’ whose interests were not represented in parliament and who bore the brunt of aristocratic tyranny had been defined in a new, narrower cultural sense: the ‘Welsh’ spoke Welsh and were nonconformists. I t was by championing the proper representation of their interests in parliament, rather than in pressing for the traditional radical goals of tax reform and further parliamentary reform, that the nationalist candidates identified themselves at the 1868 election. Tax reform and parliamentary reform would doubtless have been welcomed in their own right, but the representation of the Welsh ‘nation’ had assumed priority.

Once in parliament, those M.P.s noted above began to seek the redress of grievances deemed peculiarly ‘Welsh’: Watkin Williams moved the disestablishment of the Church in Wales and David Williams agitated the question of endowed schools in

75 Bann Ac Amreau Cymru, 9 Rhagfyr 1868, p. 10, ‘Oddi Wrth Ein Gohebydd o Sir Fon’, attributed his defeat to his late start in the campaign, by which time many had already promised their votes to Stanley.

76 Ibid., 9 Rhagfyr 1868, pp. 6-7, ‘Un o Fynwy’, ‘Etholiad Swydd Fynwy’. In fact, 23 Liberals were returned.

77 Ibid., 23 Rhagfyr 1868, pp. 4-5, ‘Llythr y “Gohebydd” ’. ’* Ibid., 16 Rhagfyr 1868, p. 3, ‘Llythr y “Gohebydd” ’.

Welsh Electioneering and Parliamenf 129

Wales, whilst Osborne Morgan quickly became involved in the burials question and introduced a bill that would have allowed nonconformists powers of compulsory purchase of land on which to build chapels.7Y In addition, he played a leading role in the controversy over the appointment of monoglot Englishmen as judges in Welsh-speaking areas of the principality.80 As important as any of these, however, was the campaign over the tenants allegedly evicted in the wake of the election by tory landlords, apparently for having supported Liberal candidates. The radicals sought to use the issue to demonstrate that there existed a ‘land question’ in Wales as real as that in Ireland, and that, by implication, ’Wales’ was a nation with recognizable grievances of its own. The tyranny of the land-owning class was, of course, a standard belief amongst radicals,*’ but the manner in which the alleged evictions in Wales were presented transformed it into something distinctively ‘Welsh’. The cam- paign ran for two years, inside and outside parliament, and centered around another massive subscription campaign organised by Gohebydd, designed to compensate the evicted tenants, a proceeding which provides a very clear link with the rhetorical nationalism of the late 1850s and early 1860s examined earlier.

Nor did the idea suggested by Gohebydd in the immediate wake of their electoral triumph fade away. In 1871, Richard again suggested the expediency of creating a formal ‘Welsh’ party in the house of commons. He denied that he sought home rule for Wales, but asked: ‘why should they not have a Welsh party in the House of Common as well as the Scotch or Irish . . . in order to vindicate the rights and redress the wrongs of Wales?’ Wales, he said, should have ‘fair play’, and a ‘fair share of the advantages with all the other parts of the kingdom’.83

Finally, although this came to nothing, by the end of the parliament, the doughty champion of ‘Welsh’ candidates in North Wales, the editor of the Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, could adopt a bullish tone. He devoted several editorials to the celebration of the unquenchable spirit of national identity which, since the days of ‘the unconquerable Owen Glyndwr’ had animated ‘the Cambrian heart’. The past five years, he claimed, had witnessed ‘the partial removal of national grievances’, and he cited the appointment of a Welsh-speaking bishop of St A ~ a p h , ~ ~ and the effective pledge extracted by the Welsh members on the issue of Welsh judge-ships, as proofs of this. These, however, were merely ‘a preliminary to the removal of a series of Welsh grievances’, to secure which it was necessary that the electorate return to

Morgan, Wales in British Politics, p. 30; Oswestry Advertiser, 16 Dec. 1868, editorial; Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 25 Sept., 2 Oct. 1869; Morgan Lloyd was a keen advocate of the chapel sites scheme: Baner Ac Amserau Cymrtr, 14 Tachwedd 1868, p. 1, ‘Llythr y “Gohebydd” ’.

8o The correspondence between Osborne Morgan and Lord Hatherley, the lord chancellor, is reproduced in Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 18 Nov. 1871, editorial. The editor considered that Morgan was leading a ‘national movement’ in opposing the lord chancellor.

Henry Richard raised the matter in the house of commons, and called for a motion censuring the landlords: Hansard, Parl. Debs, 3rd ser., CXCVII, cols. 1301-21.

R2 H. Pelling, ‘Land Reform and Class Conflict in Victorian Britain’, in The Structured Crowd: Essays in English Social History (Brighton, 1981), pp. 100-35; Biagini, Liberty Retrenchment and Refom, pp. 50-60, 186-91. English radicals ignored the idea of Welsh ‘nationhood’ implicit in the controversy: Nmcasde Weekly Chronicle, 10 July 1869.

83 Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 9 Dec. 1871; cf. H. J. Hanham, ‘Mid-Century Scottish Radicalism: Romantic and Radical’, in Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain, ed. R. Robson (1967). pp. 167-8.

84 M. Cragoe, ‘A Question of Culture’, pp. 22-5

81

79

130 Matthew Crugoe

parliament ‘representatives ualified by patriotic sympathy and national sentiment to claim for Wales her due’. These additional grievances, it transpired, could be encapsulated under the two heads: first, ‘special legislation’ to take account of ‘our peculiar situation and national isolation’; and, second, a fair share of government patronage.

The nationalistic overtones of these sentiments were clearly presaged by the ideas espoused on the radical wing of the Liberal party in Wales at the general election of 1868. These men, in turn, were giving voice to a body of ideas concerning the identity of the Welsh ‘nation’, the characteristics of its people and the nature of its enemies, which had been formulated during the 1860s and achieved a radical definition in Henry Richard’s Letters. It seems possible to argue, therefore, that, although the M.P.s elected in 1868 may not present as striking a ‘nationalist’ profile as the cohorts of men returned to Westminster from the principality in the 1880s and 1890s, demanding home rule, nevertheless, these nationalistic sentiments had already taken root, and were an important element in several constituencies in that year. The definitions of ‘Wales’ and the ‘Welsh’ whose cause the later nationalists would champion, had already been set in stone: the ideological switch &om ‘radicalism to nationalism’ had already occurred.

1 5

86

85

86 Ibid., 14Feb. 1874, editorial. Camawon and Denbigh Herald, 7Feb. 1874, editorial.