The largely Protestant county of Londonderry, which had about 200,000 inhabitants and was notable for its linen manufactures, derived its name from the English plantation of the early seventeenth century.1 The prefix London had then been added to the existing name in recognition of the dominance of the 12 livery companies who had divided the available lands between them. Four subsequently alienated their properties in perpetuity, but the remainder largely repossessed their estates when the leases fell in, as most of them did in the early nineteenth century.2 This had a profound effect on the electoral interests in the county: for instance, although the Ogilbys of Pellipar House, Dungiven, continued to play a significant part as tenants of the Skinners’ Company, the minor role of Sir William Rowley* of Tendring Hall, Suffolk, was eclipsed when his 39,000 acres reverted to the Drapers’ Company in 1817.3

Nor were the two dominant families of the Stewarts and the Beresfords, who usually controlled one seat each, entirely immune to this trend.4 The 1st marquess of Londonderry of Mount Stewart, county Down, where his principal interests lay, was custos rotulorum and held estates under the Salters’ Company, while his brother Alexander Stewart† senior of Ards, county Donegal, continued to be a tenant of the Mercers’, but only until the late 1820s.5 After the Union Londonderry returned his younger son Charles, who married a Durham heiress and was created Baron Stewart in 1814. The seat then passed to Alexander Stewart, who retired in favour of his son and namesake at the general election of 1818.6 Londonderry’s son-in-law George Canning† of Garvagh had threatened to contest the county that year, but was subsequently an ally, having been bought off with the Irish barony of Garvagh. Like other items of patronage, this was perhaps arranged by the marquess’s elder son Lord Castlereagh*, foreign secretary in the Liverpool ministry and governor of the county. The Beresford interest, partly based on extensive estates held under the Drapers’ Company, was headed by another non-resident peer, the 2nd marquess of Waterford of Curraghmore, county Waterford. He had represented county Londonderry for the last decade of the Irish Parliament and after inheriting his title in 1800 he returned his brother Lord George Beresford, who was Member for county Waterford, 1814-26. The Ponsonbys secured the seat in 1812, but the local gentleman George Dawson of Castle Dawson won it at a by-election in 1815, when Waterford paid the expenses of £1,100 and considered Dawson as his nominee.7 The Beresfords returned relations for the boroughs of Coleraine and Londonderry (the Conolly borough of Newton Limavady had been disfranchised) and exercised the preponderant interest in the county, while Waterford’s brother John, primate of Ireland from 1822, controlled the representation of Armagh borough.8 Formerly the backbone of the Castle interest, the Beresfords naturally supported ministers and opposed Catholic relief. In this they were usually joined by the Stewarts, some of whom however favoured emancipation, and William Knox, bishop of Derry, a younger son of the 1st Viscount Northland.

The sitting Members were returned unopposed as ministerialists at the general election of 1820, when Castlereagh commented that both there and in Down, success ‘cost nothing, but a good dinner to friends’.9 There were probably about 4,500 electors at this time; 1,000 freeholders were registered each year in the 30 years to 1823, but it seems unlikely that the annual total ever went much above this figure.10 A county meeting was held on the Queen Caroline affair at Limavady, 11 Jan. 1821, when a loyal address was agreed, in the face of a hostile amendment from the Londonderry radical Francis Horner.11 Petitions were presented to the Commons from the county and city’s linen merchants for a protecting duty on foreign yarn, 25 June 1823; the inhabitants complaining of the toll on Derry bridge as a hindrance to local development, 18 June 1824; and the gentry, merchants and traders against the suppression of small Irish bank notes, 7 Apr. 1826.12

Castlereagh, who inherited his father’s Irish marquessate in April 1821, committed suicide in August 1822, when Lord Stewart, then ambassador to Austria, succeeded as 3rd marquess of Londonderry. He, who had already been appointed custos rotulorum of Londonderry on his father’s death, sought to extract the maximum possible patronage from ministers in exchange for his continued support. In particular, he maintained that his late half-brother had intended to relinquish the colonelcy of the Londonderry militia to Alexander Stewart junior, and he was mortified when, in his absence abroad, ministers appointed the Beresfords’ candidate, the city Member Sir George Hill. This, he maintained, represented an unwarrantable transfer of interest to his rivals, especially as it was a position ‘infinitely important in electioneering’. Liverpool, irritated like other ministers by Londonderry’s conduct, could hardly dismiss Hill, the Irish vice-treasurer, and found unacceptable the terms he demanded in exchange for his resignation, namely a colonial office for himself and a dukedom for Waterford, so nothing could be done. The family continued to resent the episode as a slur on Castlereagh’s memory, but Stewart reluctantly agreed to serve under Hill in order to minimize their loss of face and influence. The row continued until July 1823, when the king refused to intervene, but, as he had wished, Londonderry secured numerous sweeteners, including the governorship of his titular county.13

Londonderry had told the duke of Wellington in March 1823 that Hill’s refusal to withdraw would ‘entirely destroy the union that has subsisted between the Beresford family and ours so long’.14 In November, without hiding his hostility to his counterpart’s refusal to disown Hill, he made an overture to Waterford, asking ‘whether I am to consider it as the forerunner of the interruption of the good understanding that has so happily prevailed’. On 15 Dec. 1823 Waterford replied that he likewise felt

strongly the importance of families possessing considerable influence and equally attached to the system and politics of His Majesty’s present government continuing towards each other in the same county a cordial and mutual support, as much for the convenience, comfort and tranquillity of their county, as for their own sakes ... I therefore candidly and distinctly reply to your question by deprecating a break up ... and declare my readiness to make common cause with you at the next election. Prudence of course will require such an arrangement, if made, to be kept secret.15

Raising further quibbles, 16 Feb. 1824, Londonderry insisted on knowing how long the relationship could be expected to last. Waterford answered on 8 Apr. that ‘mutual support heartily given at the next election would be a better cement and security for further goodwill and co-operation than a more extended arrangement’ and declined to commit himself beyond that event.16 Stewart junior, whom Londonderry consulted, observed of the Beresfords that

the feeling of that party is to keep well with us while we were possessed of a formidable power in the county, and that when that is gone, they will attempt to return an immediate member of their own family in [?conjunction] with Dawson, who will then appear as an independent Member.

He added that he disliked acceding to Waterford’s proposal, but doubted whether another alliance, for instance with the Ogilbys, would do anything more to guarantee the future of their interest. Using the excuse of Waterford’s declining health, Londonderry therefore postponed any meeting between the two patrons and left matters to be settled at a later date.17

Religion had long been a divisive factor in county Londonderry, where in August 1823 the magistrates addressed the lord lieutenant to express their uneasiness about the revived activities of the Catholics.18 An anti-Catholic petition, which received 1,700 signatures, was approved at a joint county and city meeting in Derry, 10 Jan. 1825. It was presented to the Commons by Hill, 10 Feb., when, echoed by Dawson, he explained that the Protestants had only been stirred into action after the Catholic Association had begun to collect its ‘rent’.19 Dawson, a junior minister since 1822, continued to oppose Catholic claims that session, and for this reason was given a public dinner by his constituents on 28 Dec. 1825.20 In the autumn of that year, when a dissolution was expected, Waterford had requested Hill to assure the electors that nothing ‘shall be wanting on my part to promote the interest and prosperity of my tenantry and of the county in general’; and by the time of the general election in mid-1826 Londonderry had also made his preparations, smoothing over the differences with his cousin which had arisen out of the militia affair.21 The sitting Members, ‘Derry Dawson’, who attacked relief on the hustings, and the pro-Catholic Stewart, who was represented by his brother John, were returned unopposed, their differences on the Catholic question being subsumed within the tacit alliance between their sponsors.22 Dawson reported to his brother-in-law Robert Peel, the home secretary, that ‘nothing could pass off better ... I may flatter myself that my election has been unanimous’; but Hill warned that Daniel O’Connell* would direct the Catholics to contest Londonderry and other Ulster counties at the following election, when ‘Dawson will be his chief mark’.23

Waterford died in July 1826, leaving an under age heir, and thereafter his interest was managed by the senior members of the family, particularly Archbishop Beresford and his illegitimate brother Viscount Beresford. The resident co-ordinator, however, was Henry Barré Beresford of Learmount, and it was he who got up the anti-Catholic county meeting which was held at Limavady on 3 Nov. 1826.24 Dawson, who stated that it had 22,000 signatures, presented the resulting petition, 2 Mar. 1827, when Hill doubted that any but Catholics had put their name to the favourable petition which Charles Brownlow, the turncoat Member for county Armagh, announced would shortly be forwarded to him by Stewart. The petitions in favour of their claims from the Catholics of the county were presented to the Commons by Brownlow, 5 Mar., and the Lords by Londonderry, 16 Mar.25 After the accession of the pro-Catholic Canning to the premiership that spring, O’Connell boasted on 11 June 1827 that ‘I would beat Dawson with Protestants in Derry if administration pleased to aid me’, and the necessity of avoiding a by-election apparently affected Dawson’s appointment as treasury secretary on the formation of the Wellington government early the following year.26 He brought up the county petition for alteration of the grand jurors’ oath, 22 May 1828.27

Justifying his highly indiscreet speech in favour of granting concessions to the Catholics, Dawson wrote to Wellington that ‘there were not more than say half-a-dozen gentlemen of property or influence in the county present’ among the rabid Protestants whom he addressed in Londonderry on 12 Aug., but his change of heart, which was attributed to his fear of being ousted by the Catholic Association, caused an enormous row.28 In a typical piece of condemnation, Peel’s brother William Peel*, who commented that ‘I even doubt the policy of it, as regards his seat’, expressed the general revulsion that their brother-in-law’s apostasy had provoked:

Conduct such as Dawson’s in a man who had with consistency but with moderation opposed the Catholic claims would have been bad enough; but here is a man who has hallooed the Protestants on to Orangeism, who has laughed at the timidity of the more cautious, who has heaped personal insults upon the leaders of the Catholic Association and who has tortured his brain to hold up to ridicule those who have changed their opinions upon the question.29

Making specific reference to Londonderry, Lord Beresford observed to Wellington in September 1828 that Dawson

never consulted any one of us upon it, though he must have been aware how much he staked the interest of the family in the country, and he has in truth placed us in a very awkward predicament. According to present feelings there he could have no chance of being re-elected, and the second boy [the 3rd marquess’s brother] Lord William, will not be of age for the next election, even at the latest period it could take place.30

In its repercussions, therefore, his speech destabilized the already weakened Protestant interests in the county.31

On the motion of Sir James Bruce of Downhill at a meeting on 17 Sept. 1828, the city and county of Londonderry Brunswick Club was established, under the presidency of Sir Robert Ferguson* of The Farm, near Londonderry. Among other clubs formed were those at Limavady (under Lord George Beresford), 3 Oct., and Magherafelt (under William Lenox Conyngham of Springhill), 16 Oct.32 However, Edward Littleton* reported in October that Londonderry was well received at an agricultural dinner when he recommended allowing ministers a free hand:

The applause was universal. It was not the compliance of tenants to a landlord, for by their leases they are quite independent of him ... but the people of his district from the long influence and example of the family had kept away from clubs which are the bane of this country, and had preserved the right use of their understandings. Yet they are most of them high Tories.33

Opinion was not unanimous on the question, therefore, and a pro-Catholic declaration was forwarded to the king at this time.34 Bruce and Barré Beresford were prominent at the Protestant county meeting at Limavady, 4 Dec. 1828, when criticisms were voiced against Dawson, whose Commons speech on 6 Feb. 1829 in favour of Wellington’s decision to emancipate the Catholics drew the scorn of constituents like the polemicist the Rev. John Graham, rector of Tamlaghtard.35 The hostile petition, allegedly with over 20,000 signatures, was brought up in the Commons, 16 Mar., by Hill, who stressed that a sizeable minority of opinion was in favour of emancipation; Dawson attested to the respectability of those who had declined to sign it and Stewart congratulated the county on its increasingly sympathetic attitude. It was brought up in the Lords by the duke of Cumberland, 19 Mar., when Londonderry argued that most freeholders wanted to have the question settled and that many of them had signed the pro-Catholic address the previous year. The petition of the county’s Catholics, which had been agreed at a meeting at Derry on 29 Jan., was presented to the Lords by Londonderry, 19 Mar., and to the Commons by Dawson, who brought up numerous other local petitions, 24 Mar.36 Questions were raised about the validity of the signatures on the favourable petition from Kilrea, presented by Stewart on 13 Mar., and they were made the subject of a select committee, 31 Mar. 1829.37 Both Members and Hill divided for emancipation that session, as did Londonderry, Bishop Knox and Viscount Beresford, but not Primate Beresford.

As a result of the Irish Franchise Act, which raised the qualification to £10, the number of electors fell from 4,803 on 1 Jan. 1829 to 866 a year later.38 That it reached nearly 900 was largely owing to the immediate efforts that were made to register tenants, especially on the initiative of Barré Beresford, who recommended the purchase of part of the Ponsonby estate and that Lord Beresford, master-general of the ordnance, ‘should look also to patronage for the influence of patronage is thrown out frequently here as a bait’.39 He noted that ‘the strongest Protestant feeling exists everywhere amongst the freeholders who are 20 to one majority Protestant’ at the conclusion of the registration in June 1829, when Hill drew up an analysis itemizing a plethora of minor interests. The largest of these (with 100 votes) was controlled by Robert Ogilby, who, ambitious of acquiring a seat for his young son, Alexander, ‘means to start as a candidate as £10,000 is little object to him’; Barré Beresford believed that ‘they know we cannot grant leases [Waterford being a minor] and actually speculate we are not so strong as we shall be hereafter’, but that, as their tenants were all ‘of the Brunswick calibre and independent’, they could mostly be won over.40 Fearing that the Beresfords were ‘by no means sure of a great majority’, his biggest worry was over Dawson, notwithstanding Hill’s calculation that they could return him on his and their combined interests. Barré, who knew that Stewart would not continue and hoped that Dawson would offer for this second seat, perhaps in alliance with Ogilby, sounded the gentry and concluded that ‘we might carry Dawson in, but we are sure to carry a Beresford in, the former with much unpopularity and future risk, the later with the public opinion quite with us’. Given that Lord George was hoping to recover his seat for county Waterford and that Barré, debarred by his customs office, in any case had no parliamentary ambitions, the question remained, as Lord Beresford exclaimed, ‘Who have we to put up for Derry? We are beset with difficulties!’41

During the second half of 1829 the Beresfords attempted to come to terms with their increasingly wayward Member, who seemed oblivious to the fact that they considered him a liability or that his constituents hated him as an arrogant traitor, partly perhaps heeding Hill’s warning that ‘a breach with George Dawson at this time will throw the county open to turmoil, expense and doubtful result hereafter, to any interest’.42 Yet they also conducted a frantic search for a possible replacement, at various times considering Ferguson, who in fact succeeded Hill in Londonderry borough the following year; their kinsman Sir John Brydges, who remained Member for Coleraine; Ogilby or Bruce, as popular residents, provided they accepted a subordinate status; Lord Ingestre*, son of the former lord lieutenant Earl Talbot; Marcus Beresford, Member for Berwick; and another Orange relation, the naval officer Theobald Jones, who was the eventual choice as locum for the county.43 Matters became more serious in August, when first Dawson and then Lord Beresford brought the disagreement before Wellington, who promised his support to the former as a member of the government and, though much embarrassed, commented that the latter was in the wrong as ‘splitting hairs in politics is never very judicious and most particularly not in election politics’.44 Caught between the two competing interests, the commander-in-chief in Ireland, Sir John Byng*, who had inherited the important Conolly estate at Bellaghy, adopted the tactic, when canvassed, of saying only that he would vote for Wellington’s candidate.45

Lord Beresford, who played down Barré’s assessment that the family would itself lose credit for his having supported emancipation, feared the ruin of Waterford’s inheritance and told the primate, who recommended abandoning Dawson in August 1829, that

we will indeed be laughed at if he succeeds, ousts us of the representation, and at the same time shows our ignorance of its real state. This will be worse than losing the county of Waterford [in 1826], where at least we did not bring the thing upon ourselves, and if the two go the family will be totally reduced in political importance.46

The intricacy of the struggle manifested itself in bitter and symbolic efforts by each side to take credit for the promotion awarded to the Rev. John Young, in order to demonstrate to the minor interests that they were the best conduit for ministerial patronage.47 Treading carefully, in September and October the Beresfords urged Dawson to acknowledge their claim over his seat, but he took a stubbornly independent stand and required the reversion to one of their boroughs as the (to them, unacceptable) price of his withdrawal.48 Actuated by a desire to overcome the much exaggerated differences between the parties, several individuals attempted to bring about a reconciliation, which Robert Peel agreed to oversee, but Dawson’s tactless address of 18 Oct. produced the final rupture and the mediation exercise was eventually called off in December 1829, amid mutual recriminations.49 Sectarian resentment continued into the new year, as demonstrated in a squib entitled ‘The rat’s fancy ball’.50

At a county meeting at Limavady on 31 May, Barré Beresford and Ferguson moved resolutions against the increased Irish stamp and spirit duties; despite the remonstration of John Acheson Smyth of Ardmore, the ensuing petition was entrusted to Dawson, who presented it on 8 June 1830, with another from the county for inquiry into Irish manor courts.51 The king’s death that month excited speculation about the possible candidacies of Ogilby, who did not enter, and Jones, who canvassed successfully on the Beresford interest. Dawson, the target of considerable Protestant anger, persisted in his intention of standing with ministerial backing (Byng was instructed to support him) and he gained a significant ally in the Irish Society of London, which was opposing the Beresfords’ interests in their two boroughs.52 As expected, given the imminent demise of his father’s interest, Stewart retired after having declined the offer from Londonderry, with whom he had largely fallen out, to pay his expenses. Londonderry, who admitted that Catholic emancipation had reduced his influence, quietly helped to bring forward the Down country gentleman Sir Robert Bateson, a self-proclaimed independent, who attracted widespread support as the ideal alternative to Dawson.53

Confronted with a tacit coalition, Dawson had no choice but to withdraw from what would have been an expensive electoral battle, though his wife claimed that an Orange outrage at Magherafelt was ‘the cause of his abandoning the contest’.54 Partly, no doubt, to prevent the alienation from government of the Beresfords, who were furious about Dawson’s open hostility, Wellington recalled him to London and soon provided him with a berth at Harwich.55 No opposition was therefore offered at the general election in August 1830 when, in their addresses and speeches, the two candidates expressed guarded support for administration and stressed the need for economies and retrenchment. Barré Beresford, who proposed Jones and calculated that the expenses would amount to about £850, reported to the primate that ‘all went off gloriously; our family never had a greater triumph’, though the proceedings were marred by the threatening behaviour of the Catholic mob, who had gained possession of the hall, and the disaffection of some of the freeholders.56 Beresford, who took over Hill’s residence of Brook Hall as the family’s political headquarters, advised Lord Beresford that ‘we must be active in keeping up our interest’, not least because Dawson had been ‘instigating the London Companies also to interfere in the county’.57 Bateson’s triumph was celebrated at several dinners, and he was soon acclaimed in the local press as an effective Member.58 Among petitions which he presented were those from the landed proprietors of Aughadowey and the presbytery of Derry for continuation of the grant to the Kildare Place Society, 14 Mar. 1831.59

As Bateson told the Commons, 22 Mar. 1831, the county was divided on reform, both favourable and hostile petitions being forwarded to the Members, who were threatened with an opposition for their votes against the Grey ministry’s bill.60 It was initially rumoured that they would be challenged at the general election by the treasury minister George Ponsonby*, whose family had a dormant interest, but it was Byng who, to the anger of local Tories like Graham, was brought forward and supported by government as a reformer.61 Byng, who claimed that the county was solidly pro-reform except for ‘some resident gentry and some red hot Brunswickers’, was confident and was informed that the Catholics ‘will vote for me to a man’.62 The Irish Society backed him, and O’Connell wrote to Lord Duncannon*, the ministerial whip, that ‘I entertain hopes of frightening both Members, if not doing more against one of them’.63 However, Londonderry, whose opposition to reform probably cost him the lord lieutenancy of the county later that year (it went to Garvagh), informed Wellington that he had received good reports from Bateson, despite the extent of the commander-in-chief’s influence.64 On the hustings, Bateson pointed out that he was the only non-military candidate and, like Jones, defended his record of abandoning Wellington but then opposing reform, while Byng, who said he would resign his command if elected, was joined by the local reformer Captain John Hart of Ballynagard, the son of George Vaughan Hart*, who had suffered two recent defeats in Londonderry borough. Samuel Lyle of The Oaks, a younger son of one of the unsuccessful candidates in 1806, Smyth and Horner condemned Bateson for his lukewarm attitude to reform, and uproar ensued when Graham intervened on his behalf. The sitting Members led throughout the three-day poll, during which perhaps about two-thirds of the 1,539 electors voted, and, in the words of Jones’s proposer, Richard Hunter of Jackson Hall, they ‘beat the reformers in a canter’.65 Dawson, who supported the Beresfords in what they claimed as a signal victory, congratulated Jones on defeating Byng and added that he was sorry to hear of the post-election riots, ‘but what could be expected when such open encouragement was given by the government’.66 Bateson complained to the Irish secretary Edward Smith Stanley in the House about the mob that was employed in Byng’s support, 21 June, and received addresses deploring and praising his speech from the freeholders of Loughinshollen in July and August respectively.67 In a letter to Smith Stanley, 26 June, Byng indignantly denied either that government had improperly intervened or that he had been personally guilty of misconduct.68 He, who ran up expenses amounting to £2,000 and had hopes of winning on a future occasion, certainly received the sympathy of ministers, who found him a seat at Poole in October 1831.69

The Protestants of Loughinshollen met at Magherafelt under Graham’s chairmanship, 12 Jan. 1832, to pass resolutions against the influence of the Catholics and in favour of the Members.70 The magistrates’ petition complaining of the undue cost of renewing their commissions was brought up in the Commons by Jones, 8 Mar.71 Like their nominees, who continued to oppose reform, Londonderry, Beresford and the archbishop of Armagh voted against the reform bill, 13 Apr., and again, 7 May, when Waterford divided with them, having taken his seat that day. On 2 June, when he reported to Lord Beresford that the county’s Orangemen ‘look on themselves as under a republican government’, Barré Beresford calculated that Waterford’s new leases meant that he controlled at least 327 of the estimated 1,900 electors.72 The Beresford and Stewart Members, who were fêted by Barré Beresford at the Derry celebrations on 12 Aug., were considered secure and, after Alexander Ogilby had withdrawn, they were returned unopposed as Conservatives at the general election of 1832, when there were 2,172 registered electors. Jones sat until 1857 and either Bateson or one of his sons filled the other seat for the same 25-year period.73