Chapter 21

Parliamentary representation and taxation

As a borough Cockermouth was in 1295 given the right to send two representatives to Parliament. Supporting an MP was expensive and, after the first pair, the town failed to send any more members until 1640 in the time of Charles I, so that for three and a half centuries it was unrepresented. From that date until 1867 two members were again returned.

Cockermouth not only sent its own MPs but was the centre for the election of county representatives until 1832, an indication of the town’s importance. Until the reforms of that year Cumberland had a total of six members – 2 for the county itself, 2 for Carlisle and 2 for Cockermouth, another indication of the town’s status.

The Reform Act of 1832 extended the franchise. At the same time boroughs with a population of less than 2000 lost both their members and those between 2000 and 4000 were allowed only one. In an effort to retain two MPs Cockermouth made successful representations in 1832 to bring Brigham, Bridekirk, Papcastle and Eaglesfield into the division, thus increasing the electorate from 166 to 356.

Similar reforms were made in the Second Act of 1867, the voting qualification being lowered and boroughs of up to 10,000 now losing one representative. Cockermouth was one of the towns affected and from now on had only one MP. The process was continued in the Acts of 1884 and 1885 which gave all house-holders the vote and merged towns of less than 10,000 into county divisions. Cockermouth was no longer a division. It became first part of the Cockermouth and Workington Division, then Penrith and Cockermouth and in 1950 was placed in the new Workington Division (Appendix 15).

By the 18th century a parliamentary seat was eagerly sought and candidates would go to almost any lengths of bribery, corruption and expense to be elected. Burgages were bought as a means of obtaining the votes of the tenants. In 1756 Sir lames Lowther bought 134 burgages in Cockermouth for £58,060, at prices ranging from £300 to £650, a large sum for those days. [1] A private memorandum book of the steward of Cockermouth Castle recorded that

• “A majority of the burghers of Cockermouth having sold their burgages in the year 1756 to Sir James Lowther by means thereof Sir John Mordaunt and Charles Jenkinson, Esq. , [Lowther’s nominees] were returned members of Parliament for Cockermouth April3rd. 1761”. [2]

Elections were no twelve hour event. In the county election of 1768, for example, which cost the four candidates between £80,000 and £100,000, voting began in Cockermouth on 30th March and ended on 20th April, nineteen polling days later. [3] For this period the county was in a state of acrimonious uproar. There had been trouble between lames Lowther and the Duke of Portland about the Forest of Inglewood and the dispute was taken to Parliament who ruled in favour of Lowther. [4] Almost immediately afterwards Parliament was dissolved. Both Lowther and the Duke put up candidates. The result was disputed on technical grounds of qualification to vote and finally a compromise was reached that in future the seats would be shared between the two factions, an arrangement which lasted for 63 years. [5]

Writing of Cockermouth, the Universal British Directory said in 1790

• “the right hon. the Earl of Lonsdale, now being in possession of the majority of the borough votes, having purchased the greater part of the houses in the borough at a most enormous price, is careful that they are tenanted by such only as will obey his recommendations as implicity as the fourteen hundred colliers he caused to be made in one day freemen of Carlisle.”

 

The secret ballot was not introduced until 1872 and a voter was completely in the power of his landlord, for details were published after each election, as in this list for Cockermouth (on this occasion including the voting qualification):

• “in the year 1737 … one Burgess to serve in Parliament in the place of Sr. Willfrd. Lawson Deced. the Candidates being Richard Davenport Esqr Eldred Curwen Esqr. 1. Mr. Rob. Tubman. A Stable in Kirkgate. 5. Tho. France. The House he lives in. Mr. Wm. Tate .. Posson. of Joss Simpson Butcher. John Fletcher Esqr. A Mill in the River Coker. Posson. of Bayliffe.”

(and so on to 130 names in the first column and 149 in the second.) [6]

The Lowthers (Lonsdales) were not the only family to buy their way into power. There are records of the Earl of Egremont’s expenses, such as “Paid Expenses in Solliciting the Votes and entertaining the Freeholders of Great and Little Broughton £23s-6d.”, one of a number of entries in 1767. [7] James Lowther controlled nine parliamentary seats – 2 for Westmorland County, 1 for Cumberland County, 2 for Cockermouth, 1 for Appleby, 1 for Carlisle and 2 for Haslemere in Surrey which he had purchased from a London attorney. These MPs. were known in Parliament as “Jemmy’s ninepins”. On one occasion a Cockermouth member made an extravagant speech in the House of Commons, which brought a sarcastic reply from Mr. Burke, followed by loud and continued cheers. At this moment Mr. Fox entered the House and on asking what the noise was about was told “Oh nothing of consequence, only Burke has knocked down one of Lord Lonsdale’s ninepins.” [8]

Lowther was quite an active member. In 1775 and again in 1776 he put forward unsuccessful resolutions condemning the use of foreign troops in the dominions without the consent of Parliament and in 1781 was again unsuccessful in two attempts to end the war with America, [9] a matter which affected him personally, for Whitehaven lost half of its 200 ships in the conflict.

Bribery, coercion and violence remained a feature of elections well into the 19th century. One vote was considered so vital that a man might be offered the wiping out of his rent arrears or promised to be made comfortable for life if only he would vote for the right candidate. [10] In 1852 a man was made drunk and taken to Hassness to be hidden until the election was over and another was conveyed to Scotland, pursued by the rival party. [11] On occasion fighting broke out for the actual bodily possession of a voter!

All this was in contrast to the undertaking given by the bailiff that he would accept no reward or gratuity but would return “such Person as shall … appear to have the majority of legal votes”. It was his duty to call the burgesses together to elect Cockermouth’s representative, as by the following proclamation:

• “On Saturday the twenty-seventh day of this instant December at the Moot hall in the said Borough at ten of the clock in the forenoon of the same day, then and there to elect one Burgess to Represent the said Borough of Cockermouth in his Majesty’s said Parliament in the Room of Percy Wyndham O’Brien Esq. appointed to a government office. God save the King.” 23rd. Deer. 1755 – at three of the clock in the afternoon the above proclamation was made by the above named John Jackson at the Moot hall Stairs in Cockermouth afd.” [12]

In more recent times election results were proclaimed in the Public Hall in Station Street and shown nearby on slides in the upper windows of the West Cumberland Times – office at No. 29. [13]

In the twentieth century Cockermouth has been represented by three long-serving Labour members – Tom Cape (born at the Spread Eagle Inn) from 1918 to 1945 in the Cockermouth and Penrith Division and Fred Peart in that and the new Workington Division from 1945 to 1976. Fred Peart served twice as the Minister for Agriculture, then as Lord President of the Council, as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons and later as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. [14] Dale Campbell-Savours, was elected in 1979, and is now a life peer after his retirement in 2001.

In the 12th and 13th centuries there was a variety of taxes to provide money for the king. Sometimes these were for a particular purpose, such as the crusades or the marriage of Henry III’s sister in 1235. [15] Noutgeld or cornage rent, originally paid in cattle, exempted the payer from military service abroad, while scutage was a payment in lieu of military service. Carucage (or hidage) and tailage were forms of land taxation. Money was also gained from fines and penalties for favours granted, for assistance in law and as penalties for offences. Another source was the farming out by escheators of lands which had been forfeited or had reverted to the Crown. In all these forms of taxation the more important families in and around Cockermouth would be involved, and the less important too as the lord of the manor recouped some of his losses from his tenants. The earliest record of tax payments made to national funds is the Pipe Rolls or Great Rolls of the Exchequer, annual compilations which registered the revenue passing through the Treasury. The earliest Pipe Roll for Cumberland and Westmorland was for about AD 1130. There was then a gap until 1160, since when the records have been almost unbroken.

In 1332 records of the ‘lay subsidies, as the national taxes became known, show 33 inhabitants of Cockermouth as paying a total of £42-16s-lOd., the two highest being £3-13s-9d. by Alan Wythehoures and £3-ls-9d. by Michael de Eilton. 16 people in Papcastle paid altogether £75, £15 of this being from Alan son of Scott. [16] The average tax over Cumberland, which then had a population of between twenty and thirty thousand, was about 3s. a year. [17] The tax was calculated on the value of movable goods possessions of all kinds, including crops, usually assessed when the harvest was just in and stocks at their highest. There were some excepted items armour, riding horses, jewellery, knights’ robes, etc. The tax settled after a time at one fifteenth of the value of such goods from people living in the country and one tenth from town dwellers. [18] Begun in 1188 to help with Palestine campaigns, it lasted until 1623 and at its Peak in the 14th century brought the exchequer about £100,000 a year. The method of assessment was that the two or more knights or chief assessors appointed for each county by the king summoned the most capable men in each ‘hundred’ or sub division of the shire and from them chose twelve, who were sworn in to their task. These twelve then took four men and the reeve or recognised leader from each township and visited every house to assess the value of the goods. [19] There were many other forms of taxation at various times. [20] To name a few – an export tax on wool, first Y2 mark in 1266 but during the Hundred Years’ War this Y2 mark plus 40s. on every sack; the hearth tax at 2s. a hearth from 1662-89, with tradesmen and the poor exempted; the window tax first introduced in 1662 to replace the damaged coinage and abolished in 1851; a stamp tax on legal documents, newspapers, etc.; duties on horses – IOs. in 1784 with £2-2s. added if used for racing; taxes on carriers and coach proprietors; and taxes on industry, such as the hat tax of 3d. to 2s. on hats sold and a licence of Ss. a year for those who sold them. Added to these were, and still are, a variety of customs and excise duties, inland revenue and income taxes, purchase and value added taxes, licences for many things and activities, etc. In an of these Cockermouth people were involved and we shall have reason to refer to some of them in greater detail.