Winifred Proctor – the Preston 1768 election

On 6 April 1959, Winifred Proctor gave a talk to Preston Historical Society on the infamous Preston election of 1768. It was subsequently published in the journal of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, where you can find dozens of articles relating to the history of Preston. It is reproduced here with the society’s permission.

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The story of that election in which armed supporters of both Tories and Whigs terrorised the town has been told many times, with scenes which included the mayor dunked under the Market Place pump and the priest at St Mary’s Chapel fleeing for his life. But for a comprehensive and detailed account of the issues and incidents of that election this paper, with the addition of a more recent one by David Berry, cannot be beaten. The Tory candidates have now been forgotten, but the Whigs fielded Colonel John Burgoyne and Sir Henry Hoghton, who both played an important part in the subsequent history of the town

Winifred’s article should be read in full, but here are just a few examples of the gems it contains, such as the following which describes just two of the ways voters were bribed for their support:

‘Numerous cases of bribery are reported in the poll book. Among them are the following: Thomas Place voted for the Whig party after being given an assurance that he would be admitted into Goosnargh Charity if he did so. He was afterwards accepted by the charity. Of Peter Clarkson a witness says, “I apply’d to him last Michs. for his vote for Burgoyne. He say’d he had been apply’d to by Lord Strange, but that he got nothing to drink, so had good mind to turn.” Which he did, he voted for the Corporation party.’

She fleshes out the dry facts of election statistics contained in the poll books with stories of the people involved, as she says of one of the books:

‘This poll book is a human document, alive and often amusing. Lawyers, clerks in holy orders, innkeepers, labourers, paupers, and nitwits people its pages. It is of some topographical value, for it is the earliest directory of Preston we possess.’

And as so often in Preston’s history, it was the town’s Catholics who bore the brunt of ill feeling fomented principally by the Whig candidates, since the Catholics who did vote all voted for the Tories, bar one man:

‘It was, however, the question of the Catholic vote that roused the bitterest feelings. In 1768, the scales were still heavily weighted against both Roman Catholics and Dissenters. True, the passing of the annual act of Indemnity had, in some respects given liberty in all but name to the Dissenters, but parliament had not yet found it expedient to repeal the Test and Corporation acts, and many Catholics refused to take the required oaths of allegiance, which declared fidelity to George III, of supremacy, which denied papal authority in England, and of abjuration, which repudiated the rights of the Stuarts to the throne. There appears to have been surprise and consternation in the ranks of the Whigs therefore, when on the second day of the poll a number of Roman Catholics appeared before the returning officers and swallowed the oaths without protest. One Catholic alone, the first to appear, voted Whig; the rest voted Tory.’

The lasting result of this election was that all the adult male inhabitants of Preston, resident in the town for more than six months, were given the vote, the only constituency in the country, other than Westminster, to enjoy the privilege. The six-month rule was imposed by Parliament:

‘… when it was later reported to the House that the residential qualification in Preston was so loosely interpreted that “there was nothing to hinder a regiment of soldiers from marching into the town one night, and voting at an election next morning”, Parliament felt compelled to pass the act of 1786 which imposed a six-months residential qualification in all inhabitant householder boroughs.’