In 1855, Benjamin Oliveira MP, attended the town hall to donate the original plaster cast relief (i.e. the mold) from which the final bronze relief of "The Death of Nelson at Trafalgar" found on the pedestal of Nelson's Column had been made in 1849. The secret ballot was first used in the United Kingdom, and the result announced at the town hall, on 15 August 1872 to re-elect Hugh Childers as MP for Pontefract in a ministerial by-election following his appointment as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.