The Express.
London, England, 1849-10-27 00:00:00

OUR REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM

BEWDLEY AND STOURPORT.
Upon the elope of a gentle bill, crowned at its sum•
mit by a forest, and washed at its bus by the broad
and sunny Severn, lies the little clean old town of
Bewdley. You epproach it from the east mess a
handsome bridge, which spans the Severn here. The
town itself consists principally of an irregular square,
of which a Chutch occupies the centre. It is the
teat, not of commerce or of manufactures, but of an
all-prevailing dulness. In other country places
there is at least one day in the week on
which there is somethinegoing forward: at Bewdley
every day is the same. Heaven only knows why the
pavements are kept op —there .rem to ba no people
to walk over them. There is an hotel in the main
square—one of those onenfortable, old-fashioned inns
which in these railway days ars only to be found
here and these, in the odd nooks and corners of old
England. If you wish to stay at it you need by to
means send a telegraphic message to engage a bed
beforehand. You will probably have the house to
yourself, even though you may remain a fsrtnight.
Bewdley was formerly the port of the river Severn.
The produce of the district round about—the corn of
Shropshire, the hops of Worcestershire, the wool and
cider of pleasant Hereford, were stored at Bewdley,
or sent down the Severn in the barges which rani-
te-d it from thence to Gloucester. But when blast
bran. a began to smote and fume in Staffordshire—
when Stourbridgo became the great seat of the glass
trade, and the whole country round about began to
echo to the hammers of the forges—greater facilities
were found to be required than those which Bendiest
could afford. Canals were projected and clt through
the coal and iron district, and these de-
touched at a poi t upon the Severn, lower than
Bewdley. To this point it became necessary that the
trade of Bewdley should remove, and cn that spot
there then rose up the town of Stourport,, now a
place of double the size and ten times the bunnees of
the mother town.
Bewdley at the present time might be shut up
altogether wore it not for a few members of old coun-
ty families, who have selected it as a cheap al
residence, presenting the advantage ofouse
rent and a market. Tho population of Stourport, on
the other hand, is solely manufacturing. It
has no one in it who is not engsgod either in
masufactuses on his own account, or in facilitating
the objects of theme who a:c. Thus there is nothing
in common between the two towns which the wisdom
of the legitlatate has thought fit to bind together
in the ties of perliamentary and electoral matrimony.
And hence it follows that each complains of the
other. Bewdley, looking down contemptuously on
dirty Stourport, exclaims against the union with soot
of =checks. Stourport, retortirg tho compliment
with interest, describes Bewdley as a rotten borough,
and its people as an ignorant art of droner, corrupt to
the care, and prepared to sell themselves at any time
to the highest bidder for their suffrage'.
Whatever it may be now, Bewdley, before the
Reform Act, was a rotten borough, beyond the
slightest doubt. Its constituency was peculiar. The
right of election was veiled in the Corporate', con-
sisting of a bailiff and twelve capital burgesser, who,
if they chose, were empowered to elect other bus-
genes to vote with them. For a very long period in
the last century, the representation of the town was
alternately influenced by the families of Lord Ls ttel-
too, who is lord of the manor of Bewdley, and of Sir
Thomas Winreingtoo, who is patron of the living and
holder of the largest prsperty in the vicinity. But at
the commencemeet of this century, a new interest
sprung up in Bewdley. This was the interest of a
Mr. Roberta, an attorney, who, being appointed
the town-clerk, had " managed " fc r cowl
time the corporation of the town, and who at'
length found him:elf so inrrounded by his Mends
and creatures that he was able to Let both the
"Patrons" of the bet oegh at defiance, and to obtain
his own retain to parliament instead of either of
them. Mr. Roberts and his son, who succeeded him,
sat for Bewdley from 1806 to 1832. The son still
lives, and as we shall tea hereafter, still, in another
way, control; the town.
The Roberts family were tnries, but there was no-
thing exclusive in their toryism, nor did it carry
them to any great extremes. When the Ref yea
Bill threw Bewdley open in 1832, their interest
was no longer dominant. The late Sir Themes Win-
ningtou, who had represented Worcestershire_ from
1820 to 1830, and Ds oitwicli in the short parliament
of 1831, off, re i himself to the electors. There wet)
far from being any objection to him. Personally he
was much respected by his neighbours at Rowdl.y.
Duricg his public career his votes in parliament had
been liberal. Patron of the living, and pos-
sessing the buret landed estate in the vicinity, he
was regarded as the man most likely to ad-
vance the local interests of the place should
they in any way require particular re.ire-
eentation in the House of Cummona Besides
all this there was no one at all likely successfully to
°pima him. The Lyn/ lton and Foley families were
on the same side in politics, and their influence at
that time stood second to Sir Thomas Winning-
ton's in Bewdley. As fur a tory in 1832 inch a
monster would scarcely have been thought of, bat
had any of the species ventured to appear he would
have found few supporters in the borough, for Stour-
port was thoronghly liberal, and in Bewdley, the ex-
member, Mr. Roberts, was on terms of the closest
private intimacy and friendship with the Winning-
tons, and, unable to return himself, preferred them
infinitely to any other perinea who could offer.
Thus, in 1832, the IS'innington family, after a lapse
of nearly half a cantor , resumed all their ancient
influence in Bewdley. " Sir Thomas" came in quite
nnoppesed. In 1833 and 1837 he was again elected.
The borousb, in fact, had almoe' come to be regarded
as his own. Treat the family desired it to be so was
evident from what took piece soon after.
II 1839 Sir Thomas Wirmington died. Hie son
and successor in the title and estates offered :himself
to succeed him. There was some rum:ur of another
candidate, but the election was pressed forward, and
the new Sir Thomas was elected quietly. There
were many, however, who did not exactly relish this
easy sort of substitution of one Sir Thomas for
another, and who urged that the principle that "Sir
Thomas never dies " might apply to the estates, but
did not apply to the borough. Just about this period,
too, a change took place in Worcesters?ire which
completely unsettled all the old relations of indivi-
duals and parties: a change which materially weak-
ened the Winniogton relations.
Whitley Court is one of the finest estates, not
merely in Worcestershire, but in any part of Eng-
land. It includes within its boundaries not merely
hamlets and villages, but whole towns and parishes.
Seven or eight large livings are in the gift of its pro-
prietor, one of which is valued at 1,1001. a year. This
estate was the property of the Foley., and it gave
them for many a long year a dominant in-
fluence in Worcestershire. Bat it was dread-
fully encumbered, and about 188743 the present
possessor of the title was extremely desirous to salt.
The question was who could buy? Whitley Court,
and all that appertained to it, was valued nearly at
a million, and it is not every man who can find a
balance at his banker's that will enable him to possess
himself of a jewel of that rare amount.
In 183 st there were great rejoicings in the neigh-
bourhood of Whitley at the coming of age of Lord
Ward, the inheritor of a title which devolved on him
by accident, and of mineral estates in Staffordshire
and Worcestershire which are the sources of
unbounded wealth. Lord Ward's character is an
uncommon one. Violently ambitious, his ambition
appears to have none of the olsjects which are common
to other men. Alive to the value of money, he is
still utterly regardless of it when he ono, fixes his de-
sires on any object that he wiehes to possess. From
his oomparatively humble seat at Himley Hall he could
see afar off, on the day of his majority, the swelling
hills en which stands Whitley Gout and the noble
Woods which shade it. Lord Ward's ambition
soloed him to possess this property. Regardless of
mem, it must betc:shased: 900,000 d. was asked
aberl and Whi Court, alter a negotiation too
ielitilibe lawyers, t flar too knit: the impa-
tiens* of their client*, passed far ever the family
el Poky Into the please= of Lord Wart
Lord Ward had scarcely taken posomioa of Whit-
by, era he began to look to the Mew* influence
which it mosmoodod. Budolotag moms the Severn,
his vast estate passed class to &wiry, and cams op
almvot to the town of Kiihrodooter. Dudley he
aboady mood. Indepsohat Wolverhampton be
boi mimed batively to sass an eye opoo. Bridge-
am* be flayed at Imagragly, and Woroestenbirs
ohs* Mood its dam. la -1833 an acct of Sir
2lows Walvis bed bon enacted for tido oosaq