The Express.
London, England, 1847-05-25 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, MAY 25, 1847.

ELECTORAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

We now bend our course, in a southerly direction, to the
maritime counties of England. With Hants, we commence
a new group, which we intend shall comprise that fine and
very important shire, with the contiguous ones of Sussex en
the ea-t, and Dorsetehire and Devonshire on the west. This
is a district searcely lefts important in an electoral point of
view than as a gm it seat of our maritime power, and a
magnificent dee6t of the materiel required for its organisa-
tion. la tne f miner of these relations it at all times merits
the teeniest core and cnneideration of the executive. In the
later, it profoundly concerns the highest interests of the
public to watch, with jealous 'vigilance, that the independence
of the elective franchise be not endangered, from time
to time, by the immense government expenditure continu-
ally disbursed in Huta, by the authorities of that executive.
This maritime county is situated principally on the main
land of South Britain; hut it includes also the Isle of Wight,
from which it is separated by a narrow arm of the sea, aver-
aging about three miles in width, though at one part con-
traction to a atrait somewhat less than ft mile across. Hants,
ea the mainland, procnte an outline that assumes the form of
a parallelogram, end of which the sides face the cardinal
points of the compass. On the north it is bounded by Berk-
shire; on the east, by Surrey and Sussex; on the south, by
the English Channel ; or. the west, by Wilts anti Dorsetahire.
The length of the mainland portion, from north to south,
varies from 37 to 46 miles ; the breadth, front 28 to 41 miles.
A small detached strip of this county (for the most part, not
quite half a mile in width. but nine miles long) rxteuds from
Hulemere. in Surrey, to Midhurst, in Sussex. The Isle of
Wig: ht, comprehended within the; shire, is of a lozenge shape,
its longest diagonal measurement, from east to west, being
about 23 miles ; its shortest, from north to south, about 14
miles.
The area of Hants, including the Wight, is about 1,625
square miles. In point of size it is the eighth of the Ee.glish
counties, being a little smaller than Someraetshire, and
somewhat larger than Kent. In actual population it is the
fifteenth, in relative population the twenty-fourth of the
English counties. In the year 1831 it had 193 inhabitants
to the square mile. Ily the census of 1811 it had 212. The
city of Winchester is the county town. The principal naval
dock yard in England—or. indeed, in the world—is at
Foresee, in this county, which, with Portsmouth, contains •
population of more than 50,000. T I. e county is intersected with
many rivers, none of them of mush consequence as navigable
streams ; and it has two principal canals—the Basingstoke
and the Andover. It produces scarcely any mineral, if we
except "grey chalk," which is quarried near l'eters-
field. The sylvan glory of Hampshire consists in its
forests. Scandalously so (down to the period we have spoken
of in our paper on Gloucestershire, and, indeed, here we
might cite a very much later perind), the ship timber of these
noble woodlands has been wasted and reed up, heretofore,
they are now, with every year, resuming that uninterrupted
growth which, after haring been saved from the wholesale
fate of mere coppice and underwood, it is so essential they
should be allowed to acquire in order to arrive at the ma-
turity of ship timber. The New Forest is situated in the
south-western part of the shire; the Alice Holt and Wool-
neer on the east ; the Bens Forest on the south-vest. The
vast tract ref the " New Forest," when it was first .forested
under William the Conqueror, or his immediate sue-
cemore, extended from Gad's-hill, near Fording-bridge,
to the sea ; and from Itingwood to Handley, near
Southampton-water. It then stretched over 92,363
acres (a greater area even than that of all Rutlandsltire).
These limits, with the lapse of time, had become so far en-
larged, that, in the early part of Edward I.'s reien, they com-
prehended all the country from Southampton Water to the
Avon for several miles around. But these additions were
disafforested under Edward 1., in deference to the " Charts
de For, 'tie," which hod been Irritated by his father and pre-
decessor, Henry 111. The original bounds. thus restored,
were retained till the perambulation, temp. Car. 11. At
present they embrace a surface of only 04,000 acres; and
(subject to a few undetermined or unexpired leases, that
have been granted by our kings, and some manorial rights
in a few f milies) this forest to the property of the crown
and produces much of the finest oak and beech timber for
our great arsenals. Alice Holt and NVoolmer Forests com-
prehend 15,500 acres, half of which are crown property. Bens
Forest extends over 16,000 acres, but about one-third of it is
now enclosed.
Hampshire, or Hants, at the time of the Domesday-Book
survey, was divided into .50 hundreds. It has now 39 only.
At the period of the Reform B:11 it was subdivided, for
the covenienee of defining boundaries and jurisdictions,
into ten divisions; namely Alton, N. and S. Div. ;
Andover 1). ; Basingstoke and Fawiev D.; Kingselere 1).;
New Enna!, E. D. ; ditto, W. Div. ; Portsdown D.; Isle of
Wight la; and other " generate jurisdictions.," including the
city of Winchester and Liberty of Soke ; the borough of
Ponsnaouth, with Porten Gnildable, arid the town and
county of Sauthampton. But, on a still more recent occa-
sion, and for purposes connected with the general benefit
and convenience of the county, those divisions, by an agree-
ment come to among the magistracy, dre., have been in-
creased to thirteen. They comprise a total superfines of
1,018,550 ace. s. 5 cry few of its inhabitants are engaged in
any marufactures, (..f which, indeed, it has but few; some
cloths, shalloonn, and coarse woollens ; it halt also some paper-
milli and salt-works.) Notwithstanding its maritime peel-
tion, it is idle of the purely agricultural counties, standing
twenty-second on the list of these. Neither houses nor pa
pulation have increased here in the ratio of moat of
the other counties of Britain, within the last thirty year*.
In 1831, there were returned 59.065 houses, whilst 2,017
were uninhabited; .522 in process of building, and
66,526 inhabited. In 1841, there were nuppneed to
be about 60,450 houses, of which the dietribution
would he in much the same proportion. Of 61,6.52 families,
repined at the former of these periods, 22,761 were engaged
in various pursuits connected with agricultui al occupation
and the employments of agricultural labi.ur ; 20,983 families
were embsrked in trades, handierefte, and manufactcres ;
20,908 in all otherealliege. Since 1841 the numbers under the
second of these classes have pretty regularly inereawd ; but
are, at present, much extended, in connexion with employ-
ment at Portsmouth and elsewhere on this coast. At each
of the five decennial periods undermentioned, the population
of Hunts was given by the census as foil...i.e.—ln 1801 at
219,656; in 1911 at 231,050; in 1821 at 283,298; in 1831 at,
314,280 ; in 1841 at 3.54.940. In 1831, therefore, the increase
on the population of 1801 was no mere than 43 per cent.,
being le., by 14 per cent., than the averege of all England.
But in 1841 it had biereesed in ten years by 40,660, in. 15 per
rent. for that interval; and on the whole 40 years, from 1801,
by 125,284 persons, or 62 per cent. The poor rate
shows a strange flue nation in amount. In 1801 it
was 121,0191. ; in 1811, it was 225,6011. ; in 1831,
193,291/.; in 1841 it was 142,5071. The amount of
provery tax assessed in this county memo to have ave-
raged from 1806 to 1815 about 2,100,000/. per annum.
It is, of course, to be assumed that a county possessing—be-
sides one of the most extensive dockyards ever constructed,
for the accommodation at all times of a part of tar most mu-
nificent navy in existence—other seaport. and customhouses,
in which various cuid,olahnitin and other government and
revenue officcrs are offi ially located ; most have its
parliamentary representation to a great extent con-
trolled by the choice of the government for tee time
being. And as there IA nn department in the public
service from which the imputation of direct personal
favouritism can be, with so little effect, repelled, es
the Admiralty, whose administration it cermet be denied
to have pervaded, under every government, and through
too many of its branches, so there can be no constituency
more accessible to such influences than one, of whom
social prosperity the immediate outlay of the public
money among them forms • very large element.
It would be idle to suppose that the voice of
the minister is not potential, for example, in elections for
Portsmouth. B, tore the invention of reform bills and
electric telegraph., a manellottaly rapid and mysterious cons-
muiiication could be maintained between Portsmouth and
Christchurch, or even between Chriechurch and Yarmouth,
in the Isle of Wignt. Now that the representation of all
Hampshire has been shorn of six members, it is true this
sort of intelligence cannot be so easily turned to account as
in the "good nil dam, " in making the most distant consti-
tuencies return, for their representatives, men of whom they
might know nothing, and caress little, hut whom they might
yet send from the busting. to parliament at the suggestion
of parties with whom, personally, they were as little
acquaint. d. But an altered machinery does not necessarily
suppose an extinguished power. Even now, there is room
fora formidable increase of the government influence at elec-
tions fr,e, or in, a county which altogether returns 19 members.
Yet we are bound to coon, on • dinpanionate examination et
the county rtturns, that even the limited influence of official
patronage appears only in the macs of Portsmouth, Christ-
church, and perhaps Southampton in former years. The
electors far the county appear rather to h ere sent up a fair
average of candidates belonging to each of the two greet
political parties of the times, and to have been acted upon

maser by the news, or interests, or opinions of the larded
aridoerss7 of the county, than the engestions of the govern.*
mine On the poising of the Reform Act, when the county
was divided into a northern and southern section, for the
purposes of parliamentary elections, the total parliamentary
representation of Hampshire was thus modified. Each of
the two sections was allotted 2 members; the city of Win-
chester, 2 ; each of the boroughs of Portsmouth, South-
ampton, Lymington, Andover and Newport, 2 ; Christ-
church and Petenfield, 1 each : total, 18. Pri,r to the
Reform Act, the county returned but 2 ; but in addition to
the now existing borough representative, Christchurch and
Peters-field returned 2 burgesses each, instead of 1; and
Stockbridge, Whitchurch and Yarmouth (Isle of Wight),
sines devoured by schedule A, returned together 6 more ;
utal, 24.
The history of the representation of them two sections or
divisions, since the passing of the Reform Act, is rentarksble.
The northern division, which had already, in 1831, elected
the Right Hon. Charles Shaw Lefevre (who, in 1839,
became Speaker of the House of Commons, in which digni-
fied and responsible office be has ever since coatinued to earn
the earnest support and cordial respect of ell parties, and of
every individual compnung them), re-elected him in 1832, I
together with Mr. J. W. Scott, both of them whigs, and
without any opposition. At the next general election, in
1837, Mr. Shaw triune was again returned, together with I
Sir William Heathcme, But , a conservative, who was the,
other candidate (in place of Mr. Scott), without a contest.
In 1841, Mr. Lefevre and Sir William Heethcote were again
elected—no contest. The registered electors were, on that
occasion, 3,668, for this division. In 1846 they were re-
turned at 3,333. At the election for the southern division
of Hants, in 1836,1. W. Fleming, Esq. (who had been re-
turned in 1831 for the county, but ousted in 1832), wee cent
in at the head of the poll, together with H. C. Compton,
Esq., both gentlemen being conservatives. In that contest
Viscount Palmerston and 18r George Staunton, Bart., both
whigs, were defeated. A still severer contest, in 1837, re-
elected Mr. Fleming (by 2,383 votes), and Mr. Compton by
2,371. Sir George Staunton was thrown out, after polling
2,680 votes, u was Admiral Sir John Ommaney
with 1,967. In 1841, Mr Fleming and Mr. Compton were
returned without a contest; and the former, on accepting
the Chiltern Hundreds, in August, 1842, was succeeded by
Lord Charles Wellesley, also a conservative.