Striving for a world transformed by justice and peace - a TL from 1827

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More information about government ministers new to this timeline.

George Shipton was born in 1839 and was a builder. He was active in the building trades union. In the 1870 general election he was elected Commonwealth MP for Whitechapel. In June 1871 George Cowell appointed him a junior minister in his government.
 
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Abel Heywood, was born in Lancashire on 25 February 1810. His father died in 1812. In 1819 his mother moved to Manchester and Abel began working for a local manufacturer. In 1831, after he had been dismissed from his job, he became a newsagent and acquired the agency for the Poor Man's Guardian. Because the paper refused to pay the government stamp duty, its sale was declared illegal and Heywood was charged and sentenced. He was fined £54 which he refused to pay because he believed the charge to be unjust. He was sent to the Salford New Bailey for four months. His mother and family kept the business going and when released he continued to sell the paper. In 1836 he was elected as a commissioner of police for Manchester. In 1843 he was elected to Manchester city council for the Liberal Party and was active on the council. [1]

He was on the radical wing of the Liberal Party, and in 1854 he left it to join the Commonwealth Party. He resigned his seat on Manchester council and fought the subsequent by-election as the Commonwealth candidate. He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in the general election of 1858 in the safe Liberal seat of Manchester South-west, and again in the 1859 general election. He was elected the Commonwealth Party member for Manchester East in the 1864 general election, and resigned his seat on Manchester council. When John Ludlow became Prime Minister in August 1870 he appointed Heywood as government chief whip. He continued in that post until Cowell appointed him postmaster-general in October 1874.

[1] All this is as in OTL and is taken from the entry for Heywood in the print copy of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
 

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Thomas Halliday was born in July 1835 near Bolton in Lancashire. His father was a coal miner who was killed in an accident when Thomas was only two years old. His mother worked in a cotton mill after her husband's death. When he was eight years old, Thomas began his working life in a coal mine. In 1863 he became the full-time agent of the Farnworth and District Miners Union. [1] He was elected Commonwealth Party MP for the Lancashire constituency of Ince in the 1870 general election. In June 1871 George Cowell appointed him Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade and Financial Secretary to the Treasury on 8 October 1874.

George Howell was born in October 1833 in Wrington, Somerset, the eldest of eight children. His father was a mason who became a self employed contractor for railway bridges and waterworks. Because of financial troubles and a ruinous lawsuit against a defaulting contractor, the family were reduced to penury and George's schooling was intermittent and ended before he was twelve. [2]

[1] All this was as in OTL and is taken from the entry for Halliday in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [Oxford DNB]

[2] This is as in OTL and is taken from Howell's entry in the Oxford DNB.
 
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In 1847 George Howell was apprenticed to a shoemaker in Wrington. When his apprenticeship ended in 1851, he moved first to Weston-super-Mare and then to Bristol, where he was employed as a shoemaker. When his parents moved to Bristol in 1853, he returned to the building trade as a bricklayer. In 1855 he moved to London and by 1859 he had risen to deputy foreman. He joined the London branch of the Operative Bricklayers' Society and 1861 launched the Operative Bricklayers' Society Trade Circular. In May 1861 he was elected to the executive of the London Trades Council and immediately became its secretary. He served in that capacity until July 1862 when ill health and the enmity of Edwin Coulson, another member of the executive forced him to resign. He was succeeded by George Odger. [1]

In the 1870 general election, Howell was elected as one of the two Commonwealth MPs for Norwich. In June 1871, George Cowell appointed him a junior minister in his government, and on 8 October he was promoted to under-secretary of state at the foreign office.

William Chadwick was born in 1839 in 'humble circumstances'. In 1848 he was imprisoned for sedition and conspiracy. [2]

[1] All this was as in OTL and is taken from the entry for Howell in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

[2] This was as in OTL. Information taken from Chartism and the Chartists in Manchester and Salford by Paul A. Pickering, London: Macmillan, 1995.
 

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William Chadwick earned his living as a Wesleyan preacher. He was also a temperance lecturer. He joined the Commonweal Party on his release from prison.[1] Although he stood as a Commonwealth Party candidate in the 1866 and 1870 general elections, it was not until the 1871 general election that he was elected Commonwealth MP for Rochdale. On 8 October 1874, George Cowell gave him his first ministerial job as parliamentary secretary to the local government board.
 

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The county council elections took place on 5 October 1874, but the votes were not counted and the results declared until 7 October, after all the results in the general election for all the constituencies had been declared. The county council elections showed widespread gains for the Commonwealth Party compared with October 1871. In England they took control of Middlesex and Norfolk from the Conservatives, and Northumberland and Staffordshire from no overall control.
 
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In England, besides losing control of Middlesex and Norfolk to the Commonwealth Party, the Conservative Party also lost Gloucestershire and North Riding of Yorkshire to no overall control. But they kept control of predominantly rural counties. The Liberals kept control of Cornwall and Independents of Westmorland.

In Wales, the only change was that Commonwealth gained Breconshire from no overall control. In Scotland they took Ayrshire from Conservative, and Dunbartonshire and Stirlingshire from no overall control, while the Liberals gained control of Dumfriesshire from the Tories.

In Ireland, the Irish Nationalists took Tyrone from the Tories, while the Commonwealth Party gained County Dublin from no overall control.
 
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With Gathorne Hardy. the leader of the Conservative Party, having lost three general elections in a row and after the Tories poor performance in the county council elections, there were calls for his resignation. These started with an editorial in the issue dated 8th October of the Morning Post , generally regarded as the mouthpiece of right-wing Tories, which demanded that Hardy must go. Hardy had been Tory leader since September 1865. If he resigned there was no obvious front runner to replace him, but the following men would likely be in the running: Charles Bowyer Adderley; the Earl of Malmesbury; Stafford Northcote; George Sclater-Booth.
 
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During the following days the Daily Telegraph, the weekly Saturday Review and on Sunday 11 October 1874, the Observer, all published editorials calling for Gathorne Hardy's resignation as leader Conservative Party leader. But The Times which supported the liberal Conservatives, came out in favour of him continuing as leader. However it looked a bandwagon was growing for his resignation.

With the newly House of Commons assembling on 13 October for the election of the Speaker and the swearing in of MPs, and the Queen's Speech on 20 October, Hardy had to decide whether to stay as leader or resign. The House of Lords also assembled on 13 October.

Meanwhile back in Swansea, Esther Jenkins moved in with her lover, Megan Griffiths, to the same house as Megan's mother and younger brother, Angharad and Carwen, and Angharad's wife, Helen Price. Esther and Megan shared a bedroom but slept in separate beds. They did not want to have a sexual relationship until they were in effect married like Angharad and Helen were.
 

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In the afternoon of Wednesday 14 October 1874, Gathorne Hardy announced to a packed meeting of Conservative MPs in the House of Commons, that he would be resigning as party leader when a new one had been chosen. Conservative leaders were not elected but 'emerged' after consultation and lobbying among Conservative MPs and Peers at Westminster, at the Carlton Club in London and in the country houses of Conservative aristocrats. The following men let it be known that they were in the running for the leadership: Charles Bowyer Adderley; James Harris, 3rd Earl of Malmesbury; Stafford Northcote; George Sclater-Booth and William Henry Smith.
 
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I have retconned the Redistribution of Seats Act 1874 so that all the two-member constituencies were abolished and replaced by single member constituencies. This made no difference to the result of the general election on 5 October 1874. However the Prime Minister, George Cowell, was elected for Preston South and Thomas Mottershead for Preston North, which had a smaller Commonwealth majority than the South constituency. George Howell was elected Commonwealth MP for Norwich North.
 

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Here are brief biographies of the contenders for the Conservative Party leadership.

Charles Bowyer Adderley was born in Leicestershire on 2 August 1814. In 1826 he succeeded to the large family estates in Staffordshire and in Warwickshire. In 1832 he became a gentleman commoner at Christ Church college, Oxford. He graduated with a pass degree in 1835. [1] In the general election of 1843 he was elected Tory MP for Staffordshire North and in.the.1853 general election for Staffordshire North-West. After the 1870 general election when his constituency became marginal he switched to the safe Conservative seat of Staffordshire West for the 1871 general election. He was re-elected with a large majority in the general election on. 5 October 1874.

[1] All this was in OTL and is taken from the entry for him in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
 
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