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

[pipisme]

On 19 April three Ulster Volunteers (UV) who had been on hunger strike in Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, died. They had been convicted of the murder of members of the RIC, and were on hunger strike because they wanted to be treated as prisoners of war, instead of common criminals. This the Irish government refused.

At their funeral processions in Belfast on Saturday 22 April, there were several tens of thousands of people, together with members of the UV parading in uniform and carrying rifles.

On 20 April, the RIC station in Newtownwards, County Down, was bombed by the UV. Three people were killed and four injured. In the evening of the same day, UV gunmen machine gunned a Catholic club in Trillick, County Tyrone. Eight people were killed and twelve injured.

On 21 April, UV erected barriers on the border between the north of Ireland and the rest of Ireland. These were dismantled by the British army, but in the fighting 21 British soldiers and 27 UV died.

On 22 April, UV gunmen fired on an outdoor Irish Nationalist Party meeting in Limvady, County Londonderry. Four people were killed and seven injured. The following day, the UV bombed the RIC station in Portaferry, County Down. Two people were killed and four injured.

 

[pipisme]

Because of the general election the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Thomas Halliday, postponed the date of the budget to 16 May 1882. It was widely expected that if the Commonwealth Party was returned to power, taxes would increase to pay for the war in the north of Ireland.

Polling day was 24 April and there was heavy security at polling stations in the north of Ireland. The hours of voting were from 7am to 10 pm. Turnout was reported as being high. Angharad Griffiths toured the polling stations in Swansea, encouraging Commonwealth Party workers.

The first result declared was Islington South at 11.33 pm. This was a safe Commonwealth seat held by them with swing of 3.1% to Conservative.

 

[pipisme]

There was telegraphic communication between party workers at counts in city constituencies and the party headquarters in London. The second result was Newington West, in south London. This was held by Commonwealth with a swing against them of 1.8% from Conservative. The first seat to change hands was Derby North, which was a Conservative gain from Commonwealth, with a swing of 2.4% from Commonwealth to Conservative.

 

[pipisme]

The Swansea result was not declared until 2.08 am. Angharad was at the count in Swansea Town Hall, together with Helen Price. John and Rhiannon Davies, her daughter, Megan, and Megan's friend, Esther Jenkins, Sean O'Brien and Siobhan O'Brien, and Lady Margaret Roberts.

The returning officer read out the votes for each candidate in alphabetical order. First Angharad Griffiths, then Benjamin Thomas Williams (Liberal), and ended by saying, "I hereby declare that the said Angharad Griffiths is hereby elected to serve as the member of parliament for the Swansea constituency. At which point there were loud and prolonged cheers from Angharad's family, relatives and friends, and Commonwealth Party members and supporters.

The percentage votes for each candidate were as follows (June 1878 general election):
Angharad Griffiths (Commonwealth): 50.8 (48.0)
Benjamin Thomas Williams (Liberal): 49.2 (52.0)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Commonwealth majority: 1.6 (Liberal majority: 4.0)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
There was a swing of 2.8% from Liberal to Commonwealth.

 

[pipisme]

The results in 218 constituencies were declared overnight. The prime minister, Robert Applegarth, was re-elected with an increased majority in his Sheffield Attercliffe constituency. A surprise result was Edinburgh West which was a Liberal gain from Conservative, with a swing of 5.8% from Conservative to Liberal. Another unexpected result was Commonwealth gaining Partick (north west of Glasgow) from Conservative.

Counting resumed at 9 am the following morning. The first result declared was Gravesend. It was a Conservative gain from Commonwealth with a swing of 2.05% from Commonwealth to Conservative. Constituencies in Ireland also did not count until the morning.

The Tories held Belfast East and Belfast North, but their majorities over Commonwealth were reduced from 20.3% to 15.9%, and from 13.5% to 5.3% respectively. Nancy Allen won Belfast South for Commonwealth with a majority of 147 over Conservative. The previous Conservative majority was 6,756 over Commonwealth. In Belfast West the Commonwealth majority over Conservative increased from 23.8% to 29.2%.

The Irish Conservative Party gained Dublin Rathmines from Irish Nationalist with a majority of 5.9%. The Irish Nationalist majority in the 1878 general election was 5.2% over Conservative. This was before the Irish Conservative Party was founded. Commonwealth gained Dublin College Green from Irish Nationalist. In the north of Ireland, Down East and Fermanagh North were Irish Nationalist gains from Conservative. The Conservative majority over Irish Nationalist in Tyrone South was only 52.

It was clear that the Commonwealth Party would not have an overall majority in the House of Commons, and would depend on the Irish Nationalists for a majority. At 3.12 pm, Commonwealth gained Luton from Liberal with a majority of ten after four recounts, and the combined Commonwealth and Irish Nationalist total reached the majority needed of 325 seats.

The number of seats for each party in the House of Commons were as follows (June 1878 general election):
Commonwealth: 296 (308)
Conservative: 243 (246)
Liberal: 60 (51)
Irish Nationalist: 47 (79)
Irish Conservative: 3 (n/a)
---------------------
Total: 649 (684)
---------------------
The combined Commonwealth and Irish Nationalist majority over all other parties was 37. It was 90 after the previous general election.

 

[pipisme]

Here are the number of seats gained and lost by for each party compared with the 1878 general election:
Commonwealth gained 5 from Liberal, 2 from Conservative and 1 from Irish Nationalist, total gains 8. Lost 20 to Conservative. Net losses 12.
Conservative gained 20 from Commonwealth. Lost 14 to Liberal, 3 because of redistribution in Ireland, 2 to Commonwealth, 2 to Irish Conservative, 2 to Irish Nationalist. Total losses 23. Net losses 3.
Liberal gained 14 from Conservative and lost 5 to Commonwealth. Net gains 9.
Irish Nationalist lost 32 because of redistribution and 1 to Commonwealth, and 1 to Irish Conservative. Gained 2 from Conservative. Net losses 32.
Irish Conservative gained 2 from Conservative and 1 from Irish Nationalist.

 

[pipisme]

Here are the percentage votes for each party in the general election (June 1878 general election):
Commonwealth: 41.2 (42.3)
Conservative: 35.4 (35.6)
Liberal: 19.2 (18.4)
Irish Nationalist: 3.7 (3.5)
Independents and others, including Irish Conservative: 0.5 (0.2)
-----------------------------
Total: 100.0 (100.0)
----------------------------
The national swing from Conservative to Commonwealth was 0.45%. The turnout was 82.5% (80.7%). The numerical votes for all parties increased because of the increase in the electorate and the higher turnout.

The number of MPs elected for each party in the nations of the UK, and university seats were as follows:
England:
Commonwealth: 226 (241)
Conservative: 207 (200)
Liberal: 38 (30)
----------------------
Total: 471 (471)
-----------------------
Ireland:
Irish Nationalist: 47 (79)
Conservative: 11 (17)
Commonwealth: 9 (7)
Irish Conservative: 1 (n/a)
--------------------
Total: 68 (103)
--------------------
Scotland:
Commonwealth: 38 (38)
Conservative: 16 (17)
Liberal: 13 (12)
-------------------
Total: 67 (67)
-------------------
Wales:
Commonwealth: 23 (22)
Liberal: 9 (9)
Conservative: 2 (3)
-----------------
Total: 34 (34)
-----------------
Universities:
Conservative: 7 (9)
Irish Conservative: 2 (n/a)
---------------
Total: 9 (7)
--------------

 

[pipisme]

The Conservatives gained the following seats from Commonwealth in the general election: Berwickshire, Birmingham Sparkbrook, Bosworth, Darlington, Derby North, Dudley South, Edmonton, Fulham, Gravesend, Great Grimsby, Hull North, Islington East, Kensington North, Maldon, Nottingham East, Renfrewshire West, Staffordshire North West, Sunderland South, Thornbury, and Walthamstow.

Commonwealth gains from Conservative were Belfast South, and Partick. They gained Dublin College Green from Irish Nationalist, and Leeds West, Leith Burghs, Luton, Spen Valley, and Swansea from Liberal.

Liberal gains from Conservative were as follows: Aberdeenshire West, Chippenham, Edinburgh West, Eye, Lancaster, Louth, Otley, Radnorshire, Ross, Scarborough, Sudbury, Taunton, Wells, and Wisbech.

Irish Nationalist gained Down East and Fermanagh North from Conservative. Irish Conservative gained Dublin University (2 seats) from Conservative and Dublin Rathmines from Irish Nationalist.

Compared with the June 1878 general election only 47 seats changed hands.

 

[pipisme]

The number of women candidates for each party elected were as follows [June 1878 general election):
Commonwealth: 20 (12)
Liberal: 6 (5)
Conservative:5 (5)
Irish Nationalist: 3 (1)
-------------------
Total: 34 (23)
------------------

 

[pipisme]

One of the newly elected Commonwealth MPs was Miss Marion Bernstein, elected for Glasgow St. Rollox with a majority of 21.7% over Conservative, up from 17.4%. She was
born in London on 16 September 1846. Her father had emigrated to Britain from Prussia. In 1873 her family moved to Glasgow. Bernstein was disabled as a result of an illness and used a wheelchair. She was a published poet. Her poems covered themes of social justice, gender equality, disability, and her Christian faith. She earned her living as a music teacher. (1)

Bernstein was active in the Commonwealth Party in Glasgow. She was not the first disabled MP. That was Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh, a one-time Conservative member for an Irish constituency, but she was the first woman MP with a disability. (2)

(1) Her poems and an outline of her life are in the book A Song of Glasgow Town: The Collected Poems of Marion Bernstein edited by Edward H. Cohen, Anne R. Fertig and Linda Fleming, Glasgow: The Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2013.

(2) For Kavanagh see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_MacMurrough_Kavanagh.

 

[pipisme]

The Prime Minister, Robert Applegarth, made the following changes to his cabinet on 27 April 1882: George Shipton resigned as Secretary of State for India. Anthony John Mundella from First Lord of the Admiralty to Secretary of State for India, Henry Broadhurst from Postmaster-General to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Samuel Morley from Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to First Lord of the Admiralty. Lydia Becker was promoted from Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office to Postmaster-General in the cabinet. She was replaced at the Home Office by Joseph Burgess, Commonwealth MP for Heywood, in Lancashire. Becker was re-elected unopposed in the by-election in Manchester Blackley caused by her appointment to the cabinet.

 

[pipisme]

In the morning of Monday 1 May 1882, Angharad Griffiths left Swansea on a train to London Paddington. On the station platform to see her off were Helen Price, her family and friends, and a whole crowd of Commonwealth Party members and supporters. She had arranged with other women Commonwealth MPs to share a house in Westminster.

Parliament re-assembled on 2 May after the general election.

 

[pipisme]

In the first week of the new parliament, MPs were sworn in. They unanimously re-elected Sir John Mowbray (Oxford University - Conservative) as Speaker. Angharad Griffiths took the oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria in Welsh. She was in the front row of the photograph the 54 new Commonwealth Party MPs, taken in front of the Houses of Parliament.

 

[pipisme]

Angharad returned home to Swansea on Friday 5 May 1882. She told Helen Price, her family, friends and relations, about her experiences and impressions of the House of Commons. She very much liked that there were 19 other women Commonwealth Party MPs. but she felt out of place in a building designed for men, middle and upper class Conservative and Liberal men at that. On 6 May she had her constituency surgery in Swansea Town Hall, as she would every Saturday.

On Tuesday 9 May, Queen Victoria read out the speech written for her by the prime minister and other cabinet ministers, setting out the government's legislative programme for the coming parliamentary session, which would be until Thursday 3 August 1882. Because it would be a short session, no long complicated bills were proposed, except for the Finance Bill.

Among the bills promised were two which provided for the establishment of Standing Committees for Scotland and for Wales. These would consider all bills after they have been read a second time, which apply to those nations, and which are not considered by a Committee of the Whole House. These Committees would comprise all Scottish and Welsh MPs. The Chairman of each Committee would be elected by its members, not chosen by the government Whips. They would consider relevant sections of the Estimates for the army, the navy and the civil service.

 

[pipisme]

The most serious issue facing the newly elected Commonwealth government was the war in the north of Ireland. In the six counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone 11 Conservative, 9 Irish Nationalist and 3 Commonwealth MPs were selected. Excluding Fermanagh, 11 Conservatives, 7 Irish Nationalists and 3 Commonwealth were elected.

On Wednesday 26 April 1882, Charles Henderson, the leader of the Ulster Volunteers (UV), announced that because no Conservative MPs were elected in County Fermanagh they were ending military operations in that county. They would continue in defence of the loyalist people of the five counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Londonderry and Tyrone against the agents, instruments, allies, and supporters of the Irish government. That included the British army and the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).

The following day, the UV bombed the RIC station at Crossmaglen, County Armagh. One police officer was killed and three were injured.

The next day, Friday 28 April, six UV gunmen burst into the offices of the Newry, County Down, School Board. They ordered all the Commonwealth and Irish Nationalist members to line up against a wall. Then they machine gunned them until they were all dead. 31 people were killed, 19 men and 12 women, of which 22 were Irish Nationalist and 9 Commonwealth. The gunmen ordered the Conservative members of the School Board to leave the room. There were no Liberal members. All political parties condemned the Newry massacre, as it was called. There is now a memorial in Newry town centre to the victims of the massacre.

The following day, the Secretary of State for War, Thomas Connolly, ordered that all meetings of local counties, Boards of Guardians and School Boards in the five counties in the north of Ireland be protected by British soldiers. That evening, the UV bombed a Catholic club in Carrickfergus, County Antrim. Eight people were killed, and twenty injured.

In the cabinet reshuffle on 27 April, the Local Government Board became the Health and Local Government Board, with Sarah Taylor as its President. She was previously President of the Local Government Board.

 

[pipisme]

On I May the five Conservative members of the Newry School Board resigned from the UK Conservative Party, and joined the Irish Conservative Party.

 

[pipisme]

The former UK Conservative members of the Newry School Board told the press that they had joined the Irish Conservative Party because the British Conservative Party supported the Ulster Volunteers, who had murdered their colleagues on the School Board in cold blood.

In the debate on the Queen's Speech in the House of Commons, Thursday 4 May 1882, was devoted to Ireland, particularly the north of Ireland. It was opened by the Secretary of State for Ireland, Joseph McLauglin, who told the House that since the Ulster Volunteers had resumed their terrorist campaign, 7 British soldiers, 9 RIC officers and 48 civilians had been killed.

 

[pipisme]

McLaughlin read out the names of those killed by the Ulster Volunteers (UV), and the House of Commons held a one minute silence to remember them. He went on to say that the government would continue to vigourously combat the UV and would defeat them. It would never negotiate with them. Ireland was one nation within the United Kingdom.

James Corry (Belfast East - Conservative) and in effect the shadow Secretary of State for Ireland, said that while he deplored the campaign of murder and terrorism by the UV, the war in Northern Ireland would be ended only if the government negotiated with the UV. He called for the ban on the UV to be lifted. The people of Northern Ireland did not want to be ruled from Dublin.
.
The Irish Nationalist MP for Newry, John Francis Small, said that he knew many of the people killed in the Newry massacre.

Godwyn Barmby, the hard left Commonwealth MP for Wakefield and a former cabinet minister, said that the war in Northern Ireland was unwinnable by either side. Peace would be attained only if the British and Irish governments negotiated with the UV. While he condemned the violence of the UV, they had the sympathy and support of many of the people of Northern Ireland, perhaps of the majority. He called for plebiscites in the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Londonderry, and Tyrone to determine whetheror not any of these counties should be excluded from the jurisdiction of the Irish government and parliament.

Barmby's speech was received with hear hears from the Conservative and Liberal benches, but by stony silence from Commonwealth and Irish Nationalist MPs. A succession of Commonwealth MPs denounced his views and disassociated themselves from them in the strongest possible terms. In the Commonwealth Party leadership election on 29 June 1880, Barmby received the votes of 33 Commonwealth MPs. But even those hard left Commonwealth MPs rejected his opinions on Ireland.

Commonwealth and Irish Nationalist speakers (except for Barmby) used the term the north of Ireland or the six, later the five, counties. Conservatives and Liberals referred to Northern Ireland.

 

[pipisme]

In the night of Thursday 4 May 1882, two Ulster Volunteer (UV) bombs were thrown into the offices in Belfast of the Belfast Tribune , a Commonwealth Party daily newspaper. Nine people were killed and seventeen injured.

The following night, UV gunmen machine gunned a Catholic pub in the town of Rostrevor, County Down. Ten people, eight men and two were killed, and twenty two injured.

On 6 May Sarah Taylor, the President of the Health and Local Government Board, gave an interview to Edward Robinson, the political correspondent of the Sunday Times , an independent Conservative supporting newspaper, for its issue dated 7 May. (1) She was asked to comment on the latest atrocities in the north of Ireland. She said that the bombing and shooting by the UV in which nineteen people were killed and thirty-nine were injured, some critically, were horrific and appalling. Her heart went out to those who lost family and loved ones in those atrocities, and to the men and women injured.

(1) These are both fictional characters.

 

[pipisme]

Continuation of Sarah Taylor's interview with Edward Robinson of the Sunday Times.

In reply to a request to comment on Godwin Barmby's speech in the House of Commons, she said it was disgusting, nauseating and appalling. It gave comfort to the murderers and terrorists of the Ulster Volunteers (UV). They had murdered party colleagues of her, as well as British soldiers, RIC officers, and civilians.

Her constituency of Liverpool Kirkdale had many Roman Catholics, some of whom had family and friends in the north of Ireland who had been killed or injured by the UV. She had a mixed population of Roman Catholics and Protestant in her constituency and she had increased her majority in the general election.

Robinson asked Taylor:
"Should Mr Barmby be expelled from the Commonwealth Party?"

"There is no place with anyone with his views on the war in the five counties in my party. "

"I take it that you think he should be expelled?"

"Yes he should. As long as he has the opinions he has expressed on the north of Ireland." She replied.

"There have been rumours that you voted for Mr Barmby in the election for leader of the Commonwealth Party, after Mr Cowell died two years ago."

"I did not."

"You have a reputation as a left wing firebrand."

"If being a committed and passionate Christian Socialist means that I am a left wing firebrand, then I am proud to be one."

"Do you want to be leader of the Commonwealth Party?" Robinson asked her.

"There is no vacancy for leader. We have an excellent leader and Prime Minister in Mr Robert Applegarth, and I have a full time job as President of the Health and Local Government Board. "

"Thank you Miss Taylor."

"Thank you Mr Robinson."

Sarah Taylor was on the soft left of the Commonwealth Party. That section of the party was most in favour of the government's policy on the north of Ireland. In respect of any leadership ambitions, she said what any politician would say who wants to be leader of their party. She was popular, and a highly competent minister with impressive mastery of detail, and an eloquent speaker. She was born on 18 April 1837.