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ABSTRACT
Although the second Marquess of Bute is often described as the “father” of modern Cardiff, this article will show that Bute was able to use his position to manipulate town affairs and exercise total political and economic control over the urban settlement. Likewise, in the neighbouring county of Monmouthshire, the fifth Duke of Beaufort used his authority in a similar manner to maintain his influence over the boroughs of Newport, Monmouth and Usk. Using newspaper articles, borough records and private correspondence, it will be shown that these aristocratic landowners were able to consolidate their authority over the urban environment during the nineteenth century. As the owners of vast estates, both men had enormous personal fortunes and access to powerful and influential networks that enabled them to threaten livelihoods, rig elections and thwart urban and economic developments in order to manipulate the structures of urban governance for their own gain.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Elizabeth J. Fayrer-Jones is currently studying for a PhD with the Centre of Urban History at the University of Leicester. She also teaches modules in Welsh history and Welsh urban history at the department of professional and continuing education at Cardiff University. Elizabeth’s research interests include small town urbanity in nineteenth-century Wales, Welsh urban development and the impact of aristocratic landowners on the urban environment during the nineteenth century.
Notes
1 J.H. Matthews, ed., Cardiff Records: Material for the History of the County Borough. Vol IV (Cardiff, 1898–1911), 434; T.E. Clarke, A Guide to Merthyr Tydfil and the Traveler's Companion (Merthyr, 1848), 82–3; The Western Mail, 10th October 1900, p. 4.
2 J. Davies, Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute (Cardiff, 1981), 90; D. Morgan, The Cardiff Story. A History of the City from Its Earliest Times to the Present (Cowbridge, 1991), 139; Wales Online, 9th April 2012. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-history-month-cardiff-castle-2047329 (accessed December 6, 2018).
3 G.J. Williams, Iolo Morganwg (Cardiff, 1956), 30.
4 HC Parliamentary Debates, 20 April 2016, 601, Col 366WH.
5 These included the towns of Loughor, Newport and Usk and Swansea where the Duke enjoyed the title of Lord of the Seignory of Gower.
6 W. Rees, Cardiff. A History of the City (Cardiff, 1969); Morgan, The Cardiff Story; Nick Shepley, The Story of Cardiff (Cardiff, 2014).
7 D. Cannadine, Lords and Landlords. The Aristocracy and the Towns, 1774–1967 (Leicester,1980), 41.
8 M. Daunton, Coal Metropolis Cardiff 1870–1914 (Leicester, 1977).
9 Davies, The Marquesses of Bute; J. Davies, ‘Aristocratic Town-Makers and the Coal Metropolis: The Marquesses of Bute and the Growth of Cardiff, 1776 to 1947’, in Patricians, Power and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Towns, ed. D. Cannadine (Leicester, 1982).
10 Dic Mortimer, Cardiff the Biography (Cardiff, 2014), 23. Please note that Mortimer's research is unreferenced and controversial. This reference has been included in this article as his claims so obviously contradict the popular image of the second Marquess.
11 For a discussion on the changing definitions of corruption see R. Sweet, ‘Corrupt and Corporate Bodies: Attitudes to Corruption in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Towns’, in Corruption in Urban Politics and Society, Britain 1780–1950, eds. J. Moore and J. Smith (Aldershot, 2007), 41–56.
12 P. Harling, ‘Rethinking “Old Corruption”’, Past and Present, 147 (May, 1995): 127.
13 The Bute Estate Records are primarily held by the National Library of Wales (NLW) however the Glamorgan Archives (GLA) and Cardiff Library (CL) also have Bute records. The NLW also holds the Badminton Estate Records while other records pertaining to Usk are held at Gwent Archives (GWA).
14 Davies, Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute, 107.
15 Davies, Marquesses of Bute, 107.
16 For a discussion on the manorial system in South East-Wales during the nineteenth century see J. Bowles, ‘Lordships and Manorialism in Nineteenth Century South East Wales’ (PhD thesis, University College Swansea, 1992), 2.
17 J. Booth, ‘Report on the Borough of Cardiff’, Appendix to the First Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Municipal Corporations in England and Wales (London, 1934), 188–9.
18 S. & B. Webb, English Local Government. The Manor and the Borough. Vol I. (London, 1963), 238; Ibid., 239, fn. 1.
19 Mathews, Cardiff Records, 370 & 375.
20 Richards to Walker, 14 July 1817 (GLA, Bute D/DA 5/14).
21 Walker to Richards, 25th April 1820 (GLA, Bute D/DA 8/25); ibid. 14 October 1819, (GLA, Bute D/DA 7/9).
22 Court Leet Presentment 16th October 1821 (GWA, D156.21)
23 Ibid., 31 December 1831, p. 3.
24 Ibid.; M. Escott ‘Monmouth’, www.historyofparliamentonline.org (accessed December 13, 2018).
25 Prior to the contested election of 1818, 123 new burgesses were created along with an additional 200 in 1826.
26 For discussions of the impact of the 1832 Reform Act see N. Gash, Politics in the age of Peel (London, 1953), 178; H.J. Hanham, The Reformed Electoral System in Great Britain 1832–1914 (London, 1968), 13.
27 Although the Liberals won the seat in the Monmouth boroughs, the Conservatives continued to win the vote in Usk throughout the nineteenth century.
28 Davies, ‘Aristocratic Town-Makers’, 35.
29 Richards to Bute, 9th December 1837 (CL. 4.713 4/4).
30 Richards to Bute, 9th December 1837 (CL. 4.713 4/4); Richards to Bute, 1 August 1837, (GLA, Bute D/DA 21).
31 Richards to Bute, 21 and 27 July 1840 (CL, 4.713 4/4); The Cambrian, 20 February 1820.
32 Bute to Richards, 22nd December 1825 (GLA, Bute D/DA 12); Richards to Bute, 10 October 1845, (NLW, BUTE L/130).
33 Richards to Bute, 8th October 1832 (CL, MS 4.713 2/4).
34 For further discussion on the Marquess’ charitable and philanthropic activities see J. Davies, ‘The Second Marquess of Bute. A Landowner and the Community in the Nineteenth Century’, in Glamorgan Historian. Vol. 8, ed. S. Williams (Barry, nd), 13–28.
35 Davies, Marquesses of Bute, 93. Also see F.M.L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1963), 210.
36 F. O’Gorman, ‘Electoral Deference in “Unreformed” England: 1760–1832’, The Journal of Modern History 56, no. 3 (1984): 396.
37 Richards to Bute, 29 and 26 February 1825 (CL, MS 4.713 1/4); Bute to Richards, 3 February 1825 (GLA, D/DA 12).
38 Rickards to Richards, 10 September 1825 (GLA, D/DA 12).
39 F. O’Gorman, ‘Electoral Deference’, 396.
40 Ibid., 402.
41 There are numerous examples of such letters in the Bute Estate Collection at the National Library of Wales but for the above examples see BUTE L67/39; L67/17 and L67/44. For letters sent in the run up to elections see BUTE L63/1-56.
42 Thompson, English Landed Society, 184.
43 O’Gorman, ‘Electoral Deference’, 397.
44 For an example of this see Richards to Bute, 21 and 27 July 1840 (CL, MS. 4.713 4/4).
45 Bew to Bute, 6th April 1816, (NLW, BUTE L59/17).
46 Davies, ‘Aristocratic Town-Makers’, 35–6.
47 Richards to Bute 11 November 1836 (CL. MS 4.713 4/4).
48 For sources regarding the attempts of the corporation to build a market place see GWA. D156.16 and D156.31. Also J.H. Clark, Usk Past and Present (Usk, n.d.), 227–38.
49 Wyatt to Waddington, 29th November 1845 (GWA, D156.31).
50 Wyatt to Waddington, March 1864 (GWA, D156.29); Waddington to Wyatt, 24th December 1869 (GWA, D156.16).
51 K. Kissack, Victorian Monmouth (Ledbury, n.d.), 40.
52 Monmouthshire Merlin, 12 February 1831, p. 2.
53 Monmouthshire Merlin, 31 December 1831, p. 3.
54 Ibid., 22 December 1832, p. 3.
55 Ibid.
56 Bristol Mercury, 28 October 1822, p. 3.
57 Ibid.
58 The Cambrian, 9 May 1818, p. 3; 13 June 1818, p. 3.
59 The Monmouthshire Merlin, 15th December 1832, p.3.
60 The Cambrian, 22nd December 1832, p. 3; The Monmouthshire Merlin, 20th October 1832, p. 3 and 15th December 1832, p. 3.
61 D. Fisher, ‘Member Biographies. Henry Charles Somerset Marquess of Worcester (1766–1835)’, www.historyofparliamentonline.org (accessed December 13, 2018); J. Latimer, The Annals of Bristol in the Nineteenth-century (Bristol, 1887), 176 and 199.
62 Sweet, ‘Corrupt and Corporate Bodies’, 41.
63 For a discussion of Welsh radicalism and the fight for electoral reform see D.A. Wager, ‘Welsh Politics and Parliamentary Reform, 1780–1832’, Welsh History Review 7 (1974): 427–49.
64 L. Hargest, ‘Cardiff's “Spasm of Rebellion” in 1818’, Morganwg. The Journal of Glamorgan History 21 (1977): 84.
65 Beaufort to Usk Inhabitant, October 22nd 1822 (GWA, D156.31).
66 Bute to Richards, 11th February 1835 (NLW, BUTE L129).
67 Bute to Richards 18th April 1835 (Glamorgan Archives, Bute, D/DA20).
68 Ibid.
69 T. Ertman, ‘The Great Reform Act of 1832 and British Democratization’, Comparative Political Studies 43 (2010): 1004; D.F. Krein, ‘The Great Landowners in the House of Commons 1835–1885’, Parliamentary History 32 (2013): 460; B. Morrison, ‘Channeling “the Restless Spirit if Innovation”: Elite Concessions and Institutional Change in the British Reform Act of 1832’, World Politics 63 (2011): 684.
70 Gash, Politics in the Age of Peel, xi–xii.
71 Morrison, ‘Channeling “the Restless Spirit if Innovation”’, 685.
72 Cornelius O’Leary, The Elimination of Corrupt Practices in British Elections 1868–1911 (Oxford, 1962); and Kathryn Rix, ‘The Elimination of Corrupt Practices in British Elections? Reassessing the Impact of the 1883 Corrupt Practices Act’, English Historical Review 123 (2008): 500.