"All Politics Is Local": A Penny Black Election Letter from 1841
- Michael Wilson
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
One of the first philatelic/social history articles I wrote was titled, “A Prize Agent, A Naturalist, and A Navy Captain: A Penny Black Story from 1840.” If you haven’t read that, it is well worth your time. – if I say so myself! (See https://www.mypostalhistory.com/post/a-naturalist-a-lawyer-and-a-navy-captain-a-penny-black-story-from-1840.)
I recently acquired another Penny Black folded letter, and it provides a glimpse of a general election in England in 1841. Not quite the riveting story of a Royal Navy captain during the Napoleonic Wars, but the election of 1841 was a noteworthy one.
The letter (Figure 1) was posted in Bishop Auckland and traveled all of 18 miles to Stockton. Both towns are in County Durham, which is about 260 miles north of London. In 1840, the county had a population of some 340,000 with an economy centered around coal mining. You can barely make out a poorly struck “Bishop Auckland” postmark on the back (left) and a slightly clearer “Stockton” postmark (Right) (Figure 2). No date is visible on either postmark, but the letter has a manuscript date of June 21, 1841 (Figure 3).
That is a relatively late usage for the Penny Black. As most stamp collectors know, the Penny Black was the first ever adhesive postage stamp issued in May 1840. The British post office soon realized that its black cancellation was difficult to see on the stamp (as you can plainly see in Figure 1). Consequently, beginning in February 1841, they issued the exact same stamp but in red (the so-called “Penny Red.”) Of course, the postage rate remained 1 penny until 1879, and there was no prohibition on using Penny Blacks to pay the letter rate during that period.
The Penny Black was printed from one of 12 plates registered between April 15, 1840, and January 27, 1841. Each sheet contained 240 letter combinations starting with “AA” in the upper lefthand corner of the plate to “TL” in the lower righthand corner. (The letter combinations are found in the lower corners of each stamp.) The stamp on this cover is “NI,” so it was in the 14th row and 9th column of the sheet.
Subtle differences in the placement of the letters in the lower corners allow you to determine the plate used to print the stamp. My hunch is that this stamp was printed from plate 9 that was registered for use November 9, 1840. I base that on the position of the “I” in the lower righthand corner. A total of 3.84 million stamps were printed from that plate. All told, just under 69 million Penny Blacks were issued, and it is estimated that around 1.3 million still exist.
The letter was addressed to one William Bailey of Stockton and concerns voting results from South Durham during the United Kingdom’s 1841 general election. The letter reads:
Bishop Auckland. 21 June 1841
Sir,
South Durham Election
I forward you a list of voters resident in your
district but registered in the Bp. Auckland district.
I shall thank you to include them in your canvas
on the part of Lord Harry Vane & return a report of
the result to Mr. Trotter.
I am Sir
Yours Truly,
Tho. Thornton
Wm. Bailey Esq. Stockton
William Bailey – whose last name was actually spelled “Bayley” – was an attorney and the agent in Stockton (akin to a campaign manager in the United States) for Lord Harry Vane (Figure 4). Lord Harry Vane – who was also known as Harry George Powlett, 4th Duke of Cleveland and The Honourable Harry Vane – was one of the two Whigs (a liberal political party) elected to the House of Commons from South Durham in the 1841 election, a seat that he would hold until 1859.
Lord Harry Vane was the top vote getter by a margin of just 64 votes in the 1841 election, so I’m sure he appreciated the support of the 13 people listed in this letter.
As for some of the other names mentioned in the letter:
There were a few Thomas Thorton’s in Bishop Auckland, but the most likely to have written this letter was a 31-year-old who was a solicitor’s managing clerk.
William Trotter, to whom a report was to be provided by Mr. Bayley, was an attorney and agent for Lord Harry Vane in Bishop Auckland.
Of the 13 voters listed in the letter, the most prominent was Reverend George Newby. Born in Stockton in 1779, he was successively a curate of a grammar school and a vicar and rector of two churches in County Durham. He passed away in 1846 and is memorialized by a plaque at St. Michael and All Angels Churchyard in Barningham, England.
Two other observations about the 1841 election:
First, I thought it peculiar that the voters’ names were provided to Lord Harry Vane’s agent, but then I learned that secret ballots were unknown in England. Indeed, secret ballots were not introduced until 1872.
Second, the 1841 election came about because the government of Lord Melbourne, a Whig, lost a motion of no-confidence by a margin of one vote in the House of Commons on June 4, 1841. Melbourne then called upon Queen Victoria (whose image adorns the Penny Black) to dissolve Parliament, which she did on June 23. General elections then took place between June 29 and July 22. The Conservatives won a decisive victory picking up 53 seats, thus establishing a firm majority in the House of Commons. According to blogger Richard Brown (https://richardjohnbr.blogspot.com/2008/10/1841-election.html), it was the first time in British electoral history where a party with a theoretical parliamentary majority (prior to the 1841 election. the Whigs and Conservatives had the same number of seats but the Whigs formed a ruling coalition with the smaller Irish Repeal Party) had been replaced by another with a majority.
There is a disconnect between the dates of the general election – June 29 through July 22 – and the date of this letter – June 21 – that I can’t explain. Clearly, the 13 individuals in the letter expressed their support for Lord Harry Vane, but that was before the general election even started. In fact, it predated Queen Victoria’s dissolution of the Parliament on June 23.
I’m sure once the no-confidence vote was reported, there was an expectation that a general election would ensue, and candidates started to line up support. In South Durham, the urgency may have been particularly acute. South Durham was first represented in the House of Commons in 1832 (after passage of the Great Reform Act), and it was a staunchly Whig district. But just prior to the 1841 election, one of the two Whig incumbents decided not to stand for reelection, and on top of that, for the first time, a Conservative stood for election to Parliament from South Durham. There was a rush to find a new Whig candidate, and Lord Harry Vane stepped in to fill the vacuum. Lord Harry Vane – or more likely Mr. Bayley – wanted to understand the depth of support as early in the election cycle as possible. At least that’s my theory.
Whatever the case, this is an interesting little piece of history that proves the adage, “All politics is local.”
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