Now! Then! Voters at Knottingley (Pontefract), including newly-enfranchised workers, struggle with the secret ballot introduced in a parliamentary by-election

15 August 1872: Voters at Knottingley (Pontefract), including newly-enfranchised workers, struggle with the secret ballot introduced in a parliamentary by-election

Times. 1872/08/16. Pontefract Election. London. Get it:

Excerpt

The constables were told to leave the room before the illiterates were called. The voter, having told the presiding officer he could not read, made a form of declaration to that effect, to which he subscribed his mark. Then the presiding officer asked him for whom he wished to vote. The officer thereupon made the mark on the ballot paper opposite the name of the candidate, the voter holding the top of the pen. He then dropped the paper into the ballot box, and the voter’s name and number on the register of voters were marked, with the reason why they were marked, upon a list. In cases of old and paralytic persons much difficulty was experienced by the constables in putting them through the various operations and the marching and countermarching provided by the [Ballot Act 1872]. Two or three old gentlemen discovered that they had left their spectacles at home. It was thereupon necessary to deal with them as persons incapacitated by blindness or other physical cause from voting in the manner prescribed by the Act. The presiding officer accordingly filled up their votes also, and entered the vote on his list. In a few cases of half incorrigible stupidity at Knottingley, the agents were seen walking up and down with the voter up to the last moment explaining what he had to do, and even pursued him after he had entered the door with shouts of “Mind you put your mark at the bottom” (that is, for the candidate last named), “and not the top.” When the voters of this calibre got into the presence of the presiding officer they seemed quite dazed by the strangeness of the spectacle, and required a great deal of pulling and pushing by the constables on duty before they could execute the required operations. Some few, at the last moment of dropping their papers into the box, seemed doubtful whether they had voted for the right man.

Order the book

Subscribe to the free daily email

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Via.

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

PONTEFRACT ELECTION.
(BY TELEGRAPH.)
PONTEFRACT, THURSDAY EVENING.
The first Parliamentary election under the Ballot Bill has hitherto been characterized by remarkable tranquillity. The poll closed at 4 o’clock, and the Mayor, as Returning Officer, is now engaged in counting the votes. A considerable crowd has assembled in the Market-place, and rumours of an unexpected development of Conservative strength at Knottingley have given a new interest and uncertainty to the result. It is not expected that the official publication of the numbers can be made until 7 or 8 o’clock, even if it can be made at all to-night..
The Parliamentary borough of Pontefract includes the towns of Knottingley and Ferry Bridge. Mr. Childers’ influence is believed to bo principally in the parent borough, while Lord Pollington’s family influence is held to be predominant in the last-named places. Throughout the borough a strange and unwonted quietude reigns. No bands of music paraded the town. No colours or banners were seen in procession. The church bells were silent. A few vehicles were engaged in bringing up infirm or indolent voters, and a few canvassers were seen in the side streets in search of dilatory voters. When in extreme cases a visit fromı the candidates themselves was necessary to bring up the recalcitrant voters, Mr. Childers and Lord Pollington always seemed to be within call. In Pontefract the Market-place was throughout the day the centre of attraction, and a factitious interest was given to the Elephant Inn, Lord Pollington’s Committee-room, by the publication of an election squib at noon, professing to give the entire number polled at that hour, which claimed for the Conservative candidate a majority of 84. Opposite the two polling-places only one or two idlers were seen at any time throughout the day. In Knottingley, on the other hand, the principal place of resort was opposite the Town-hall, where a good number of working men, and persons having the appearance of loafers, sat about on the bridge and watched the arrival of voters. But both at Pontefract and Knottingley the topic was the dulness of the election. “It hardly seemed like an election,” the tradespeople said; and they were right.
The proceedings began at 8 a.m., when the presiding officers took their seats at the table provided within each polling-booth. Each presiding officer was accompanied by a representative of each candidate called the personating agents, because their presence was supposed to be a check on personation. As the clock struck 8 each presiding officer turned the ballot-box upside down in order to show the agents that there were no papers inside. He then locked it up, fastened it with wax, and attached his seal to it. The number of persons at each table was usually five- the presiding officer, his assistant, his clerk, the personating agent for Mr. Childers, and the personating agent for Lord Pollington. The voters were then admitted. At Gillygate-street polling station, Pontefract, the voters were at first admitted in batches of four at a time, that being the number of compartments provided. As soon, however, as the first illiterate voter appeared he put the whole machinery out of gear. It was necessary to turn all the other voters out, and even the constables who kept order were required to leave the room until the illiterate voter had declared for whom he wished to vote, and had had his ballot- paper marked in the manner provided by the Act. The presiding officer then directed that only one voter should be admitted at a time, and this rule was followed at all the other polling booths. The process of voting may be thus described: The elector first received a ballot-paper from the presiding officer or his assistant. The constable then pointed to one of the compartments in the room, resembling those provided in telegraph offices. Here the voter found a pencil, provided with which he made a cross on the right-hand side opposite the name of the candidate for whom he voted. The voter, having previously had directions from the Returning Officer to fold up the ballot-paper so as to show the official mark on the back, and not to show the front of the paper to any person, left the compartment, and bringing his paper to the table showed the official mark on the back to the presiding officer. He then put the paper into the ballot-box and forthwith quitted the polling station. A few ballot-papers were inadvertently spoilt, or filled up wrongly, in which case the presiding officer gave the voter another paper. It was stated that at least one polling booth at Pontefract the boards of the compartments were so roughly put together that when four voters were admitted together the voter in the central compartment could have seen through the crevices on each side how the voter on his right and left hand were filling up their papers. The Town-hall at Pontefract has hitherto been fitted up as a polling booth. It docs not, however, fulfill the requirements of the Act by providing one door of ingress and another of egress, and was not used to-day. The Returning Officer accordingly claimed the use of two State-aided schools, the National Schoolroom in the Northgate and the British Schoolroom in Gillygate. The polling places in Knottingley were the Town-hall, the National Schoolroom, and the Wesleyan Schoolroom. The Town-hall, although having only one door of entrance, has two separate staircases. The voters went up one staircase, and, having passed through the hall and voted, descended by the other staircase. It was thought conducive to the tranquillity of contested elections that the voter who had discharged his duty should not meet the voter who might, perhaps, be going to give an opposite vote. The schoolroom fulfilled this condition, except the British Schoolroom at Gillygate. A window was accordingly knocked out, boards were laid in a steep incline to the level of the window, and egress was thus obtained into the schoolyard behind. The steepness of the angle of corresponding declination, however, and the elasticity of the boards, made this descent into the schoolyard realize in a new sense the facilis descensus of the poet. The voter, full of grave and serious thoughts at having assisted at so important an experiment, found him. self involuntarily running with an ever-increasing impetus down a steep incline on a spring board which would have enabled a professional gymnast to clear the school wall with the greatest ease. A few envious observers beguiled the tedious moments by watching the egress of the voters from this polling division under the impression that the Council Office had adopted some patent apparatus for carrying out the directions of the Act that the voter shall leave the polling booth with the utmost possible expedition. At Knottingley, where a considerable proportion of the constituency are somewhat rough and uneducated, the illiterate voter “stopped the way” to an inconvenient extent. At one time as many as ten or 12 illiterates were in the booth at once, and so much time was occupied in making the necessary declarations and going through the statutory formalities that the voters became impatient at the delay, and said “they might as well go home as wait there.” In all cases the constables were told to leave the room before the illiterates were called upon to say how they voted. The voter, having told the presiding officer he could not read, made a form of declaration to that effect, to which he subscribed his mark. Then the presiding officer asked him for whom he wished to vote. The officer thereupon made the mark on the ballot- paper opposite the name of the candidate, the voter holding the top of the pen. He then dropped the paper into the ballot-box, and the voter’s name and number on the register of voters were marked, with the reason why they were marked, upon a list. Each separate declaration of inability to read had to be separately certified by the presiding officer, which necessarily caused delay. In cases of old and paralytic persons much difficulty was experienced by the constables in putting them through the various operations and the marching and countermarching provided by the Act. Two or three old gentlemen discovered that they had left their spectacles at home. It was thereupon necessary to deal with them as persons incapacitated by blindness or other physical cause from voting in the manner prescribed by the Act. The presiding officer accordingly filled up their votes also, and entered the vote on his list. In a few cases of half incorrigible stupidity at Knottingley, the agents were seen walking up and down with the voter up to the last moment explaining what he had to do, and even pursued him after he had entered the door with shouts of “Mind you put your mark at the bottom” (that is, for the candidate last named), “and not the top.” When the voters of this calibre got into the presence of the presiding officer they seemed quite dazed by the strangeness of the spectacle, and required a great deal of pulling and pushing by the constables on duty before they could execute the required operations. Some few, at the last moment of dropping their papers into the box, seemed doubtful whether they had voted for the right man. The presiding officers were very patient and considerate in directing the humbler class of voters to be careful where they made their mark, and in what manner they folded their ballot-paper. Upon the whole very few mistakes were made, and only an inconsiderable number of papers were vitiated by non-compliance with the Act. No attempts were made, in breach of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Act, to show any portion of the paper to the persons officially present, who had each, moreover, to make a sta- tutory declaration of secrecy. At 4 o’clock the Mayer set off in his carriage for Knottingley, and brought back with him the presiding officers at the three polling booths in that town with their ballot-boxes. The agent ap- pointed by each candidate to represent him at the counting of the votes was in attendance at the Pontefract Town-hall, pursuant to the notice of the Mayor, who named 5 o’clock as the hour for counting. There were present at the count- ing of the votes the returning Officer, his agents, the clerks, and the agents of the two candidates. Great excitement; prevailed during the counting of the votes. The crowd in the Market-place gradually increased. At 7 o’clock doubts were expressed whether the Mayor had not postponed the declaration, the Act giving him the power of adjourning the counting at that hour until 9 in the morning. The Mayor, however, wisely determined to allay the prevailing anxiety as soon as possibly, and as the clock struck 8 a rush of persons to the front of the Town-hall denoted that the declaration was about to be made. The Mayor soon afterwards, coming out alone and unattended upon the balcony, declared the numbers to be as follows:
Childers 658
Pollington 578
Majority for Childers 80
The announcement of the numbers was the signal for deafening and prolonged cheering from Mr. Childers’ supporters, who evidently formed a large majority of the crowd. The Mayor added that the official declaration would be published to-morrow morning. He is not bound to make a public declaration of the poll such as was made from the balcony of the Town-hall. He is, however, called upon to give public notice as soon as possible of the names of the successful candidates, and the total number of votes given for each candidate, whether elected or not. He may give the required notice by placards, handbills, or in any other manner; and the Mayor will supplement the declara- tion in the way described.
As soon as the manifestations of rejoicing and disappointment had subsided, the crowd gathered in front of the Elephant Inn, expecting to hear a speech from Lord Pollington. As the public declaration of the poll is, like public nominations, superseded, the candidates agreed not to make the usual speeches from the balcony of the Town-hall, but to comply with the spirit of the Act by addressing their friends from the windows of their hotels.
Lord POLLINGTON first presented himself. He was not allowed to speak without interruption, but was understood to say that, after the scandalous influences and imputations brought against him, such a defeat was equivalent to a victory. The Cabinet Minister had received “notice to quit,” and Mr. Childers would certainly go out at the next election.
Mr. CHILDERS a few minutes afterwards attempted to address the assemblage, which must then have numbered upwards of 5,000, from the balcony of the Red Lion. He was, however, received with an organized opposition of hooting, cat-calls, and other deafening noises which effectually prevented him from being heard. After good humouredly waiting for silence for a long period and then attempting in vain to make himself heard by reporters round him, he retired from the window and, mounting a table in the room, addressed his supporters in a speech of great spirit. He warmly thanked his committee and friends for again returning him by so strong a majority, and assured them that his colleagues in the Government and the members of the Liberal party would share in his gratification. The great Act which insured the liberty and independence of the constituencies had been tested that day under somewhat unfavourable circumstances. There had not been time for those whose business it was to carry it into operation to do more than study its words, and it had, therefore, devolved upon the electors of Poutefract to make a great experiment without those preparations which were necessary in carrying out all political experiments. All the more credit was, therefore, due to them that there had scarcely arisen a single hitch in the proceedings. The errors accidentally made by the electors in giving their votes had been infinitesimally small, and the men of Pontefract had shown that the Act was thoroughly workable and sound. If the Ballot had failed, great discredit would have resulted to the Government which recommended and the Parliament that adopted it. l’ontefract had, however, abundantly vindicated the wisdom of the Act. He had spoken to-day to a number of persons concerned officially and otherwise in carrying out the election. Some of them were old anti-Ballot men, yet they one and all declared- “It is a most triumphant success, and there cannot be a doubt about it.” Then addressing those who had come from all parts of the three kingdoms, from the north, the south, the east, and the west of England, from Scotland and Ireland, to watch the first election under the Ballot, Mr. Childers said he trusted they would return and report to their several constituencies how well the men of Pontefract had played their part and how thoroughly workable the Ballot Act had been proved to be. He would say nothing about his own connexion with the Ballot question; but, in conclusion, he would express his strong conviction that as he had beaten his opponent once under the Ballot, so at the next General Election he would beat him again.
Mr. Childers then left the room amid enthusiastic cheering, and was accompanied by a vast crowd to the house of the chairman of his committee. The large number of un- polled votes has not escaped remark. To-day only 1,236 votes have been polled out of 1,916 registered electors. Detachments of the West Riding Police were on duty both at Pontefract and Kottingley. After the close of the poll the Knottingley contingent were brought to Pontefract under the direction of Inspector Hall. No breach of the peace, however, occurred, and the first election under the Ballot Act has been throughout peaceful. Persons of great experience declare that they never saw a contested election in which less intoxicating liquor was drunk. No charges of bribery are rife, and the election appears to have been honourably fought on both sides on principles of purity.

2695 words.