On This Day in Wembury — 18 March 1880
In the heat of the East Devon election campaign, Liberals gathered in Torquay to rally behind Lieutenant-Colonel Sterling of Wembury House. The British Schoolroom in Abbey Road was filled at short notice, with James Murray presiding. Sterling’s telegram to the East Devon Liberal Association was read aloud and met with cheers. In it he pledged support for Gladstone’s home and foreign policy, reform of land rating and the game laws, and an equal county and borough franchise.
The meeting passed a resolution committing itself to secure Sterling’s election, with strong speeches condemning the withdrawal of Viscount Ebrington as a Liberal candidate. Speakers urged electors to put aside minor differences and “vote straight” to return a Liberal for East Devon.
At the same time, the Conservative side was active. Kenneway and Walrond, the Tory candidates, spoke at Axminster from a makeshift platform of planks and waggons, where they faced heckling and repeated cries of “What about the rabbits?” before a vote of confidence was carried in their favour.
At this time the vote was still tightly restricted. The 1867 and 1868 Reform Acts had expanded the electorate to many urban working men, but agricultural labourers in counties such as Devon were only enfranchised by the 1884 Reform Act, still four years away. Women of course had no vote at all. The passion of these meetings was therefore the passion of a relatively small, propertied electorate, though their decisions shaped the politics of the whole community.
Source: Western Times, 19 March 1880