Government Interference in City Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century: The Work of Two Agents

Abstract

WHEN the whigs gained power in 1715 they were acutely aware that their position, and indeed the Hanoverian regime's security, depended heavily on the capital. They had little to fear from the City's great financiers and overseas traders. The 'monied interest' was overwhelmingly whiggish in complexion and only too ready to support, and profit from, the government of the day. But the City Corporation, the square mile's ancient governing body, was much less compliant. Once there had been nothing to distinguish the financial and corporate Cities, but by this time the business magnates had largely emancipated themselves from Guildhall's regulations and they shunned the burdens of civic office. The corporation's government was tending to devolve on to lesser men, especially domestic tradesmen and retailers, for whom the 'freedom' was still operative and to whom the clubbishness and prestige of corporate life was attractive. Only in the Court of Aldermen did the City still appear to represent the wealthy and powerful. Among the 26 aldermen there was a solid phalanx of loyal whigs prepared to do the government's bidding and their tenure of office for life made them impervious to popular pressure. But below them in the constitutional hierarchy very different attitudes prevailed. The 234 Common Councilmen, annually elected by the freemen householders in the wards, were predominantly tory in mood and became more so as popular disgust at whig oligarchy mounted. Still more radical were the views of Common Hall, where some 8~,000liverymen of the City Companies met, not only to nominate the lord mayor and one of the two sheriffs, but also to elect London's four MPs. The City was not yet a 'shopkeeper democracy', but it was certainly moving in that direction. The City's toryism presented both a challenge and an affront to the politicians at the 'other end of the town'. Crypto-jacobites did their best to win the corporation for their cause, but though they found one or two friends in positions of trust they could induce very little in the way of practical action. Even the mob, demonstrating provocatively on the streets, was intent on damning the government, not subverting the dynasty. Opposition tory politicians had much more success, but they could never feel comfortable with their rumbustious allies. City toryism was no party construct, but a spontaneous expression of independence of government in general. The leader of the City tories for three decades was Alderman Sir John Barnard, who was certainly no party man. He would have preferred to be called a patriot or an independent rather than a tory. For the whigs, of course, these were mere nuances, which even if sincere did nothing to lessen the threat posed by the City Corporation. Successive administrations felt it imperative to do all in their power to curb the excesses of the Guildhall independents. For obvious reasons their activities have rarely been uncovered. However, the recent publication! of the minute-book of the H.S. (almost certainly 'Hanoverian Succession')2 club enables us to trace in detail the disbursement of £1,700 of public money given by James Craggs senior, the postmaster-general and whig 'manager' in the City, 3 to influence Common Council elections. '[he minutes also afford much information about the political configuration of the City, both in the wards and at Guildhall. But they provide only a few clues to the nature of the relationship between the government and the City whigs. An investigation of the careers of two political agents, both connected with the Post Office and both members of the H.S. club, will help to remedy this deficiency and illumine a grey area of Hanoverian life.