Parliamentary History, l'ol. 15, p i . 3 (1996), p p . 287-307

Burgh Districts and the Representation of Scotland, 1707-1 983

MICHAEL DYER University of Aberdeen

Although of minor significance in a British context, burgh dlstricts constituted an important element in the Scottish constituency system and developed a distinctive political culture. Between 1707 and 1832, with the exception of Edinburgh, such grouping accounted for the totality of Scottish burgh represen- tation at Westminster, and as late as the Great War 13 out of 31 burgh M.P.s came from dlstricts of burghs. Only in 1918 with their reduction to six was the survival ofburgh districting severely threatened, and only under the 1983 boundary changes, which abolished all Scottish burgh constituencies, was the last of them, Stirling, Fallurk and Grangemouth, disbanded.

The original components of the burgh groupings were derived f?om the royal burghs, whose ruiton d ' h was firmly anchored in the feudal economic philosophy that regarded prosperity as a hnction of monopoly over limited markets, for incorporation conferred on them exclusive local and regional trading rights with respect to both internal and external trade.' Politically, the royal burghs were organised into a corporate interest through the Convention of Royal Burghs, and in Parliament they composed the third estate. One sixth of all dlrect taxes was levied on the third estate, and its ap ortionment between the individual burghs was determined by the Convention.- The Convention also had the power to decide which royal burghs were to be admitted to its ranks and when members would be allowed to send a commissioner to Parliament.

Although the royal burghs in Convention and as an estate might be regarded as a collective interest, they were less a unity than a collection of frequently competing antagonists. Members used the Convention as a device to protect themselves not only from aspiring non-royal neighbounng burghs but also from geographically proximate royal burghs. Consequently, a new applicant for mem- bership to either the Convention or Parliament could rely upon the hostility of other royal burghs in its region. In Galloway, for example, Whithorn, having received a royal charter in 151 1 was not admitted to the Convention until 1574 and Parliament before 1641, due to the opposition of W i g t ~ w n . ~ Wigtown also

A. Ballard, 'The Theory of the Scottish Burgh,' Scotrish Hisromal Rtvieul, XI11 (1916); J. D. Mackie and G. S. Pryde, Estate ./Burgesses in the Scots Parliament and its Rehrion to rhe Convenrion of Royal Burghs (St Andrews. 1923).

r

I

* ' T. Pagan, 7 h e Conwntion of the Royal Bughs of Scotland (Glasgow, 1926). p. 53.

G. S. Pryde, 7he Bughs qf Sotland, A Crirical List (1965). p. 26.

prevented Stranraer, incorporated in 161 7 , becoming a member ofthe Convention before 1683 and Parliainerit until th85.' In the north, lnveriiess strongly opposed tlic elevation of Croniarty and Fortrose to Parliament;' while Wick, incorporated i n 1580, 'In encountering the sustained hostility of other northern burghs . . . \va$ not jdmitted to l'arlianient or Convention until 1001 *.'I Sitnilarly, in Fife, Crail opposed. though without success, the recognition of Anstruther Easter. Anstruther Wester and Kilrenny by the Convention and Parlianient in the sixteenth cetitun. Members of the Convention frequently found themsclvcs in dispute, a$ in Fife, where there was a protracted conflict between Rurntisland and Ihnfermline over the nght of the Rmner to be a royal burgh,x and Cupar and St Andrew\ long contested the ownership ofa tolbooth in the fourteenth century.

Although the royal burghs continued to enjoy peculiar privilcgcs until 1833, their interestc were much undernuned by a n act of 1072 which deprived thcrn of their tradinonal tradng monopolies. Conscquciitly, the advaiitagcs of incorporation bccatiie it~crc.asingly tiiargmal for die more indigent of thrrn, who sought to be relead tiom their share of the taxation burden imposed on the third estatc arid the cost ofsupporting their parliuiicntary comniissio~ienc.~" Thus, Cromarty, enrolled in f'arlianierit h r the tinct time in 1661, was permitted to withdraw in 1672, and cedsec! t o be a royal burgh in 1685." Other burghs wkhcd to follow its example. but reluctance by the Convention to lose taxpayers denied them their quietus. In 160 1. a report conmissioned by die Convention indicated that nnny burghs were in severe financial straits, and by implication that the royal burgh systeni was in crisis." Thus, n h J e on the eve of Union the cc,nstitutionaljii~h~catioii for the representation of'royal burghs in the putative Union Parliament was unquestioned, the c ~ s c rcsted tw.i\-tly upon an historical foundation w h c h had lost its ecoriorriic supports.

It was evident from the start of ticgotiations leadirig to the treaty of Union that a radical reduction i n the riurnbrr of Scottish M.P.s would be required if the unitt.d Parliament was to retlect the relative strengths of the two So delicate was the matter that it provoked the only formal conference that took place between the English arid Scot3 cor~irr~issioners charged with arranging the details ot' the Union. dnd its procredinp were secret. I h r t n g thc cnforced Cromwelltan Union (1054-1060) the Scots had been granted only 30 seats in a Cornmotis of 400,'4 and in arguing for 50 members in a House of 551 in 1707 their commissionen indicated they were not prepared to accept the 'arbitrary""

9

' Ihld.. 1' 32 ' / h i d . , pp. 1Y. 2H-30 ' /hid , 1' ?X

/h id , pp. 3. 3 1 * /hiA , 27 ' /hil l , p 21

I t bemg thc dury of the Royal Burgh C.orp~rdt iwi~ t t ) p+ the e u p m w s d t h c i r Commissioncr~

l'rydc. H i q h of S o r L r t i d , p . 19. H p ~ f Of tkr , StnIe of thr Royal Burfhr t?/' Stoffdtrd. 1h91, a< found i n Rtp i r t~~ f i~ in i ~ ' i ~ t i t t i i ~ ~ i l ) t i t , ~ ~ ,

t o t h t . ( : ~ i i i ~ ~ c i i t ~ o i i rnd I'arliarnent.

"

h i / . 12lpfm XXI I I . ( IX3h) . Apprndix. pp. 19-70, '

" I>rfi>r. l:tllntr. p 1 0 f B

I ) 1 kfoc . ' 7 7 1 ~ HISIO~). ,f r h h ~ t i R P ~ : w ~ I E & d ,d . s d d (17x6). ( ' \ 'l'crry, rite Cioniiw/limi C'titoti (Edinburgh. 1902). pp. I~ i - l iv

solution of the l'rotector as a precedent. The English negotiators countered with an offer of 38 seats. In the end the two parties agreed to split the difference, with Scotland receiving 45 M.P.s in a proposed Parliament of 558. The solution was accepted by the Scottish Parliament by 114 to 73 against. with the royal burghs 32 to 22 in favour," and opinion on this matter was less divided than on other aspects of the treaty.

The distribution of the seats within Scotland, however, was left to the detrr- niination of the Scottish Parliament alone. Despite their earlier rejection of Cromwell's precedent, his solution of dividing the constituencies between the counties and burghs in a ratio of two to one was repeated by the Scots in 1707, though with more seats at its disposal the Scottish Parliament was able to devise a constituency settlement less radical than its predecessor.

Under Cromwell, Edinburgh had been awarded two seats with the remaining eight burgh representatives distributed amongst the other 56 royal burghs 011 a geographical basis.17 The 13 Fife burghs had been lumped together, as had the eight burghs of Dumfries and Galloway, the seven burghs between Inverness and Dornoch, and the north east burghs ofAberdeen, Banffand Cullen. I t was obvious that unless there was severe retrenchment in 1707 a sindar solution would be required. A number ofschemes were considered regarding the possible distribution of burghal seats, but in the end Parliament concentrated on two approaches. The first envisaged the grouping of burghs into three with the intention of returning five members from each g r ~ u p , ' ~ and the second, favoured by the Scots com- missioners, suggested 15 groups each returning a single member. The latter course was adopted without a division. Edinburgh was permitted to forni a constituency on her own, and the remaining 65 royal burghs were placed into 14 groups each containing four or five geographically proximate neighbours." Thus, while the principal of 'cantonment'''' was no different to that of Cromwell, the creation of 14 rather than eight groups rendered the implernentation less severe so 'that the enemies of the union will be disappointed: for they thought to have made extraordinary advantages by the great alteration that is made in our constitution by the articles of the treaty'.''

The groupings of the burghs naturally required some modification to the electoral process. which under the Scottish system had placed in the hands of each corporation, composed of self-perpetuating oligarchies since a law of 1479 had removed the right of burgesses to elect magistrates (councillors), the power to choose their parliamentary commissioner. After 1707 each council selected one of its members to be an elector, who then met with other electors in his group under the chairmanship of the representative from the presiding burgh to elect their M.P. (The designation of the constituency was subject to change

lo Alas Ojrhe) I'/diamenf qfl S / c o f L i d / (12 vols.. EcLnburgh. 1814-75). XI, 1702-1707 388-380. See Table 1.

In A.P.S., XI. 421. Iy See Table 2. 3'

?I Ibid.

A phrase employed by the Earl ot'seafield: A S k t f i o n j o m the Puprs ofthe E d s qf.Marrhmatir (3 vols., 1831). 111, 445.

290 Michael Dyer

Table 1 : Commonuwalrh, 1654- 1660. I

Scotfish Royal B i q h Grouping3 d u r i y flir

1. r-orrc>. 2. Ban6 Cullen. Abtrderrt. 3. Forfar. nt tndec , Arbrodtb, Montrote. Brechin. 4 Linlithgow. Queensierry, Perth, Culro,s, Sfirliny. 5. St Andrews, Dysart, Kirkcdldy, Gcpar, Anstruther Easter. l’tttcriwecrri, CraiI. Dunfennline. ffinghom. Anstruther Wc>tcr, Irivcrkcithing, ffilrciiriy, Burntisland. 6. Irvine, Dumbarton. 7 Kirkcudhnght. Whithoni, h e w Galloway. 8. Ihnhar. Haddington.

’ Head burghs itdlicised.

Table 3:

Domoch. Tdin. Inuernes,, Dingwall. Naim, Elgin.

Lariark. C ; l q i p ~ , Rutherglen, Rothesay, Kenfrew. Ayr,

f imfr ie i . Sanquhar, Lochinahen, Annan, Wigtown,

I’ecblcs. Sclkirk, Jedburgh, Lnudrr, North Bewick.

Listed in order of precedence oil thc roll of royal burghs.

Srouish Royal Buyh Groupings, 1707- 1832.’

1. 2. Invemets, Naim. Forres. Fortrose. 3 . 4 . 5. 6. Wecter. Kilrenny. 7. h s a r t . Kirkcaldy, Bunitisland, Kmghorn. 8 . Stirling. Iiivcrkeithing, I )un fcd ine . Culross.

9 Glasgow. Duinhanon. Renfrew. l\uther&ri. 1 0

1 1. 12. Dundries, Kirkcudbright. Annan. Lochmahen, Sanquhar. 13. 14.

Tam. Dingwall. I h m o c h , Wick. Kirkwall.

Elgin. l3anff, Cullen. Kintore. Invminc. Aberdeen, Montrosc. Urcchiri. Arbroath, Inverbenw l’erth, Dundee, St Andrrrws. Cupar. Forfar. Anstnther Easter. Pittenweem. Crail, Anstruther

(~llccllsfcm..

Haddington, Jedburgh, Dunbar, North Bewick,

Linlithgow. Selkirk. Ldndrk, I’eebles. LdUder.

Wigtown. Whithom, New Gdlloway, Stranraer. Ayr. Irvine. Rothesay, Inveraray. Campbeltown.

~ ~ ~

'There were no head burgh\ between 1707 and 1832. Instead the place of election and the name of thc constituency changed at each election. following the order of precedence each burgh had on the roll of royal burKhc

because the presiding burgh. from which i t took its name, moved a t each election. following a strict order based on a burgh’s former precedence on the Scottish parliamentary roll.) I n the event of an election resulting in a tie the chairman exercised a casting vote: a provision which was not only important in groups

Representation of Scotland 2Y1

of four because a chairman could manipulate the proceedi;y to challenge the credentials and disfianchise electors hostile to his candidate.

Superficially, there is a certain attraction in the method adopted in 1707 of organising the reduced representation ofscotland’s royal burghs. Rait, for example, regarded is as ‘natural the problem should have been solved by a rough geographical gr~uping’.’~ In many respects, however, upholding the right of all royal burghs to return commissioners to Parliament involved the sacrifice of substance to form. As we have seen, the essence of royal burghal incorporation rested on the enjoyment of privileges at the expense of one’s neighbours, who were regarded as natural enemies rather than &ends; and those advantages were defended against them through indwidual representation. In that context it was a violence to both tradition and perceived self-interest that Wigtown had to share the same M.P. as W h t h o m and Stranraer; that Fortrose should have been included with Inverness; that Wick should have been cantoned with the very burghs that had opposed its admission to the Convention and Parliament; and that Crail should find itself in the same constituency as Kdrenny, Anstruther Easter and Anstruther Wester. Thus, the new groupings, rather than sustaining the original concept of royal burgh representation, actually undermined its basic character. Rait was much closer to the point when he referred to grouping as a ‘device’:24 a political expedient.

Predlctably, with such small electorates, elections in the burgh groupings were subject to all lunds of manipulation and their integrity easily corrupted. Not only were the credentials of electors subject to challenge by the representative of the presidmg burgh, but bribery,25 arrest for indebtedness,26 kidna~ping.~’ and even armed intervention directed by interested parties against councillors and nominated electors at crucial points in the electoral process,28 added a certain piquancy to contested elections in royal burghs. By the third quarter of the eighteenth century the final removal of a Convention law of 1574 that required an M.P. to be a trafficlung merchant or indweller of the place he represented rendered such constituencies even more d e f e n ~ e l e s s . ~ ~ The groupings tended to fall under the control o f a patron, normally an aristocratic p r ~ p r i e t o r , ~ ~ or to a succession of political managers from the Earl of Cromartie to Henry D ~ n d a s . ~ ’ Even with the decline ofministerial influence over Scottish elections after 1827, governmental machinations in the burghs remained extensive, so that in the general election

z2

23

a Ibid. 25 Sunter, Patromge. p. 183. 2h Ibid., p. 185. 27 Ibid., pp. 186-7.

R. M. Sunter, Patronage and Politics in Sotland, 1707-1832 (Edinburgh 1986). p. 229. R. S. Rait. 7he Parliaments of Scotland (Glasgow, 1924). p. 277.

W. Ferguson, ‘Dingwall Burgh Politics and the Parhamentary Franchse in the Eighteenth Century,’ Sottish Historical Rm’ew, XXXVlll (1959).

A. Wight, Inquiry into the Rise and Rqress of Parliament, Chi& in Sotland, and a Complete System of Law Concerning the Eleciion of Representatives /rom Scotland to the Parliament of Great Britain (Echnbugh. 1784). p. 404.

T. H. B. Oldfield, Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland (4 vols. in 6 . 1816). IV, pt. 2, 164-208.

E. and A. G. Porntt. The Unreformed House .f Commotu (2 vols., Cambridge, 1909). 11. pt. 5.

F,

’I

292

of 1831 the Whig administration reversed a 4 to 10 bias against reform amongst burgh M.P.s into an 11 to 3 majority in favour by engineering the defeat of seven of the legislation’s opponents. The Lord Advocate’s observation that, ‘The representatives of Scotland [are] . . . of the court rather than what is called the country party, always found supporting the Minister and swelling the ranks of his rnaj~rity’.~‘ was especially true o i the burgh members.

The reformers of 1832 were not at all sympathetic t o the burgh groupings because their objectives over redistribution, as formulated by Henry Cockburn. the Solicitor-General, were to create constituencies independent of both gov- ernment and landowner through the amalgamation of small counties with larger ones and the institution of separated burgh seats.33 Specifically, with respect to the burghs, they sought to curtail the power of the close corporations through the imposition of a more popular franchise, and to end the principle of royalty conferring representation at Westminster by constituting parliamentary burghs: a status awarded on the basis of size rather than ancient incorporation. Clearly, the burgh groupings (still less their components), did not tit easily into such a conception, and were threatened with the extreme prejudice that had visited the smallest English boroughs. Most of the existing groupinp were located in rural regions, had small populations, poten tially few 10 electors, and had long ceased (if ever) to be of economic significance; whilst the largest burghs in them, Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow, were poised to achieve separated status. Sup- pression, or to use the nineteenth-century euphemism ‘liberation’, of these groups would have assisted reform by making available extra seats not only for the big cities and growing nianufacturing centres in the west, but also for the largest Scottish counties. which were hardlv better represented than the smallest since 1707.3J

The political and intellectual defence of burgh groupings fell to Tory and Whig backbenchen. who saw in their preservation a means of keeping non- agncultural electors out of county constituencies, and in their expansion a means of removing new urban centres from the counties at a minimum cost to the number ofcounty seats. They were not, however. disposed to offer any rationale for their position beyond that of self-interest. For example, they were not prepared to insist on the principle of royalty, because if necessary they were willing to bargain the suppression of royal burghs to prevent the amalgamation of small counties; and while they embraced the parliamentary burgh within the context of burgh hstricting because it enabled new burghs to be added t o the existing system, they were reluctant to indicate the basis on which any particular burgh might be included. Indeed, it was not in their interest to question the fundainental basis of any aspect of the constituency system because they hoped to gain from the very anomalies such a debate would have exposed. Their pressure, nevertheless,

Hansard. Commons &bares (3rd x r . ) , X11. 534. For a more general dixussion of Scottish redlstnbution in 1832 see M. Dyer, ‘Mere Iletail

and Machinery.’ Scorrish Himrical Review, LXIl (1983). Apart from the three pairs ofcounaes which had ind~vidual representation in alternate Parliament\

and the combination of Orkney and Shetlaiid in a combined constituency, Scottish county constit- uencie, each returned a cingle M.P.

’?

”

”

Representation of Scotbnd 293

prevailed over that of the reformers, when the government, anxious to reduce parliamentary hostility to the various Scottish bills, increased the total number of Scottish seats by eight, enabling them to respond in some measure to the claims of the larger urban areas without liberation elsewhere in Scotland. Consequently, there were as many burgh districts after 1832 as in the previous century.

The manipulation of burgh groupings for essentially reactionary objectives is evidenced by the rnolfications which took place.35 Firstly, only three royal burghs, Rothesay, Peebles and Selhrk, failed to be designated as parliamentary burghs. The purpose, however, was not to advance reform, but to save the nomination county of Bute fiom annexation by Dunbartonshire and to prevent the amalgamation of Peeblesshire and Selhrkshre. Secondly, geographically pe- ripheral burghs were raised to parliamentary status not through their own merits but to justi@ the survival of groups threatened with extinction. In the Highland area, Oban was included in the Ayr district, and Cromarty, hardly more healthy than in the late seventeenth century, was added to the Wick district. Similarly, in the north east, the port of Peterhead was elevated principally to strengthen the Elgin burghs. Thirdly, reorganisation in the central belt led to the extraction of industrial burghs tiom the counties not to increase the influence of the manufacturing interest but to reduce it. The suppression of Peebles and Selhrk enabled the Lanarkshire burghs of Airdrie and Hamilton to be shunted along with Fallurk fiom Stirlingshire into the former Linhthgow group, now renamed the Falkirk District; and in Ayrshire, Kilmamock was raised to lead the remnants of the Glasgow group further reinforced by Port Glasgow from Renhewshire. The only burgh district which reflected the reformist influence was Leith Burghs, but even there the inclusion of Musselburgh and Portobello represented a con- cession to the landed interest in Midlothian.

As a whole, parliamentary burghs in 1832 returned 23 Members from 21 constituencies, with each M.P. on average representing 1,362 electors. Amongst burgh districts, however, only the Leith and Montrose Burghs were above the average size, so that while the mean electorate per M.P. in single burghs was as high as 2,188, it fell to 832 in the districts. Had the Wick, Wigtown, Haddington, Kirkaldy and St Andrews burghs all been suppressed to find three more seats for Glasgow and two more for Edinburgh, even the nine remaining lstricts would still have averaged only 1,032 electors to 1,406 electors per M.P. in the separated burghs.

Parliamentary representation in the burgh lstricts between 1832 and 1868 reflected on the one hand the radical change in the franchise, and on the other the conservative dimension of their continued existence. The vesting of the vote in male E l 0 householders ended both the control of close corporations over elections and ministerial influence. As with separated burghs, their electorates almost universally espoused the cause of Liberalism, and to that extent it may be argued that the under-representation of Glasgow and Edinburgh was thus com- pensated in partisan terms. O n the other hand, whereas the single parliamentary

J5 See Table 3

294 Micliael Dyer

burghs produced M.P.s that were closely tied to the commercial and business interests which dominated their economic life, the same was not generally so in the burgh districts.

Because the majority of burghs in the districts were diminutive and their economic activities diverse and small scale, they produced neither the cosmopolitan ilites of the growing commercial centres nor the vigorous indigenous political life that characterised the larger cities. Thus, while small town voters were sufficiently independent to insist on the return of candidates reflecting their mostly Liberal opinions, they were frequently willing to accept the leadership and parliamentary nominees of landowners, or the pidance of commercial interests fiom the big cities, who unlike themselves were part of a traditional national political network. The Haddington Burghs, for exam le, wcrc subject to an expensive tussle between Tory and Whig Border lairds;" the Kirkcald Burghs, in which 'the predominating influence IS that of the Ferguson family , Fifeshire landowners, was held by a representative of the line for all but two years between 1832 and 1862; Leveson-Cower influence over the Wick District was such that it bordered on n~minat ion;~ ' and in the Wigtown District, the Earl of Stair dominated the head burgh, Mrs Gordon (heiress of Viscount Kenmure) was prominent in New Galloway, Sir John McTaggart was 'powerful in Stranracr' and the 'weight' of Sir Alexander Reid told in Whithorn.J9

Although big city influences were sipificantly less than thow of landed proprietors, William Baxter, a Radical 'member . . . of thc Dundee millionaire flax and linen manufacturers','' represented the Montrose Burghs for 30 years &om 1855, Janic's Merry, a Glasgow merchant arid ironmastrr took the Fallurk Burghs in 1805. and three years later, the Stirling Burghs, long represented by Lord Jlalrrieny, was contested by two Liberal representatives of Glasgow's com- mercial aristocracy." I t was a measure of the greater conservatism of the burgh dismcts when compared t o the more radical cities, that the winning candidate in the 1868 Stirling by-election, John Kamsay, a distiller, had previously proved too nioderate for the electors of C l a s g ~ w . ~ ~ The only clear example of powerful indgenous political influence in a burgh &strict was provided by the Peelite Bairds of Gartsherrie, local ironmasters, in the Falkirk Burghs, who carried the seat for the Conservatives and family members in 1841 and 1851, and for the Earl of Lincoln in 1846. Notwithstanding exceptions, the influence of county individuals who linked representation to noii-urban interests remained a dominant characteristic of burgh district politics before 1868. Thus, the political culture of burghs districts remained distinct from that in the single burghs. and reduced

L$ rhe Eusf fnfhian Anrtquanon and Field Narural1sr.s' Sorirry. XI (1968).

47 ' '

'* J . I . Ihsh. 'Thc Conservatlves in the Haddingtori District of Burghs. IH32 -1852.' Tratuorfiotts

C:. H. Dod. Elcdoral f u r s lmprfrnlly Srared (1852). p. 167. H. J Hanharn. Electiotis and Parry MunJpncnr (Hassocks. 1978). p. 412. I h d . Eledoral F m s . p. 344. W. M . Walker. Juteoptis (Edmburgh, 1Y7Y). p. 53. J . A Spender, 7he .hfi qf7 'he Right Hotiourablr Srr Henry Comp&ell-&nnema~, G.C.H. (2 vols.,

Ih id .

"

'* "' *I

' I

Edmburgh. 1023). I . 35-8

Hepresentatiori of Scotlarid 295

Table .?: Scotfidi D l S t n C t S of Burghs 1832- 19 1 (I'

7 Electorate-

1832 1868 1885

1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9.

10. 1 1 .

12.

13. 14. 15.

Ayr, Campbeltown, Inveraray, Irvine, Oban. 63 1 DnmJnes. Annan. Irkcudbright, Lochmaben, 967

Falkirk. Airdrie, Harmlton, Lanark, Lirilithgow.

Sanquhar. Elgin, Banff, Cullen. Inverurie. Kintore, Peterhead. 776

969 Haddington, Dunbar, Jedburgh, Lauder, 545

Inwrness. Fortrose, Forres. Naim. 715 Kilmamork, Dumbarton. Port Glasgow, Kcnfrew, 1.155

North Berwick.

Rutherglen Kirkraldy, Uurntisland, Dyurt, Kinghorn, 507 Lpidi. Musselburgh, Portobello. 1,624 Motitrose, Arbroath, Brechin, Forfar, Inverbervie. 1,494 SI Andreus, Anstruther Easter, Anstruther Wester 62 1

Stirling. Culross, Dunfermline, Inverkeithing. South 956

W c k , Cromarty, Dingwall. Dornoch, ffirkwall. Tain. 366 3 1 5

Hawick, Galashiels. Selkirk. N o Seat

Crail. Cupar. Kilrenny. Pittenweem.

Queensfeny.

Wigrcncn, New Galloway, Stranraer. Whithorn.

2.565 2,353

2,962 4,704 1,477

1.995 6,631

3,160 6,223 6.337 1,847

1,257

1,673 966

3,335

5.449 3.147

4,196 7,142

N o Seat

3,556 10,475

5,228 1 1,779 8,963 2.837

5.228

2,013 No Seat

5.679

'Returning burgh and designation of constituency italicised. 'Numbers derived from F. W. S. Craig, British Parliamenfary Elerfioti Results, 1832-1983 (5 vols., Glasgow and London, 1969-89). and T. Wilkie, 77ie Representation qfScofland: /-'arliamettrary Elerfions Since 1832 (Paisley, 1895). the impact of reform on Scottish burgh representation in a manner not to dissimilar from small boroughs in England.43

The burgh district system which emerged in 1832 appears even less satisfactory in terms of representational theory than at the settlement of 1707, for it was justified neither on tradltional grounds that all royal burghs should continue to enjoy representation, nor within the context of the new parliamentary burgh system as envisaged by the reformers. Not only had the practice of grouping burghs survived, as did numerous aspects of the unrefomied constitution,"' but had been reorganised and extended primarily to appease the opponents of reform.

Although the Liberals predictably dominated the burgh districts, losing only seven times to the Conservatives out of a possible 135 general election contests between 1832 and 1868," the Tones were well pleased with the system as they

" S. F. Woolley. 'The Personnel ofthe Parliament of 1833.' Enflich Hictoncal KEvieuJ. LIII (1938), 252: 'The aristocratic influence was strong in the counties arid in those small boroughs where voters were few and therefore more easily affected by local landowners.' Also, W. 0. Adyelotte, 'The House of Commons in the 1840s'. History, XXXIX (1954).

N. Gash, Politia in the Age ojPet-1 (1053), p. x. Conservative wins: Inverness Burghs (1 832 and 1835), Kdmarnock Burghs (1 837). Haddmgton

Burghs (1841). and Falkirk Burghs (1841, 1847 and 1852). No Conservatlvccarldlddcees were presented in the Montrose, Kirkaldy and Stirling Burghs dunng the operatlon of the First Reform Act. The Conservatives won no seats in the Scottish single burghs, 1832-1865.

** * \

considered it had protected their interest in the counties: a conclusion which dominated their attitude toward Scottish redistribution during the progress of the Second and Third l<eform Bills. The Liberals proved more ambivalent, for although they g e w increasingly disenchanted with districting on grounds of principle. their entrenched position in the existing burgh districts cooled their reforming ardour. Furthermore, as redistribution in 1868 and 1885 involved a m o n g element of bi-patisanship. there was little room for a fundamental review of the sywni . With the Liberals vetoing Tory attempts greatly t o increase the number of burghs in districts, and with both parties unwilling to dismantle the structure established irt 18.32, burgh districts suwived with minimal changes until I O l t 3 .

Ho\vevcr dependent was Disraeli on Liberal support, i t did not prevent him attempting a morigly partisan approach to redimhution in 1X08.4G Ilisraeli's proposal to include all burghs with populations of 6,000 or over within burgh diztricts. nevertheless, was not without merit, because franchise reform had deep- ened thc distinction between county and burgh constituencies, and the ciriployment of a precise numerical ).ardstick indicated a systcniatic approach to redistnbution.'" The abscnce, however. of a parallel proposal to remove existing parliamentary burghs with populations under 6,000 from their current groupings, suggested his main intention was lew a rattonalisation ofthe systern than a reduction of Liberal preswre i n the counties. Disracli also suggested that one of seveii additional Scottish seats should he an extra burgh distnct i n the central belt, which. together w t h a reorganisatiori o f the Falkirk and Kilniariiock Districts, would ninke possible the extraction of Coatbridge and Wishaw from Lanarkshire, krkintillvch arid Helrnsburgh from Dunbartonshire, and Johnstone. Barrhead ~ n d Pollokshawr from Kenfrcwshtre. Furthermore, he proposed t o throw Ardrossan and Saltcoats into the Avr Ihstrict. Alloa into the Stirling Burghs, and to associate the eastern border textile towns of Galashiels and Hawick with the Haddingtori

The Liberals were predictably itnsympathetic to Disraeli'y scheme because it was an Attempt t o weaken their growing challenge in the manufacturing counties. which were becoming more important now that Ayrshire and Lanarkshire were to be divided. An additional burgh district m i the Clyde was insutficient com- pensation. Consequently, they opposed any further removal of burghs from counties, and argued that ariy iricreawd burgh representation should go t o Ab- erdeen, Ihtndee or Clasgow. For partisari rrasons, however. they did not press for the extinction of ariy existing burgh district. As the government WAF reliant on tome opposition assistance for securing the passage of the reform bills, Disraeli wa5 constrained to withdraw his suggested district modifications and award a second burgh $eat to Dundee. A late proposal. nevertheless, to create a new

I' F . I3. Snuth. 7 7 1 ~ .tfakitip of r h Secotrd Refonpi Bill (Adelaide. 1006). ,. _. ' 'Keturn r r l ~ t i v c to the populdnon and proposed grouping of burghs in Scotland.' Pad. /'pr.,. 1.V1 (1XG7). 5.39

'I Other red~ctributioii p r o p o d included an extra (eat for Aynhire. Abrrdeemhire. Laridrkthirr and G l a c g o w , drid two for the Univertitiec

district of Hawick, Galashiels and Peebles (which had been liberated in 1832), was approved to protect Conservative county interests in the eastem borders, but at the price of amalgamating Peeblesshire and Selkirkshire, hitherto predominantly Tory constituencies.

Thus, the changes to the 1832 settlement with respect to the burghs were minimal,49 but an increase in the burgh districts to 15 indicated an ebb on the tide of reform, and the maldistribution of seats in relation to votes in the burghs became greater after 1868 than during the operation of the First Reform Act. In 1868 the average number of registered electors represented by each of the 11 single burgh M.P.s was 0,457, but in the districts only 3.1 59. The three Glasgow M.P.s collectively had more constituents than all the burgh district members together; and although a substantially higher proportion of burgh as opposed to county residents were enfranchised in 1868 than in 1832, eight of the 32 county constituencies had greater electorates than the average burgh district. Population trends only increased the discrepancies.

Although between 1868 and 1885 the influence of county individuals over politics in the burgh districts was less pervasive than hitherto, their power was by no means extinguished by the increasing influence of local councillors, political factions, public meetings, and embryonic party (mostly Liberal) associations. Predictably, the more industrial districts exhibited the more popular forms. I n 1880, for example, Dick Peddie, M.P. for the Kilmarnock Burghs, facing not only a Conservative challenge but also that of a second Liberal. secured a vote from the Dumbarton Liberal Association 'that J. Dick Peddie be adopted as the candidate in whom the Association should concentrate its strength','" and a similar endorsement from the Kilniamock Liberal Association helped secure his return. Likewise, in the same year, C.alnpbell-13annennan. who enjoyed the support of local councillors in the Stirling Burghs, confirmed his candidature with public meeting like the one held in Dunfermline.5' J n the St Andrews District, by contrast, the party organisation was tightly controlled by its long-serving member Edward Ellice," and the Wick Burghs, marking the limits of change, still remained vulnerable to the patronage of the Duke of Sutherland.s3

Members continued to reflect a reliance on external sources of recruitment, both big city and rural. In 1880, the Glaswegians. Campbell-Bannerman and Ramsay, represented the Stirling and Falkirk Districts, Baxter, the Dundonian. survived in the Montrose Burghs, and Edinburghians, Dick Peddie and John McLaren (whose famous Radlcal father sat for Edinburgh). were esconced in the Kilmarnock and Wigtown Burghs. Landowners, by contrast, continued to be represented through the likes of Richard Campbell (Ayr Burghs), Mount- Stuart-Elphinstone Grant-Duff (Elgin Burghs), and Sir David Wedderbum (Haddington Burghs); and English carpet-baggmg was sustained in the Hawick Burghs by George Trevelyan, Steven Williamson in the St Andrews group,

*" See Table 3. w Sortmarl, 17 Mar. 1880. s ' lbid. jZ

s ' I . G. (3. Hutchison. A Po/ifical Hisfory qf.Scofbnd (Edinburgh, 1986). p. 112. Hdnhani, fi'/ecfiottz, p. 41 2.

3 x Midiael Dycr

John Pender in Wick Burghs, and Andrew Grant in the Leith District.j4 Between 1868 and 1880, the Conservatives won only one general election

contest in the burgh districts, Ayr Burghs in 1874: 'An unexpected bonus',j5 and there were great difficulties in persuading suitable Tories to stand.'" Nevertheless, by 1880, elections in most ofthe districts had become bi-partisan, and the instances of Liberals standing against other Liberals in the absence or presence of a Con- sen-ative hdd been largely eliminated.

As the nineteenth century progressed. not only was the position of burgh districtirig regarded increasingly anomalous in terms of the relationship between seats and votes. but so, too, was the dispersal ofburghs within the groups. Although burgh districting had never since its inception rested easily with an electoral system bdsed on territorial representation, its deficiencies were relatively unim- portant in the unreformed Parliament, where burgh constituencies throughout Britain had been comipted by the controlling oligarchies of rotten burghs and their ministerial friends. After 1832, however, the single burghs were restored to their localities, and the link between the Member and the place he represented became much stronger: especially so between the Great Reform Act and the imposition of nationwide political parties. Froin being the placemen of power- brokers such as Dundas, the Scottish single burgh M.P.s became ambassadors for independent, provincial. male householder electorates. Not only were such changes imperfectly realised before 1868 in the burgh districts, in that Whig landowners rather than the 'shopocracy' exercised political leadership, but the geographical distnbution of burghs within a group, requiring an M.P. to be plenipotentiary for a variety of disconnected interests amongst a widely scattered electorate. was out of keeping with contemporary notions ofrepresentation. More practically, as the exparision of the electorate made iricreasing organisational demands on factions arid parties from the regstration of electors to the conduct of election campaigns. burgh districting only coinpounded the problem. Conse- quently. in anticipation of the Second Reform Act and a greatly iiicreased burgh franchise. the spatial distribution of the burghs within districts became the subject of a parliamentary paper," which revealed the average distance between the two widest-apart burghs in each grouping to be 60 miles and the median 40 miles. At the greatest extreme was the Wick District, where Ilingwall in Cromarty was a 158 n d e journey by steamer, road and rail from IGrkwall in Orkney, closely followed by the Ayr Burghs, in which Ayr dnd Oban in Argyll were separated by a 157 mile trip by steamer and rail. The Iiiost proximate burghs were in the Leith District, where only a six mile journey divided the port from Musselburgh, dnd the Kirkcaldy District, where the head burgh was a mere eight miles from

'' For iritonnahon on Memben sce, J. Fonter. .tlembccc o j Parltmirrif. Snirlarrd (1x82); and M. Stenton and S. Lees. M'bo's Il'ho of British .tlembers qf Porlionierit. .4 BicXraphital Dicfionmy qfrlie I h r r c . tf Commons. 183-1979 (4 vols.. Hasocks . 11)76-81).

Hutchison. Pdirual Hi3for-y. p. 103. j', B. L Crapster, 'Scotland and thr Conservative Party In 187h,']oirnra/ ~!/~IModt7~ History. XXlX

(10S7). 3 5 x

Representation of Scotland 299

Burntisland. Although, as we have seen, this information had little influence on either of the parties in 1868, the issue of geographical rationahsation was to assume a gradually increasing importance.

Despite a clear Liberal majority in the Commons, Conservative strength in the Lords eventually forced Gladstone to construct the Third Reform Bills in consultation with Lord Salisbury.58 This bi-partisan approach while broadening political support for reform also ensured that principle would be strongly diluted by inter-party bargaining, which was to be particularly evident in the constituency settlement - always the more exposed to manipulation than the franchise. With respect to redstribution, it was agreed that all burghs (boroughs) or groups of burghs with populations under 15,000 were to be liberated. Not only were these guidelines substantially below the figure of 25,000 preferred by the Liberals, but by treating burgh districts as a whole rather than a collection of individual units the question of very small burghs hidmg in groupings was deliberately ignored.59 Consequently, only the Haddington and Wigtown Districts were marked for extinction under the redstribution schedules and no proposals were made to amend the remainder. A net increase of 12 Scottish constituencies, however, reduced the proportion of burgh districts from a quarter to 18 per cent of the nation’s seats, and the allocation of seven admtional constituencies in total to Aberdeen, Ednburgh and Glasgow ensured that for the first time single and dvided burghs would dominate the burgh sector.

Amongst Scottish Liberal M.P.s there was dsquiet that the bill made no attempt to rationalise the district system. They felt that indvidual burghs with less than a thousand inhabitants (at least) should be thrown into their neighbouring counties, and that some attempt should have been made to remove certain geographical absurmties. O n the other hand, they remained reluctant to condemn districting in principle, partly, of course, because Liberalism was so dominant in the districts, but also because the counties were poised to become overwhelmingly Liberal without the need for urban voters. The Conservatives remained stubbornly firm supporters of districting, hoping to bring more burghs into existing or reorganised districts. Had the desires of Scots Tory backbenchers been realised the political map of central Scotland would have resembled a plum pudding. Such partisan considerations, however, were too much for Raikes, the Conservative Member for York, who condemned ‘[the] utter enormity of the present system of Scottish burghs . . . [whch is] absolutely indefensible on any ground whatever’.60

In response to Liberal pressure, a meeting was held between Scottish back- benchers (all but eight of them Liberals) and the Lord Advocate, John Balfour, to thrash out an agreed scheme for Scottish burghal redstribution.61 Subsequently, he introduced a series of amendments at the committee stage of the redistribution bdl designed to promote geographical rationalisation and liberate indvidual burghs with less than a thousand inhabitants. At the same time he refused Conservative

58 A. Jones, The Poolitin ofRpfom (Cambridge, 1972). 59 Buchanan (Edinburgh) wanted the population standard of 15,000 to be applied to each burgh

ho Ibid., CCXCIV, 728. 6‘

within a group: Hansard, Commons Deb., (3rd ser.), CCCXV, 826.

Details reported in the Scotsman, 4 Feb. 1885.

300 ,41ichael Dyer

demands to add to existing districts. Oban, Inveraray and Campbeltown were to be removed from the Ayr District and thrown into Argyll; Fortrose released &om the Inverness District: Ilornoch shoved into Sutherland; Kintore expelled from the Elgm Burghs; lnverbervie to fall into Kincardineshire; Inverkeithing to disappear into West Fife; Portobello and Musselburgh to be associated with either Edinburgh or Midlothian; and, following the dsappearance of Linlithgow, South Queensfeny and Culross, there was to be a reallocation of burghs between the Stirling and Falkirk Districts.

Reaction to the proposals outside Westminster was strongly negative. Not only did Conservatives regard the amendments as gerrymandering and opposed to the bi-partisan approach that had been agreed by the party leaders, but a welter of the criticism also came from Liberal-dominated interests in the affected burghs. A public meeting in D u n f e d n e opposed transference to Kirkaldy the Falkirk Liberal Association did not wish to be associated with D ~ n f e r m l i n e ; ~ ~ Ayr Burgh Council opposed the inclusion of Kilmarnock in their reorgaiiised district;h4 Kilmamock Burgh Council felt they deserved a member all of their 0 ~ 1 1 ; ' ~ Fortrose felt slighted at its loss of parliamentary status;60 and virtually all the adult inhabitants of Kmtore signed a petition opposing their ejection from the Elgn Although several amendments were passed early in the report stage in pursuance of the revised scheme, Balfour later announced their repeal and reinctatement of the orignal scheme, 'to make the bill, as between the two parties, acceptable to the H o u ~ e ' . " ~ Sir Stafford Northcote endorsed the retreat, incheating that 'in the light and spirit of the arrangement with re Iard this Bill, the Lord Advocate . . . is nght in withdrawing the amendment^'.^' Predictably, Balfour's demarche did not lack support fiom a number ofburgh district Members anxious to pacify the hornet's nest of local particularisms the proposals had stirred.

In truth, even had the changes gone through they would have made little difference to the basic structure of the redistribution system. Nevertheless, burgh representation was significantly more equitable than previously. There were now 18 single and divided burgh constituencies with an average of 8,850 electors as against 13 burgh districts averagmg 5,326 electors. A proportionate allocation within the burgh sector would have produced a 21 to ten division in favour of the bigger cities.

Between 1832 and 1885, Scottish burgh constituencies of all types had been Liberal almost by definition. The counties, by contrast, had remained the preserve of Whig and Tory landowners. 1885, however. marks the point a t which the distinction between county and burgh constituency became less important as a determinant of party allegiance due to the equalisation of the franchise, the growth

b

'I [b id . . 1 0 Frb. 1885. 'I' [ b i d . 17 Feb. 1885.

[ h i d . 1 0 Fcb. 1885. '' %id. *" %id. I' !b id . 12 Feb. 1885. "* Hamard. (:ommo,ns Deb. (3rd. ser.). CCXCI. 67 . , r w , p. 68.

Kepresentatiotz clf Scotlarid 301

of party organisations (slower to emerge in Scotland than elsewhere), and the articulation of issues by national rather than local h.lit~s.~'' Consequently, burgh districts lost their homogeneity of party allegiance and began to reflect regional political trends.71 For example, the five districts which never faltered in their mainstream Liberalism (Elgin, Hawick, Kirkcaldy, Stirling and Montrose), mir- rored the Gladstonianism of eastern Scotland; whilst in the Unionist west, the Ayr District was firmly in the Conservative camp by 1895, Kilmarnock voted Conservative in 1885, 1895 and 1900, and Falkirk, dominated by its Lanarkshire burghs, went Liberal Unionist in 1886, 1895 and 1900. In the Highlands, the Liberal Unionism of Wick and Invemess in the 1890s indicated strong regional opposition to Liberal flirtations with disestablishment of the Kirk.72 Consequently, having been almost totally Liberal between 1832 and 1885, the burgh districts returned Conservatives and Liberal Unionists in 30 per cent of general election contests between 1885 and December 1910. Nevertheless, the Liberals continued to benefit fiom the survival of burgh districts because they formed part of a general distribution of seats that discriminated against the west of Scotland, and especially Glasgow. I t was, indeed, ironic that Conservative and Liberal Unionist under-representation between 1885 and 191 8 in Scotland was in part a function of the pressure Tories had exerted on the construction of the Third Reform Act. The suppression of a number of small burgh districts in the east to provide more numerically just representation on Clydeside would have done much to advance the Unionist cause.

The tendency for Liberal burgh district Members to have only a marginal connexion with their constituency became even more pronounced after 1885, as Englishmen and Anglo-Scots, seeking safer seats as their party's position weak- ened in England, trekked north of the border. This infiltration was assisted by the continued dependence of local Liberal associations on outside advice in the matter of M.P. recruitment, and an increased reliance on the advice of parlia- mentary whips following the desertion of most Whig landowners and a substantial proportion of the commercial-industrial leadership into Liberal Unionism, which had severely weakened the capacity of Scottish Liberalism to sustain an indigenous leadership.

In 1910, the English were represented by an old Etonian, Arthur l'onsonby, a former page to Queen Victoria, who inherited Stirling Burghs from his deceased employer, Campbell-Bannerman; Vernon Harcourt, another old Etonian and former diplomat, who followed John Morley in the Montrose District; arid John Barran, a Leeds manufacturer in the Hawick Burghs.73 Anglo-Scots included James Dalziel (Kirkcaldy Burghs), the proprietor of Rqwold's News; John Bryce (Invemess Burghs), a former president of the Oxford Union, with banking and insurance interests in London, and railway directorships in India and Burma; l l r

'" Hanham, Elections, esp. Chapter 8. 7 ' H. J. Pelling, Social Ceogaphy o/Bnfish Elections, 788.F-1970 (New York. 1967). 72 J. G. Kellas. 'The Liberal Party and the Scottish Church Disrstablishment Crisis.' Etiglich Hist.

'' Data on M.P.s bawd on Stenton and Lees. Who's who. Rev., LXXIX (1964).

Adam Rainy (Kilmamock Burghs), son of the fomier Free Church moderator, and an eye surgeon working in London; and John MacDonald (Falkirk Burghs), a journalist who had earlier represented Bow and Bromley. Less ambiguous native influences were confined to John Gulland (Dunifries Burghs), an Edinburgh merchant, an Edmburgh lawyer, Kobert Munro (Wick Burghs), a highland landowner, Munro-Ferguson, who replaced Gladstone in the Leith and John Sutherland in Elgin Burghs. I t was instructive of the attitude of Liberal 4 i t a towards the burgh districts that Munro-Ferpson, himself a Liberal whip, 1894-5, attempted to swap the Leith District for the l rkca ldy Burghs. in which he became provost of the returning burgh in 1906, because the latter more conveniently bordered on his Fifeshire estate^.^'

The return of John Sutherland is of particular note because he was arguably the only burgh district Member to be of the people he represented sincc a t least the passing of the 1832 Act. He was educated in the fishing village of Lossiemouth, and after graduating from Aberdeen University established a business in Portsoy, a small burgh (non-parliamentary) on the Moray coast. Locally, he served on the Fordyce School Board and became a member of Uanffshire County Council. Additionally, his chairmanship of the Scottish Temperance and Social Reform Association, doubtlessly commended him not only to Liberal activists in his constituency but also to the puritanical rcligious sects that thrived in the fishing burgh of I'eterhead, the major component of his district.

More traditional county influences in the burghs were sustained by the An- struther (-Grays) in the St Andrews Burghs, where Sir Robert transferred his allegiance to the Liberal Unionists following the 1885 general election, and subsequently passed the seat on to his two sons. George Younger, a Conservative brewer, banker and former chaimian of Clackmannan County Council came from a similar background, but his constituency, Ayr Burghs, was adopted rather than inherited.

The democratisation of the electoral system in 19 18, involving the numerical equalisation of constituencies as a cardinal principle, clearly threatened the district system; and the appointment of a politically neutral boundary commission under the Speaker removed the partisan bargaining over redistribution which had protected the burgh groupings on previous occasions. Under the redistribution rules burgh constituencies with under 50,000 inhabitants were to be extinguished, and an attempt made to equalise all constituencies to around 70,000 in popula- t i ~ n . ~ ~ Furthemiore, as Scotland was only to increase her representation by a single seat, it was clear that north of the border redistribution would be the most traumatic since 1707. The omens for the burgh districts, therefore, were riot good, although they were treated as collectivities rather than indlvidual units with respect to the 50,000 inhabitants ndr.

The impact of the 1918 redistribution on the burgh districts was so cxtensive

~Munro-Ferguson. a higilland landlord. had lost his seat In Ross and Croniany to d crofier 111

Iiutchison. Polioliricol Hicfory. p. 240. Rqorf oJfrhe Boundary Chmirxion f.SrorLind). Cmnd. 8759 (1917). p. 7.

.' 1885.

'I

''I

Kepresen tation of Scotland 303

that they were reduced to a mere six constituencies, and only the Montrose Burghs remained as before. O f the 66 royal burghs at the Union, 55 had survived in burgh constituencies right to the end of the nineteenth century, but only 19 appeared in groupinp after 1918. Thirty one of the burghs to lose parliamentary status were in six districts which fell under the 50,000 rule: Dumfnes, Hawick, St Andrews, Elgm, Invemess and Wick. The geographical rationalisation of the Ayr District led to the liberation of the Argyll burghs, Inveraray, Campbeltown and Oban; and the preferences of the boundary commissioners for county seats in Lanarkshire, Kenfrewshire, and to a degree in Ayrshire, resulted in the extraction of Airdrie, H a d t o n and Lanark from the Falhrk District, and the dismemberment of the Kilmamock grouping, with Kilmamock, Port Glasgow, Renfrew and Rutherglen falling into county divisions. The dlminutive burghs of Culross and South Queensfeny were expelled horn the Stirling District into their counties, as was Linlithgow from the disintegrating Falkirk Burghs. The Leith District also disappeared, with Portobello and Musselburgh absorbed into Edinburgh East, and Leith became a constituency in its own right.

I t was quite remarkable given the extent of the surgery that the patient recovered, but with a measure of transplantation and the infusion of ten burghs raised to parliamentary status for the first time, the district system gave birth to a new grouping of six con~ti tuencies .~~ They included the Montrose Burghs; a reconstituted Ayr District, whose losses were offset by the addition ofthe returning burgh's close neighboun, Ardrossan, Prestwick, Saltcoats and Troon; two seats in Fife, where Dunfernline and Inverkeithing from the Stirling Burghs were joined by Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly, and the Kirkcaldy Burghs was reinforced by Buckhaven, and Methil and Innerleven; a new constituency in Dunbartonshire

Table 4: Sottish L>i5fnCIs .f Buvhs, 191 8- 1983'

2 EIcctorafe Feb.

1918 1950 1974

1 .

2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

Ayr, Ardrossan, Irvine, Presnvick, Saltcoaa 31.379 No Seat

Dumbarton. Clydebank. 31,678 No Seat Dunjrmline, Cowdenbeath, Inverkeithing, 27,993 46,037 No Seat

Kirkcaldy, Buckhaven, Bumtisland, I>ySaR, 30,231 50,645 No Seat

MontrosP, Arbroath, Brechin, Forfar, Inverbervie. 24,956 No Seat Stirling and Falkirk, Grangemouth (&om February 29,443 53,697 63,722

Troon.

Lochgelly .

Kinghorn. Methil and Innerleven.

1974-1983, Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth).

'Returning burgh and designation of constituency italicised. %erived fiom F. W. S. Craig's volumes (see Table 3, note 2. above, pp. 295).

'' See Table 4.

cornposed of I>urnbarton, the sole survivor of the Kilmarnock Ilistrict, and Clydebank; and finally, Stirling and Falkirk, each having lost their former coni- panions, joined by Grangemouth.

Although none of the burgh districts had an electorate greater than the average burgh constituency of 34,220, and although a strictly proportionate distribution ofburgh ,eat\ would have allocated the class five rather than six M.P.s, the districts after 191 8 ceased seriously to distort Scottish representation. To that extent the revived system conformed with the democratic features of the 1Yl H legislation. O n the other hand, an intrinsic justification for the maintenance of burgh districts as 3 class of constituency remained absent. I t is difficult to detect, for examplc, a representational principle under which burghs in Lanarkshire lost their parlia- mentary status, while smaller ones in Fife gained theirs. Indeed, with Ayr Burghs virtually a division of Ayrshire, Montrose Burghs below quota, 1)iinfertiiline and Kirkcaldy Ihrghs part of their mining hinterlands, and Dumbarton and Clydebank a somewhat artificial pairing, i t is ditficult to understand why the principle of county division adopted in Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire was not universally applied.

Politically, the burgh districts retlectcd the growth of class politics aftcr I01 8. and their bias to the left indicated the preferences of manual workers living in small industrial towns. Between 1922 and 1945 the Ihtnbarton Burghs returned the extrovert ‘Red Clydcsidc’ cngitieer. Ilavid Kirkwood, who had been eni- ployed i l l the shipyards of Clydebank, and the mining wilt of I>unfermline, apart from 19 1 8 and 193 1, was held for Labour by a Fifeshire miner’s political organiser, William Watson. Lrkcaldy Burghs and Stirling and Falkirk were dightly more niarggndl. but after 102.3 only fell to I-abour’, opponents in 1931. Thomas Kennedy, who had heen a leading member of the Marxist Social Democratic Frderation, was Labour’s representative in Kirkcaldy until 1944, when lie WJS

replaced by Thomas Hubbard, a local miner. Miners also dominated Stirling and Falkirk through t {ugh Murnin. somctimc prcsidcnt of the Miners Federation of Great Dritain. and Joseph Westwood, political organiser for the Scottish miners, 191 8-1928. Kirkcaldy town couricillor. anti Secretary of State for Scotland, 1915-1Y47. Thus, Labour M.1j.s \vere closely h iked both by occupation, social class, and domicile to their coiistitiient~, ‘3s lodges of the Scottish Miner’s Federation restored county influence over burgh district representation. The coastal Ayr Burghs remained faithful to its Conservative antccedcnts, Lvhilst Liberals of various kinds, including John Sturrock, who re-established the link with Ih idee ’ s commercial cstablisliinent, conifortably resisted with Tory aid Labour pressure in the Montrose District. Nevertheless, with four of the six districts falling to Labour in 1922. 1923, 1929, 1935 and 1045, the burgh groupings were niore Labour than the bigger cities with their niore socially diverse electorates.

The arithmetic of democracy which had dealt harshly with the burgh districts in 101 8, continued to harass the survivors. When the boundary conimissioriers reported in 1947, they noted that the Dumbarton and Montrose Burghs had electorates well below the quota Of 49.58 1 , and ncithcr had a case meriting special

K cp rt’sen la I io II of Scotland 305

treatment. Montrose Burghs had been very fortunate to avoid suppression in 1918,’* while Dumbarton Burghs, never a large constituency, had lost more than 5,000 electors through the bombing of Clydebank. Initially, the commissioners had been minded to save the Dumbarton District by adding Kirkintilloch, but opposition from all the burghs concerned led them to recommend that the burghs should fall into a divided I>~nbartonshire.’~ Paradoxically, the Ayr Burghs, which in 1945 had well over 60,000 electors, was also marked for extinction because it had been decided that Ayrshire and Bute should have five rather than four divisions, and that could best be achieved by merging the burghs into the county. Ironically, the suppression of the Montrose District to find an extra seat for Ayrshire had precipitated the demise of the Ayr Burghs.

In Parliament the recommendations were opposed by the Unionists. John MacLay, the National Liberal M.P. for Montrose. defended his constituency on the grounds it had been represented in the past by Joseph Hume and John Morley, while Sir Thomas Moore, the Conservative Member for the Ayr Burghs informed the House: ‘We do not want another seat in Ayrshire’.80 Such protestations of self-denial were too much for the impish Enirys Hughes, Labour M.P. for South Ayrshire, who insisted his county deserved an extra seat in recognition of Robert Burns and his father-in-law, Keir Hardie.81 There was also Conservative criticism over the division of Dunbartonshire. but both the Labour M.P. for the county and Kirkwood from the burghs supported the commission’s recommendations. I t came as no surprise that the o r i p a l proposals were accepted by Parliament, so that in 1950 only three districts remained: Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline, and Stirling and Falkirk. Each continued to return a Labour M.P. until its final demise, although latterly the Scottish National Party mounted a strong challenge in Stirling, Falkirk and Grangernouth.

Although the 1947 commissioners had been prepared to save the Dumbarton Burghs through the elevation of Kirkintilloch, they also questioned the whole rationale behind the district system: ‘I t is not clear’, stated their report, ‘on what grounds other than those of tradition and historic continuity, some burghs which are not large enough to be entitled to parliamentary representation have been grouped with others . . . we feel there is much to be said for associating such burghs with the surrounding landward area in county divisions’.H2 The point was seized upon by the boundary commission of 1969, who sought to eliminate those remaining. They, therefore, successfully recommended a redivision of Fifeshire through the removal of both the Dunfcrmline and Kirkcaldy Ilistricts. They also sought to extinguish Stirling and Falkirk, but they failed ‘being unable t o devise

’* The Boundary Commissioners in 1917 proposed to save the Montrote Burghs by adding the burgh of Kimemuir (pop. 3,500) which would have given the constituency a population of51.773. Kimemuir. however, was removed from the list of burghs during the progress of the Representation of the People Act (1918) through the House of Commons. Consequently, the total population in

the constituency fell below 50.000, and ought, therefore, to have been suppressed. ”’

*’ Ihid. ”> Ihid.. p. 6 .

Inirial Repon oj rhe Boundary Commissionns (Stofhnd). Cnind. 7270 (1047). p. 6 . Hansard, Commons Drh., (5th scr.), CCCL, 222.

306 .Michael Dyet

a scheme with any re;rsonable combination of local government areas'.x3 At the behest of Grangemouth. however. and with the agreement of the senior partners, its name was changed to Stirling. Falkirk and Grangemouth. In view of the historic smallness of such constituencies, it was somewhat ironic that with over 64,000 elector; it was one of the largest in Scotland.

The final removal of the burgh districts from the political map only occurred ultimately through the radical reorganisation of Scottish local govcrnment in 1974." Under the new structure both counties and burghs were replaced by reglons, districts and island authonties, and the geographical configurations of these new jurisdictions dictated the shape of redistribution in 1 983.x5 Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth was scattered through three divisions of the Central R e g o n . Even more dramatically, the great Scottish cities also lost their corporate identities in the same exercise, thus bringmg to an end the traditional distinction between burgh and county constitwncics. It was appropriate that one burgh distnct should have survived to the end.

Although burgh districting was a distinctive feature of Scottish parliamentary representation. 1707- 1083, it was essentially British in origin: a prahmatic solution to the amalgamation of the English ;ind Scottish Parliaments. Indeed, it might be arbwed that burgh districts, along with alternating counties, Lvere a uniqucly British contribution to Westminster representation. It was, however, a method of representation that remained particularly flawed, due to the exigencies of the Union and the management of parlianieritary reform. Despite sustaining the rights of royal burghs t o a presence in the Iegislaturc. 1707-1 832, cantonment suggested a community of interest which sat ill with the historic rivalries of the various group members. The application of the parliamentary burgh to the district system in 1832 was appropriate in the context of a franchise that continued to distinguish between burgh and county; but partisan interests, by ensuring there was no standard whercby a burgh might achieve or losc parliamentar) status, compromised the credibility of thc 'refomied' structure. Although the elimination of districts with under 15,000 inhabitants was introduced in 1885, it only removed two groups, and did little to enhance the standing of the remainder in an electoral system gradually shifting from the representation of places to thc representation of people. The equalisation of the franchise in 1885 and the search for numerically equal electorates across all constituencies from 191 8, questioned both the raison d'ttre of districting and the practicalities of maintaining thcm. Democratisation inevitably increased the attractions of eliminating burgh districts in favour of county divisions, particularly with the introduction of periodic boundary com- missions after 1945, because county beats could more easily be adjusted. The survival of Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth was the exception which proved the rule.

O n e is reminded that 'there is no single theory of representation in Britain

Secotid Periodical Report of'rhe Boutidary C h m i s s i o t i & r Scorlatid. Ciiind. 4085 ( I%(>), p. 0. 7hr h a 1 Government (Scorlandl Act, 1973, Pubkc General Statutes, Cap. 6.5. niird Periodical Report .I rlie Boundary Commissioti .f.r Scotland, (:nind. X704 (1083) Apperldlx

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A. and p. 1 0 .

Representation of Scotland 307

which commands general acceptance',86 but it remains difficult to detect what particular contribution Scottish burgh districting has made to such theories because they have never been defended in such terms. O n the other hand, a consideration of the evolution of the groupings affords a unique perspective on the changing character and influences which have shaped the British electoral system, particularly as they relate to the nature of constituency.

"' A. H. Birch, KPpresentatiw and Responsible Govrrnmtnr (1964), p. 227.