Description:During the 1820 County Election, Lord Gower’s election agents corresponded daily about events in their election campaign. Their letters provide detailed and atmospheric accounts of how election campaigns were run in the early nineteenth century. Several extracts from just a few of these fascinating letters appear here.
Letter from Mr. Fenton from Newcastle, 2nd March 1820
Mr. Fenton wrote to Lord Gower’s Chief Agent James Loch on 2nd March with news from Newcastle concerning the election.
Fenton suspected that a ‘servant of Mr. Follet’ had been distributing ‘bundles of papers’ to ‘different places’ in Newcastle and the Potteries. The man had been seen giving a bundle to Mr. Wayte of The Cock public house in the town. Although the ‘contents’ of the papers had not ‘transpired’, Fenton wrote to Loch that there was no doubt ‘that they relate to the County Election’. Fenton had ‘ordered a distribution of Lord Gower’s address’ to be made throughout Newcastle to rally support.