Political Posters

The 1868 Exeter Election Caricatures

The Second Reform Act of 1867 greatly enlarged the electorate, extending the right to vote to around two million men in England and Wales, doubling the previous number.  In the urban boroughs the working-class vote was as much as five times what it had been before. 

Parliamentary reform had become a burning issue in the last few years, and the first steps towards it had been taken in 1866 by Earl Russell’s Liberal government, in which William Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer.  It was however Lord Derby’s Conservative administration which succeeded in stealing the Liberal agenda and steering the Bill through both Houses of Parliament the following year.  The principal architect was Benjamin Disraeli, Chancellor in Derby’s cabinet, who hoped that by following public opinion, his party would be able to hold on to power.

In February 1868 Disraeli became Prime Minister, at the head of a minority government, which lasted only until the new electoral registers had been completed. The first General Election after the passing of the Reform Act was held in November.

Campaigning was keen and vigorous: candidates had to appeal to a much wider electorate, and that meant, particularly in the cities, energy and expense.  The public were interested as never before: campaign meetings were packed, and newspaper columns were full of detailed reports of speeches together with comment and satire.

In Exeter there were four candidates for the two seats available.  Standing for the Conservatives were Sir John Karslake, who had been Attorney General in Disraeli’s brief administration, and Arthur Mills, another lawyer, who was married to a daughter of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland of Killerton.  The Liberal candidates were John Duke Coleridge, who had been an MP since 1865, and Edgar Alfred Bowring, the fourth son of Sir John, who had no parliamentary experience but had worked as librarian and registrar at the Board of Trade from 1848 to 1863.