Chapter 8: Member for Louth
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The Life-Story of Sir Robert W. Perks, Baronet, by Denis Crane.
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Chapter VIII: Member for Louth
It is necessary now once more to retrace our steps in order to sketch Sir Robert Perks’s political career. This began in 1886, at which time, he has told us, he had ‘never attended a political meeting in his life.’ It is difficult to believe, however, that his abstention from politics was altogether a matter of preference. Indeed, he has disclosed the real reason in a reference to the beginnings of his professional life. Early in their legal career Sir Henry Fowler had said to his partner: ‘You will find that you will have to make your choice between business and politics.’ The alternative was clearly put and indubitable, so with characteristic promptitude he chose for the time being business.
Ten years later, when business gave less
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anxiety, the situation was somewhat changed[1]. Nevertheless, several invitations to stand for Parliament had already been refused when the friendly pressure of Mr. Gladstone at length induced him to take up the responsible work of reorganizing the Liberal party in the East Lindsey, or Louth, Division of Lincolnshire. After the Redistribution Act of 1885, the late Mr. Francis Otter (a brother-in-law of George Eliot) won the seat in the Liberal interest from Mr. James Lowther, Secretary for Ireland. When the dissolution came in the following year, Mr. Otter again offered himself, but on the nomination day, for some reason that has never been made wholly clear, he failed to appear, leaving his party without a candidate. The Conservative nominee thus walked in without a contest and represented the division for six years. This is the only time Louth has returned a Conservative[2].
Exactly how Sir Robert’s name came to be mentioned in connexion with the division is not known, but it at once commanded the support, both of the central organization and of the local leaders. Curiously enough, another gentleman — Mr. John Sharpe, of Bardney
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Manor, the President of the local Liberal Association, who subsequently forsook the party[3] — had already consented, before Sir Robert was nominated, to retrieve the fallen Liberal fortunes ; but, putting the public interest before personal ambition, he at once gracefully withdrew and loyally supported the present member for many years.
Sir Robert’s first letter to his friends at Louth was dated from Filey, August 24, 1886[4], and contained a declaration which, for its frankness, may be regarded as typical of his relations with the division throughout. He wrote: ‘I ought perhaps to say that I am an avowed Methodist, and should not hesitate for a moment so to declare myself.’ This straightforward conduct well bore out the most important part of the testimony of the Secretary to the Treasury, who commended him to the electors as one of ‘rare ability, great administrative power, and high moral character.’[5]
The Louth Division is a somewhat extensive one, stretching from Humberston in the north to Mablethorpe in the south, along the Lincolnshire coast, with South Kelsey and Stixwold marking its western boundaries. Its popula-
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tion of over forty-three thousand is scattered among one hundred and seventy-five different towns, villages, and hamlets. The register totals upwards of ten thousand souls, who at election times record their votes at five-and-thirty different polling-stations[6].
Almost purely agricultural though the division is. Sir Robert soon proved himself a more suitable representative than some of his opponents imagined he could be. It was natural, perhaps, that they should ask: ‘What can a London lawyer, whose life is spent in the courts or in handling musty parchments, know about crops, stock, and other farming interests?’ They soon learned, however, that the London lawyer was also himself the owner of large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and could discuss the price of stock, wool, and other produce, with the best of them[7]. They discovered, too, that he was an admirable judge of horses, and could place in the field as smart a team as any gentleman in the county. Indeed, at one election, such admiration was excited by his wife’s pair of black ponies, that a Tory horsedealer, who declared he could tell the quality of a man by the horses he kept, decided to give him his vote. To these quali-
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fications Sir Robert added that without which nothing is of much value to a member of Parliament, no matter what constituency he may represent — keen business instinct and knowledge of men and affairs.
But, after all, man doth not live by bread alone, and Louth has other interests than pecuniary ones. The majority of the people belonging to any particular religious persuasion are Methodists. There is one road in the division, eleven miles long, in which there are no less than two-and-twenty Methodist chapels. There are eight hundred Methodist local preachers in its various towns and villages. The Louth Wesleyan Circuit alone is twenty-five miles across and monopolizes every Sunday the services of three or four trap-loads of these devoted men. Was this strong Methodist element, then, to go unrepresented? And if not, by whom could it be better represented than by the foremost Methodist layman of the day? As a matter of fact, Sir Robert has freely admitted that his elections have been won largely by the support of his fellow churchmen. Of forty well-known gentlemen on the platform at one of his recent meetings at
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Louth, no less than five-and-twenty were Methodists, eighteen being preachers.
At first, however, in many hearts, religious sympathies and party feeling struggled for the mastery. Every Methodist was not a Liberal, and cordially as they might support their fried on such questions as temperance, education and the defence of Free Church principles, they drew back on purely party matters. Some of these men held important offices in the various Wesleyan societies, and it is said that in some cases they used their influence to prevent his being asked to preside even at purely Methodist functions. This, however, was twenty years ago. Time has happily wrought many changes since then. Sir Robert, indeed, steadily won the favour of disaffected people by his devotion to the public good and by his diplomatic attitude towards Tory measures, such as the Agricultural Rates Bill, which favoured the farming interests of the division[8]. One highly popular method of his in the early days was the holding of rural conferences — ‘political lovefeasts,’ he called them — to which he invited the leading farmers and agriculturists, to discuss various measures in which they were specially interested, such as
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the importation of live cattle and its attendant perils. More recently, by the way, he joined in opposing in the House of Commons a Bill for the removal of the prohibition against such importation.
His non-residence in the division was to small minds a grave objection to his candidature. He was occasionally heckled on the subject by Primrose dames[9] and others, who magnified the loss which the Louth tradesmen would sustain by his living elsewhere. Such little incidents Sir Robert treated with good humour, and with an occasional flash of somewhat mordant wit. After one lady had launched against him an insufferable series of questions, he in turn asked if she would be so good as to indicate which was the house she wanted him to take, what its rent, how many rooms had it, were the drains in order, was there any land, was the roof in repair, and, finally, would she suggest where he should get his provisions. There was, to say the least, some inconsistency about the Tory attitude on this matter ; for the candidate put up against him at his first contest merely held a house in the division on a yearly tenancy, while his opponent in the second fight could boast no
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more; and, more surprising still, while Sir Robert was on the latter occasion reviled for being a Methodist, his opponent was not even a Christian, but a Jew[10]. It showed the superiority of Sir Robert’s principles that, instead of resorting to such an artifice as the hiring of a house, he stated categorically at the outset that he had no intention of residing in the division.
When he accepted the invitation to contest the seat, the hope was entertained that a general election would take place within two or three years. But it was not until six years had elapsed that Parliament dissolved. During the whole of this period, with the possibility of ultimate defeat before him, he laboured unceasingly to unite and strengthen the Liberal forces throughout the county. In the whole history of modern politics probably no candidate ever gave so freely of time, money, and strength towards a struggle the issue of which was so problematical[11].
An extract from one of his speeches of this period will show what were the principles which animated him in his campaign. Addressing the Louth Liberal Club in February 1887 he said:
‘To-night, gentlemen, I want to turn your
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thoughts away from the passing phases of political controversy. I shall say nothing about party losses and party gains. I am not concerned to ask whose star is in the ascendant or whose is on the wane. Statesmen come and statesmen go, but the underlying principles which ought to guide our party last forever; and it is upon one or two of those eternal truths that I desire to say a word. New forces are to-day exerting their mighty influence upon English life and action — forces which our fathers dimly saw, but saw afar off. There was an epoch in our nation’s history when wealth was the mightiest power in the land. Men and women of all ranks worshipped at the shrine of Mammon. In the realms of politics, society, and religion, gold was the key which could alone unlock the doors which led to preferment and to fame. The poor man had no chance. Seats in Parliament were bought and sold. Voters were openly bribed. Great offices in Church and State were put up to auction to the highest bidder. To-day intellect rivals wealth. Men, aye and women, too, who think and write wield a wider power and command a more attentive hearing than the men who hoard and spend. Mr. John Morley exerts a greater power to-day than the wealthiest aristocrat or the richest banker. Is not this a national gain? Who would ask for a return of the days gone by? Another momentous change has passed over our land.
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Carry your minds back to the past eras in our history. You will find that there was a period in our national life when the Church and clergy were supreme; and it was an age when England was degraded and her people ignorant and poor. That era was followed by the despotic rule of the Court and the divine right of kings was the accepted theory of government. There followed in due course the epochs in our nation’s history when power passed to the great aristocratic and landed proprietors; and then it passed to the commercial magnates. What I want to point out is, that the man of character counts for more to-day than the man of rank. Rank is indeed but the guinea stamp. And this is true not only in the realms of politics and statescraft; it is true in the Church, in society, on the exchange, and in the workshop. Think for a moment of the quiet power exerted by that great Christian man, Mr. Samuel Morley; and who will be found to deny the truth of John Bright’s assertion that character counts for something in English public life? There is a third, perhaps an even more potent force influencing our national life to-day, swaying public opinion and moulding the country’s action. I mean sympathy. There was an era when the legislature, the Press, and commerce worshipped at the shrine of political economy, and it was a hard, severe god to worship. Legislation was a vast machine grinding out its rigid laws;
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men and women were looked upon as bits of plastic clay; everything was ordered after a process of strict inquiry and economic experiment. To-day we have the doctrine of political humanity; and the heart of the nation beats faster as we picture the feeble women and dying children and burning homes on the mountain slopes of Glencoe. How is it that Mr. Goschen, a man of orthodox economic opinions, of acutest financial skill, creates so little enthusiasm, and has no personal following? It is because his words want that touch of sympathy with human sorrow and woe which animates the speeches of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Bright. Remember again that to-day the workers are making our laws as well as the spenders; labour as well as capital; masters as well as servants. The factory hands in the mill, the miners in the bowels of the earth, the fishermen on your seas, the labourers on the farm, are all partners on equal terms in the country’s government. What mark will these new electors make upon the laws and the homes of England? Will it be good or will it be bad? There is yet another force which ought to be a mighty one, but which is, I fear, a weak one, in guiding the public thought of our land to-day. I refer to the Christian Churches. Have you ever paused to ask yourselves whether the task of creating and stimulating and directing public opinion into concrete forms is
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to be left solely to political and socialistic clubs? Should not this high mission be shared by the Churches? Have the London clergy nothing to say to the masses of the people who are ready to throng the empty churches? Is the Liberal party afraid of an alliance between religion and politics? Our Puritan forefathers were not. Who can study the records of England’s history without seeing that intellect, character, sympathy, labour, and Christianity have won from rulers for the people their most cherished institutions and long postponed political rights? It is because I believe that this is the undying and unconquerable creed of the Liberal party that I shall ask your aid when the day of battle comes in this important agricultural division.’[12]
His interest in the villagers was deep-seated and of early growth. He championed them against every species of tyranny. On the eve of the election he urged the necessity for some amendment of the laws relating to local government. He took up the case of an old lady who was forced to depend for her water supply upon an almost foetid dyke; and argued that a parish council, composed of men who knew under what conditions their fellow creatures lived, would soon rectify such a scandal. The matter created no small stir
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at the time, and exercised a salutary influence upon the local sanitary authorities[13]. His good works drew admiring comment even from Tory organs, one of which described him as the strongest candidate his party could find. To these admissions his Liberal friends added yet more glowing tributes. Thus Mr. T. P. O’Connor wrote: ‘He is a man of extraordinary energy, of great ability, of strong and resolute will, of intense and earnest and fervent conviction on social as well as political reforms, and he is a man of the most incorruptible integrity.’
The campaign proper opened with a carefully organized series of meetings throughout the division, and from their commencement until the poll was declared Sir Robert allowed himself hardly time to eat. In ten days he drove three hundred miles and spoke in nearly seventy villages. By the polling day it was claimed that he had put in an appearance at every town and hamlet in the division, and had also visited in person nearly every elector.
One of the secrets of his success was the pains he took to instruct in the principles for which he contended even the humbler section of the population, including those who had
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no votes. Thus, on a flying visit to a certain village, he found the people had gone to a gala in a neighbouring town. The impromptu meeting was therefore attended by only about twenty persons, including women and children. Yet it is reported that he ‘spoke with as much care and patience as though he were addressing two thousand.’
When the poll was declared he found himself with a majority of eight hundred and thirty-nine, out of a total poll of seven thousand, seven hundred and twenty-nine[14]. Feeling ran high when the figures were known, and several ‘incidents’ of a ‘regrettable’ nature occurred. Sir Robert’s election was the last in the county, and brought the total number of seats to seven for the Liberals, and four for the Conservatives. Those interested in the financial aspect of elections may like to know that his expenses, exclusive of the Returning Officer’s charges and personal sums, amounted to one thousand, one hundred and ten pounds[15].
By a happy chance. Sir Robert’s election was immediately followed by a domestic event which has since linked the family to the division by a close personal tie. This was the birth of his only son[16]. The news was received with
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delight by the electors, who often allude to the fact that Sir Robert’s long representation of their interests is marked by the age of his heir. This first election, by the way, is the only one at which Lady Perks has not fought by her husband’s side. At the last contest she attended over fifty meetings in three weeks.
The stirring years which followed the contest of 1892 reached their crisis in the summer of 1895, when once more the country was plunged in the turmoil of a general election. The rout of the Liberals which marked the beginning of the battle was reflected in the stormy scenes witnessed in the Louth Division. This was perhaps the rowdiest of Sir Robert’s four campaigns, and he was subjected to numerous attacks of a personal character, which somewhat marred the amenities of the fight. His opponents strove to make capital out of his well-known attitude to gambling, by interpreting it as condemnation of sport. He experienced little difficulty, however, in rebutting the charge, inasmuch as he had subscribed to almost every sporting and recreational institution in the division, with the exception of those devoted to horse-racing and pigeon-shooting. The sporting papers
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took the matter up with unusual animosity, as did also one of the organs of the drink interest; and the storm did not subside for several months. One of the papers subsequently declared that the forces it represented had been specially concentrated to oust Sir Robert from his seat, on the ground that he occupied ‘the most formidable stronghold of the Nonconformist conscience among all the constituencies.’ Hard though the battle was. Sir Robert’s majority reached the respectable figure of four hundred and twelve[17].
If the election of 1895 was the rowdiest, that of 1900, when the country was in the throes of the South African War, was the most exciting. Of Sir Robert’s attitude on the war something is said in the succeeding chapter. As to the election, he worked as hard as ever, addressing four meetings in an evening and speaking on an average for from three to three-and-a-half hours a night. One of his speeches on the war, delivered at Louth in April, was the longest he has ever delivered. Its report filled six columns solid of the local paper. It was freely quoted all over the country.
The keynotes of his address at this famous election — which, it will be remembered, was
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fought on a two-year-old register, thus disfranchising through removals tens of thousands of electors — were, the South African War, Military Reform, Agriculture, Protestantism before Politics, Temperance, Education, and Old Age Pensions. Although the fight, so far as the country at large was concerned, went badly for the Liberals, Sir Robert was returned with a higher majority than he had yet achieved, namely, nine hundred and two[18]. Upon this high figure, however, he won a further advance in 1906, when his majority rose to nine hundred and seventy-nine[19]. This last victory won him the distinction of being the only living Liberal who has sat in four successive Parliaments for a Lincolnshire county constituency.
Like most politicians who have fought hard battles. Sir Robert has given and taken his full share of blows. The artist’s pencil, the pen of the pamphleteer, and the tongue of the orator have vied with each other in caricaturing him as a long-faced Puritan and a meddlesome spoil-sport. Sometimes pencil, pen, and tongue have overstepped the bounds of decency and prudence. In 1900, for example, a local cartoonist, whose lack of skill
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was exceeded only by his vulgarity, produced a singularly ridiculous picture of Sir Robert making a hasty exit from the division (which of course did not come off!), amid the jeers of a number of invertebrate and idiotic representatives of various sections of the community. So coarse was one feature of this cartoon that Sir Robert’s opponent, with whose election address the offensive document had been sent out, privately, if not publicly, repudiated the production.
The story of an earlier caricature is well known. The incident took place before Sir Robert was as familiar in the district as he is to-day. A bill-sticker was posting a placard which depicted him as a limp Puritan with long black gloves and sour visage — in fact, the very antithesis of the real Perks. Sir Robert struck up a conversation with the man, who expressed a desire to fling the gentleman ridiculed on the poster into a neighbouring horsepond. ‘Well,’ came the quick retort, ‘here he is; I am Mr. Perks. Now put me in, or I shall put you in.’ The man glanced at his challenger’s sturdy figure and resolute bearing, and decided not to try. He began to apologize most profusely. ‘Very well,’ said
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Sir Robert, ‘remember in future that the English Puritans are a fighting race, and are quite prepared to fight again if necessary.’[20]
On another occasion he was driving down a narrow lane when a loud voice behind ordered him out of the way. The speaker was a certain hectoring farmer, a member of the Sporting League, who was opposing him because he had figured upon the platform of the Anti-Gambling Association. The farmer passed and pulled up at a public-house. While he was inside his pony ran away. Out he came, and cried excitedly: ‘Where is my pony?’ ‘It has run on before you,’ said Sir Robert; ‘I will give you a lift if you like, to catch him up.’ But the farmer would not hear of that, so ran on until he was red and panting. Meanwhile, Sir Robert kept close at hand, and the pony far ahead. He again offered the farmer a seat. ‘I am afraid lest any of ‘em should see me,’ he said; but looking cautiously round, and seeing none of his friends, he climbed up. Sir Robert put on speed and soon overtook the runaway. ‘Don’t think,’ said he, as the man thanked him, ‘— don’t think because I let you pass me once, that I can’t drive.’[21]
It will be readily believed that the candidate
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for Louth would stand no nonsense, from whatsoever quarter it might proceed. At one of his meetings there was an organized disturbance. He had hardly begun his speech when loud guffaws came from the back of the hall, followed by the ringing of a bell. ‘Put that bell outside at once,’ he cried firmly, ‘or I will send for the police.’ Laughter and ringing abruptly ceased, and when he insisted upon the forfeiture of the bell, it was sheepishly given up.
Sir Robert has often spoken of the lighter experiences of a member of Parliament. Once he told of the curious petitions he had received. Recently one came from a parish near Louth, purporting to be signed by the children of the village school. The prayer of the petition was very badly expressed and was written apparently either by the clergyman or the parish teacher. The document was fastened together with pins, and in it the word ‘elementary’ was spelt with an ‘i.’ It was ultimately returned to him properly drawn up and correctly spelt.
No one familiar with Sir Robert’s record will be surprised to learn that he is universally respected in the division. He began to make
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friends on his first appearance in the county, and has continued to do so, while retaining all the old ones, down to the present time. His relations with his party are cordial in the extreme, his public meetings giving the impression of a great family gathering. Chatting with a railway guard at Willoughby Junction on one occasion, the writer learned that Sir Robert and his wife had recently attended some public function in the division. The good man commented on their kindness to the poor, and added: ‘Yes; they’ve got the wealth, but they’ve left the pride behind.’ At one of Sir Robert’s meetings recently, an old man of seventy, not an elector, walked ten miles for the pleasure of seeing him.
It would be wrong, however, to conclude that Sir Robert is popular with his friends in the drawing-room sense of the term. The familiar tactics of the Parliamentary candidate have never been among his methods. Indeed, for the insinuating smile and soapy handshake he is temperamentally unfitted. One of his henchmen once suggested that he should attend a tea-meeting arranged by the local Liberal Association and shake hands with the ladies at the teapots. He contemptuously declined,
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adding: ‘And would you have me take a bag of goodies in my pocket for the babies?’ All the more value is therefore to be attached to his hold on the general esteem. This is to be attributed mainly to his transparent sincerity, which from the first commanded entire confidence. He recently stated at a political meeting that throughout the whole period of seventeen years during which he had represented the division he had received but three letters from his constituency complaining of his votes.
Many Conservatives, indeed, have found themselves in the position of a certain well-known member of that party who resides at Louth. This gentleman at one election thus expressed himself: ‘I am a bit puzzled what to do. In religion, I agree with Mr. Perks, but in politics I agree with our own candidate. Still, he is not quite my man, so this time I shall leave my politics out and go by my religion.’ By lifting questions of religious freedom and public morality above the sphere of party politics, Sir Robert has often won the votes of those who widely differed from him on purely party matters. His clear declarations on Sunday Closing and the Local Veto, for
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example — declarations, by the way, made long before he entered political life at all, and uttered with equal courage in unfriendly circles — won him practically the solid vote of the whole temperance party.
If Sir Robert has been generous in practical philanthropy towards his constituents, he in return has received many public marks of honour from them. Thus in 1903 his friends united to celebrate his silver wedding. A banquet was given in the Town Hall, and Sir Robert, who was accompanied by his family, was presented with an illuminated address, a massive silver rose-bowl, and a valuable timepiece of richly carved mahogany, standing nearly nine feet high and striking the ‘Westminster’ and ‘Whittington’ chimes on tubular gongs. This handsome present is to-day a conspicuous ornament at Kensington Palace Gardens. Upon both bowl and timepiece the following inscription appears:
‘Presented to R. W. Perks, Esq., M.P., and Mrs. Perks, on the occasion of their Silver Wedding, April 24, 1903, by Residents in the Louth Parliamentary Division. A token of grateful recognition of many public services and benefactions.’[22]
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More recent festivities were those held last September under the auspices of the Louth Liberal Club and the Women’s Liberal Association, to celebrate the honour conferred upon him by his inclusion in the King’s Birthday Honours List of newly created baronetcies. On this occasion the whole town was en fête, and music, popular entertainments, and stirring speeches were the order of the day.
End Notes to Chapter Eight
[1] Crane suggests here that H.H. Fowler issued this caution to Perks in 1875 or 1876, and that Perks’s decision to give primacy to business over politics prevailed for the ten years preceding his selection in 1886 to be the Liberal party’s candidate for Louth. The full story may be more complex. In a letter dated 8 May 1908 Perks wrote to Asquith (who was by then the Prime Minister): “I am sadly afraid that from a political standpoint I have been rather a broken reed. Twenty years ago Fowler said, ‘you will have to choose between Commerce and Politics’; and I chose business with a little politics thrown in to vary the monotony — perhaps wrongly so.”
[2] Francis Otter (1831-1895) was elected M.P. for Louth in November 1885. The dissolution of Parliament in June 1886 was triggered by the Gladstone government’s defeat on the Irish Home Rule Bill. Otter was one of four Lincolnshire Liberal M.P.s to vote with the government on that Bill. Three crossed the floor to vote with the opposition, including Edward Heneage (1840-1922) the M.P. for Grimsby – who it appears had been responsible for recruiting Otter to stand for Louth. Heneage was also the president of the Louth Liberal Association. Nomination day for the 1886 election in Louth was Monday 5 July. As Crane states, Otter failed to appear, sending instead a letter to his nominators (received at about 10.30am) stating he was too ill to be able to engage in the election campaign, and positively declining to be nominated. The Liberal party nominators were unable in the limited time available to them, either to settle on an alternative candidate, or to communicate with Otter to try to persuade him to change his position (The Grantham Journal, 10 July 1886, p. 3). Nominations closed with only the Conservative candidate duly nominated, and he was then declared returned unopposed. Heneage stood for Grimsby as a Liberal Unionist, was not opposed by the Conservatives, and held the seat. His membership of the Grimsby Liberal Association was terminated, but he did not resign his position as president of the Louth Liberal Association.
[3] John Sutton Sharpe (1823-1918) was a successful seed merchant, and also a farmer and estate agent. He announced his withdrawal from the Liberal party at the end of 1903, stating his grounds as being the “Tariff Reform” issue (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 2 January 1904, p. 8). He was one of the nominators of Perks’s Conservative opponent at the January 1906 election. At a public meeting in Bardney during that election campaign, Perks stated: “Mr. Sharpe was one of those gentlemen who would like Protection for the special commodities which he raised, but would like Free Trade for everything he bought.” (Lincoln Mercury, 19 January 1906, p. 6.)
[4] By the middle of July 1886, Otter had left his home (Ranby Hall, near Louth) for the continent “for rest and change, for the benefit of his health” (Horncastle News, 17 July 1886, p. 7). Most of the members of the Louth Liberal Association were in favour of prompt action to select a replacement for Otter as the endorsed Liberal party candidate for the seat. Heneage’s contrary view was over-ridden and a meeting held on 20 August agreed on a short-list of three: John Sharpe; R.W. Perks; and Dr. Balthazar Walter Foster (1840-1913). See Birmingham Daily Mail, 23 August 1886, p. 3. Perks spoke at the Liberal Cub in Louth on Friday 8 October 1886 (Leeds Mercury, 9 October 1886, p. 3) and on 21 October 1886 a ballot was held to choose between him and Sharpe. It is not clear when Foster ceased to be involved in the deliberations. A number of British newspapers reported on 22 October 1886 that Perks had been elected as the Liberal candidate for the Louth constituency (e.g. The Daily News, p. 6; Birmingham Daily Post, p. 8).
[5] The post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury was offered by Gladstone to Perks’s legal partner H.H. Fowler M.P. on 1 February 1886. This post was commonly regarded as the highest position in the government outside the Cabinet. Fowler served in the position until the fall of Gladstone’s government, and continued to formally hold the post until the “exchange of seals” with the members of the incoming Lord Salisbury-led administration occurred on 3 August 1886. Crane’s wording here seems to imply that Fowler had written this commendation for Perks prior to Perks’s name going onto the short-list for the Louth seat.
[6] At the 1892 general election there were 9,829 names on the Louth register of electors. At the 1895 election the figure was 10,863. At the 1900 election it was 9,612; and at the 1906 election 10,075.
[7] The “large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle” which Crane describes Perks as being “the owner of” are the ones in Uruguay he had referred to at pages 78-79 of Chapter Four. When he was invited to speak at the Market Rasen Annual Christmas Fat Stock Show in December 1902, Perks said: “he was not much of a judge of fat stock, but he happened to own a great many cattle in a foreign country. He had something like 20,000 sheep and 10,000 or 12,000 oxen, but the strangest thing he bred abroad on his farms in South America were fox terriers.” He then went on to amuse his audience with the story of how this fox terrier breeding enterprise had come into being (Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser, 20 December 1902, p. 7). Perks himself never set foot in South America, and his ownership interest in the estancias in Uruguay dated only from 1898 (see Endnotes 11 and 12 to Chapter Four). Crane is therefore using “poetic licence” when he states here that the constituents of Louth “soon learned” about these agricultural activities of their Parliamentary representative.
[8] The Agricultural Land Rating Bill came before the House of Commons for its second reading at the end of April 1896. On 28 April Perks stated that he intended to vote with the government in favour of the Bill, and he was one of about six Liberal members to do so in the two key divisions during the early hours of 1 May 1896. He was one of only two Liberals to vote with the government on the third reading of the Bill on 1 July 1896. On Wednesday 27 May 1896, Perks: “entertained between 70 and 80 farmers and others interested in agriculture to dinner at the Mason’s Arms Hotel Louth, with the object of discussing the Agricultural Rating Bill, which will considerably affect the Louth Division: (Nottinghamshire Guardian, 30 May 1896, p. 8).
[9] “Primrose dames” was an epithet commonly used by Liberals to describe female supporters of the Primrose League.
[10] Perks’s Conservative opponent in the 1895 election was Francis Alfred Lucas (1860-1918). It is true that Lucas was Jewish, but I have been unable to discover any evidence of Perks making reference to this during the election campaign — or indeed at any other time. From August 1891 Lucas was chairman of the Central London Railway.
[11] Perks did not confine his political activities to the county level. In April 1887 he set about conducting a nation-wide survey of Wesleyan laymen on the subject of the Salisbury government’s Coercion Bill aimed at restoring order in Ireland. Perks published the findings of his survey at the beginning of June 1887 (see pages 640-643 of David W. Bebbington, “Nonconformity and Electoral Sociology, 1867-1918”, The Historical Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3, 1984, pp. 633-656). In March 1891, Perks was appointed to the General Purposes Committee of the National Liberal Federation (The Times, 19 March 1891, p. 12).
[12] This speech, with slight differences in wording in places, was published in The Methodist Times of 10 February 1887 (at p. 87) under the heading “The Influence of Christianity on Politics.” The introductory sentence stated that Perks had given it at “the annual soiree of the Louth Liberal Club.” I have not been able to find any references to this speech in the local press.
[13] It is not clear whether the “no small stir” Crane cites here worked wholly to Perks’s advantage. The Lincoln Gazette of 16 January 1892 (at p. 7) reported: “At the great Liberal meeting recently held at Louth, Mr. R.W. Perks, the Liberal candidate, pointed out that during a tour in the division he found an old woman getting water for drinking purposes from an almost foetid drain. The Rural Authority were very indignant at this. They wrote to Mr. Perks enclosing an extract from his speech, asking if he was accurately reported. Mr. Perks replied that the report was perfectly correct. The Rural Authority then asked Mr. Perks to name the person and the locality, and Mr. Perks has replied:— ‘I regret that I cannot give you the names and addresses and the cottagers to whom I referred. It is clear to me that the effect of my doing so would be to cause the persons to whom I referred much annoyance, and the owners of the property much expense. My duty is not to discharge the functions of your Surveyor, but to direct attention, as I shall continue to do, notwithstanding your protest, and as I may have an opportunity of doing, to necessary amendments in the laws relating to local government. You will perhaps be good enough to inform your Board that I have no desire to reflect in any way on their administration. I am quite willing to believe that they discharge their duties conscientiously to the best of their ability, but what I assert is that the present law relating to the water supply in village districts needs a thorough revision’”.
[14] Polling day in the Louth constituency was Friday 15 July 1892. The counting was completed at about noon on Saturday 16 July, with Perks returned by 4284 votes to Arthur Raymond Heath’s 3445. Perks left Louth for London on the 2.57p.m. train.
[15] Including “personal expenses” (but excluding the Returning Officer’s charges) Perks’s total expenses at this election were £1319. 18s. The comparable figure for his Conservative opponent was £1072. 10s. 10d.
[16] Perks’s son was born on 29 July 1892 in Chislehurst.
[17] At the July 1895 election, Perks was returned by 4192 votes to Francis Alfred Lucas’s 3779. Perks’s expenses at this election (including personal expenses, but excluding the Returning Officer’s charges) were £1394.12s.11d. The comparable figure for his Conservative opponent was £1301.2s.1d.
[18] At the October 1900 election, Perks was returned by 4188 votes to Charles Henry Eyre Coote’s 3286. Perks’s expenses at this election (including personal expenses, but excluding the Returning Officer’s charges) were £1358. 8s.7d. The comparable figure for his Conservative opponent was £1208 12s.
[19] At the January 1906 election, Perks was returned by 4551 votes to Thomas Walter Comyn Platt’s 3572. Perks’s election expenses were £1366 5s. 1d. His opponent’s were £1088 18s. 9d.
[20] The July 1901 edition of the Temple Magazine contained an interview with Perks in which he was reported as saying that during the election campaign of 1895: “I was driving my phaeton through one of the villages in my constituency, when I came across a bill-sticker putting up a large cartoon representing John Bull putting a Puritan into a tank. There was John Bull, a burly squire in a red coat and the poor Dissenter in a black shabby suit, a battered hat and big umbrella. Turning to my groom, I said ‘What is that picture about?’ and with a broad grin, he replied ‘they are ducking you in a trough, sir.’ So down I went and asked the man what his picture was about. He replied with an oath that he would like to treat the whole lot of us like that. ‘Well’, I said, ‘you have not got the whole lot of us here, but there is a pond in the village and if you like you can take me, and put me in — or I will take you.’ I was a wrestler in my early days, and I knew exactly how to take hold of him. Looking at me with amazement, he said ‘I did not mean any offence, sir.’ ‘Nor I either’, I said, and considerably relieved, he begged me to shake hands, which I did, leaving him with a warning not to talk about ducking people he was pleased to call Puritans, for they were a fighting lot.” This segment of the Temple Magazine piece was reproduced in full in a number of British provincial newspapers in 1901, presumably mainly those with a largely non-conformist readership. At this stage I have not been able to find a copy of the July 1901 edition of the Temple Magazine, and I am therefore ignorant as to what other contents were included in this article.
[21] Crane’s account of this incident is taken almost word-for-word from page 14 of the segment on Perks published in C.B. Fry’s Magazine, Vol. 4, October 1905, No. 19. In that 1905 article, this was immediately preceded by a shorter version of the “bill-sticker” story published in the 1901 Temple Magazine (see note 20 above). This shorter version included the sentences: “It represented Mr. Perks as a very limp Puritan, being wrapped in a cloth. His gloves were inches too long for his fingers, and he was made to wear a lengthy and sour visage. Anything more unlike Mr. Perks could not well be conceived.”
[22] The banquet in Louth Town Hall at which this presentation was made was held on 4 June 1903 (Leeds Mercury, 5 June 1903, p. 4). A “Souvenir Supplement” to the Louth News of 13 June 1903 was published which included photographs and detailed descriptions of both the rose-bowl and the eight feet, eight inches, tall clock. A copy of that “Souvenir Supplement” is held at the Lincolnshire Archives in the Goulding papers (3/C/84/V).