When electing an MP in Worcester involved shady dealings in pub toilets

In those bygone days political parties had their own special inns and for the Conservatives it was the Duke of York in Angel Place. The affair began in 1905, when George Allsopp, a wealthy brewer whose brother Percy lived in the city’s most opulent private house Battenhall Mount, decided to retire as Worcester’s MP, a job he had held since 1885.

The great threat to the Conservatives in Worcester were the Liberals and their candidate Henry Harben was playing a blinder. He had taken up home in the city two years before and was making himself a popular local figure, quietly working the patch.

This obviously caused the local Tories much concern, but they reacted by pulling a rabbit out of the hat in the form of  George Williamson, the boss of the Providence Works (later Metal Box), one of the city’s largest employers.

George Williamson when Mayor of Worcester in 1894. He led a very varied life which ranged from fighting in the American Civil War to building Diglis Dock and Powick power station

A strikingly handsome man of great charm and  wit and with much public service under his belt, including a spell as mayor, Williamson proved an ideal choice to win the January, 1906 election, which he duly did by 129 votes.

The original factory of GH Williamson in Charles Street, Worcester, pictured in 1967

However, within a month the defeated Harben, who was a lawyer, filed a petition alleging wholescale bribery, although not against Williamson personally. This resulted in a hearing at the Shirehall before two judges, when it turned out the Liberals had long suspected something underhand was afoot.

Henry Harben, the Liberal politician who stood against Williamson and lost. A barrister and keen supporter of women’s suffrage, he stood again in Portsmouth in 1910, but lost there too

They had engaged a retired police officer from Peterborough to infiltrate the Worcester election process and what he uncovered sent the fertilizer flying. Bribery was widespread and blatant, he claimed. Cash for votes was commonplace.

The system he uncovered involved the Conservatives taking potential supporters to the Duke of York, where after being wined and dined they would proceed first to the polling booth to cast their vote and then make their way to the pub’s toilets out the back, where they would find a sum of money left in appreciation on a wall. Numerous witnesses at the hearing testified they had been so rewarded.

Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who ordered a royal commission to look into election fraud in Worcester

The evidence was so overwhelming on the third day Williamson threw in his hand and the judges declared Worcester’s 1906 election void. However Harben was not declared the winner. Instead the Prime Minister, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, a Liberal who had just won a landslide victory, ordered a commission to investigate “the extensive bribery in Worcester”.

Battenhall Mount the palatial Worcester home of Percy Allsopp, whose brother George’s decision not to stand again as the city’s MP led to the 1906 rumpus

The George Williamson-built hydro electric power station at Powick soon after it opened in 1894. Picture courtesy Changing Face of Worcester

In August that year three judges sat to decide Worcester’s fate. A procession of prominent local personalities were called to give evidence, which included the damning revelation the Conservative agent at the opening of the election campaign could not explain his accounts, while his successor had been convicted for being drunk and disorderly the night before election day.

As a result of the judges’ report the Worcester constituency was disenfranchised for the life of the Parliament. The city was left without an MP until 1908, when Edward Goulding won a by-election for the Conservatives after Campbell-Bannerman, who was battling ill health, became the only British Prime Minister to die in 10, Downing Street. At least it wasn’t in the toilets at the Duke of York.