THE accusations of sleaze traded by today's politicians would seem very tame to the hardened campaigners of the last century.

The history of Blackburn's elections reflects the town's taste for plain speaking and fierce passions - and the old traditions of bribery and bullying that meant politics really was only for the thick-skinned!

In the decades after Blackburn first won parliamentary representation in 1832, the town's MPs were supplied by local landowning and industrial dynasties.

The Feildens, sole Lords of the Manor, sent four sons to Parliament to represent Blackburn for 28 years; the town's MPs also included four of the mill-owning Hornbys, who sat in the Commons for over half a century in all.

William Hornby represented Blackburn for 23 years during which time he never uttered a word in Parliamentary debates. These, and other famous names like Thwaites and Pilkington made their way to Westminster by a mixture of reasoned argument and rough-housing.

Since the 600-or-so men allowed to vote did so publicly and over a period of days, they could expect to be plied with food and drink by candidates, paid in cash for their support, threatened with eviction or the sack - or worse!

Even non-voters got in on the act by swarming menacingly around the poll or boycotting traders whose politics they disliked.

Nineteenth-century elections in Blackburn saw beer flowing freely in the churchyard, candidates pelted with rocks in Ainsworth Street, and riots so serious that local magistrates forbade parades and party colours, swore in lines of special constables, and even called out troops to contain the mob. Local poet Joseph Hodgson wrote at the time in 'Blackburn Election:'

"They wallow like pigs in the candidate's swill,

and fuddle as long as the landlord will fill;

They sacrifice freedom for barrels of ale,

and this is the way that bad systems prevail."

Two elections - in 1852 and 1868 - were overturned by parliament after a Liberal victor was found to have bought up Tory pubs, and the Conservatives issued circulars asking employers to exert influence over their workers (the Feilden and Hornby thus disqualified were replaced at new elections by their sons!)

Eventually it was after an appeal from Blackburn workers that Gladstone introduced the secret ballot in 1872.

Despite secret voting, genuine loyalty to employers remained strong, and Blackburn had a Conservative MP until 1955, and drew candidates from the Thwaites family as late as 1964. Yet the twentieth century saw the rise of Labour, and the decline of native MPs in Blackburn. Though 5,000 had voted Labour 20 years earlier, it was not until 1906 that Philip Snowden captured Blackburn for the party.

Though he lost in 1918 after opposing the war, Snowden went on to be Labour's first Chancellor, and was followed in Blackburn by a string of celebrity Socialist MPs: Scots author Mary Hamilton; Cabinet Minister Barbara Castle, and aspirant Home Secretary Jack Straw are outsiders who have had to fulfil a national role, and still meet the strict demands of Blackburn voters at regular town centre meetings.

Several of Blackburn's Victorian worthies never uttered a word in parliament, though they represented fierce local pride. Now, as Jack Straw says: "The people of Blackburn treat their MPs like their footballers - they don't mind where they're from, as long as they get the best for Blackburn!"

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