Benjamin Disraeli may have been one of our most famous Prime Ministers, but not every political career gets off to a flying start. After three failed attempts at Wycombe as an Independent Radical in the early 1830s, the 30-year-old Disraeli stood as a Tory in a by-election in April 1835 at Taunton, triggered by the sitting MP becoming a government minister (the rule in those days was that MPs had to resign their seats and seek re-election on gaining ministerial office).
His opponent was the veteran Whig, Henry Labouchere (who lived in Over Stowey), and he was given little chance. The Sun newspaper mocked his candidacy in an article on 24 April 1835: “A richer joke than this we have not heard for many a day. The young gentleman in question possesses actually not one qualification for the part he has under taken to play at a moment’s notice. He has no political experience, not an atom of sound judgment … he is neither more nor less than a puppet, whose wires are pulled by the Duke of Buckingham.”
Disraeli himself was more optimistic and wrote four days later: “I have just left the hustings, and have gained the show of hands, which no blue candidate ever did before. This, though an idle ceremony in most places, is of great account here, for the potwallopers of Taunton are as eloquent as those of Athens, and we gain votes by such a demonstration.”
As polling day approached, he became less hopeful of victory but felt he could capture Taunton at the next general election: “There is no place like Taunton not that I can win this time;… but come in at the general election I must, for I have promises of two-thirds of the electors. I live in a rage of enthusiasm; even my opponents promise to vote for me next time. The fatigue is awful. Two long speeches today and nine hours’ canvass on foot in a blaze of repartee. I am quite exhausted and can scarcely see to write.”
During the campaign he suffered anti-Semitic taunts from the populace, and also began an extraordinary war of words with the Irish Nationalist leader, Daniel O’Connell, which simmered for several years thereafter and almost led to a duel between them. At the poll he lost decisively by 452 votes to 282, and did not contest Taunton again, winning a seat at Maidstone in 1837.
Disraeli’s Taunton campaign is marked by a blue plaque in Canon Street, at its corner with Middle Street.
© JB Seatrobe (Barry K Winetrobe & Janet Seaton) 2018. A version of this article was published originally in the May 2015 issue of the Somerset Leveller, #1.