Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt in Somerset

Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt was a notable social reformist agitator in the repressive years up to the 1832 Great Reform Act. Though born in 1773 across the border in Upavon, Wiltshire, Hunt had family associations in Somerset and spent much of his time campaigning and speaking there.

The Hunt family had held extensive Somerset estates since Norman times, which were lost when one of Henry’s ancestors, the royalist Thomas Hunt, escaped from Ilchester Jail in 1655 and joined the future Charles II in exile. Henry’s father acquired large areas of property, especially in Somerset, including Glastonbury, all of which totalled £1,000-£1,500 a year when Henry inherited it in 1797.

Henry began his political career in 1803-4, having learned about radicalism from a fellow prisoner while languishing for 6 weeks in a London jail in 1800. He actively campaigned around Somerset in the 1806 and 1807 general elections. Then nicknamed ‘Bristol Hunt’, he focussed attention on a city whose relatively wide franchise provided opportunities for radical reformers. He stood in the two elections for Bristol in 1812, coming a distant last each time.

His notoriety grew, and he gained the nickname of ‘Orator’ (reputedly from the poet Robert Southey, in 1816). Then came the notorious ‘Peterloo Massacre’ of August 1819, when a huge rally in Manchester was attacked by the local yeomanry who had been ordered to arrest Hunt, killing 11 and injuring hundreds. Hunt was charged with seditious conspiracy for his part in the events.

He campaigned for an inquiry into the Massacre, even by standing for Preston in the 1820 general election. From there, he went to York for his trial in March, where he was sentenced to 2½ years in Ilchester Jail (the same prison as his royalist ancestor in 1655).

Hunt used his time in Ilchester to propagandise for prison reform – triggered largely by his own treatment – as well as for wider social change. He wrote incessantly, including his condemnation of the prison system, especially at Ilchester, A Peep into a Prison; or, the Inside of Ilchester Bastile, and 3 volumes of rather self-serving Memoirs. His campaigning led to various official inquiries into conditions at Ilchester, resulting in the dismissal of his bête noire, Governor Bridle, and improvements in his own treatment.

He sought Parliamentary support, which resulted in over 40 petitions being presented for his release. Even though a pro-Hunt motion was defeated in a Commons debate on 24 April 1822, by 223-84 – amid jokes that the only thing Hunt had been deprived of in jail was his mistress – his campaigning did have widespread impact in the country.

Naturally, he capitalised on his eventual release on 30 October, turning it into a long-running political celebration. Sporting various gifts given to him by supporters, such as a tartan cloak and a gold medal and chain, he processed to Glastonbury, and then on 11 November in London, campaigning all the way for relief for those hit hard by agricultural recession. His release was marked all across the country with bonfires, dinners and processions, though his opponents in government and the media were less delighted. The London Morning Post ironically suggested that “St Henry of Ilchester” should go to Paris, and contrive to be sent back by the police so that he could achieve what he most wanted, which was to be talked about.

Hunt continued to promote his theme of reform and agricultural relief, especially in Somerset, which culminated in his candidature for the county at the 1826 election. Hunt campaigned vigorously through 1823, especially in Somerset, for relief for the rural poor and farm labourers suffering from the prevalent agricultural depression, but he also used this issue as a springboard for a more radical platform of political reform, including universal suffrage and the secret ballot. He wasted no opportunity of denouncing the two sitting Somerset county MPs, William Dickinson and Sir Thomas Lethbridge, and attacking the landed gentry and social elite of the county.

At two well-attended county meetings at Wells on 21 and 28 January 1823, held to discuss the text of petitions to Parliament on these problems, and chaired by the High Sheriff, Vincent Stuckey of Langport, the agenda was virtually hijacked by Hunt, and, despite clear votes in support of Hunt’s more radical motions, Stuckey refused to allow them to be officially adopted at either meeting.

This was the high point of Hunt’s campaign, and he spent much of the next couple of years in London on his own business interests, including the development of various products such as his ‘breakfast powder’ (designed to avoid the existing food duties) and his ‘matchless’ shoe-blacking. However hostilities were resumed in Somerset when he stood for the county at the 1826 general election as a radical candidate against the power of the local magistracy and the two sitting MPs.

Once they discovered Hunt’s electoral intentions, the MPs, and their establishment allies, were determined to crush him. The campaign was bitter and personal between the three candidates; Hunt wore his prison clothes throughout the campaign to highlight their persecution of him when in Ilchester Jail, and there was much derision, for example, at Hunt’s use of his ‘blacking vans’ as his election transport. The local media criticised what they saw as his pointless candidacy, which would only cause the unnecessary expense of a poll he could not hope to win.

The Heritage Centre at Taunton has the short handwritten note from Hunt to the High Sheriff demanding a formal poll, sent after the Sheriff had declared Dickinson and Lethbridge returned at the initial hustings. Polling, based at Ilchester, was expected to last up to 15 days.

Despite much campaigning by Hunt in Somerset’s main towns, and a late meeting at his old electoral stamping ground of Bristol, it became clear after a few days of polling that Hunt was too far behind to win a seat. He refused to concede, however, and polling continued.

Eventually the sheriff closed the poll after 10 days, when Dickinson had 1812 votes, Lethbridge 1719, and Hunt a mere 309. Even then the acrimony continued, with Hunt’s supporters denouncing Lethbridge’s personal attacks on him, and Lethbridge replying in kind. Hunt himself appeared to take his defeat calmly, even joking about giving his opponents bottles of his shoe blacking.

The following week a Taunton Courier editorial welcomed the end of the contest “if for no other reason than being freed from attending to its nauseating details” and viciously criticised the campaigning style of Hunt (“this very odd character”).

This campaign effectively ended Hunt’s focus on Somerset, and when he was eventually (and briefly) elected to Parliament, it was for Preston in 1830. His fame faded quickly, and he died in 1835.