Welsh Journals

'DISTURBINGTHE PEACE OFTHE COUNTY': THE CARMARTHENSHIRE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1868 IN November 1868, Edward Sartoris, a Liberal landowner with few local connections, was elected senior member for Carmarthenshire after the county's first contested election for thirty years. The Con- servative establishment, led by the powerful house of Cawdor, was outmanceuvred by a new kind of electoral politics, which enabled the nonconformist majority to exercise their new-found political power. A process of political change had become apparent in other parts of Wales, and came to fruition with occasionally dramatic effect in Merioneth, Caernarfonshire, Cardiganshire, Denbighshire, Anglesey and at Merthyr Tydfil. Carmarthenshire, to Thomas Gee the 'most misrepresented county in Wales',2 with two Anglican landowners representing a stated nonconformist majority of 80 per cent, had hitherto witnessed few signs of impending change. For many years, nonconformists appeared content with the situation, as sitting mem- bers continued undisturbed in Parliament, and the only changes in representation had been caused by death or resignation. Nominating the sitting county member, David Jones, at the general election of 1865, W R. H. Powell of Maesgwynne, himself to be elected Liberal MP for the county in 1880, expressed the hope that 'the day is far 1 On these contests, see leuan Gwynedd Jones, Explorations and Explanations. Essays in the Social History of Victorian Wales (Llandysul, 1981), esp. pp.83-192; Jane Morgan, 'Denbighshire's "Annus Mirabilis": the borough and county elections of 1868', ante, VII (1974-5), 63-87; David Pretty, 'Richard Davies and nonconformist radicalism in Anglesey, 1837-68: a study of sectarian and middle-class politics', ante, IX (1978-9), 432-67; Kenneth O. Morgan, Wales in British Politics (Cardiff, paperback edition, 1991), pp.22-7. 2Baner ac Amserau Cymru, 19 August 1868. There were frequent references to the lack of nonconformist representation in the Liberal press: see, e.g., Llanelly Guardian, editorial, 18 April 1867.