the attempt to _force_ a member through the
doors of the House could not have added to any desire that may have
existed in the minds of the gentlemen inside to admit the representative
of Birmingham. The Newhall Hill meeting of July 12th, 1819, may be
reckoned as the first pitched battle between the invaders and defenders
of the then existing Parliamentary Constitution. The appointment of Sir
Charles Wolesey as "Legislatorial Attorney and Representative," with
instructions to take his seat as M.P. for the town (and many so styled
him), even though made at a meeting of 20,000 would-be electors, does
not appear to have been the wisest way to have gone to work,
notwithstanding the fact that Sir Charles himself said _he_ had no doubt
of their right to send him up as their Member. Prosecution of the
leaders followed, as a matter of course, and if the
twenty-and-odd-thousands of the local Conservative electors of to-day
were thus to try to obtain _their_ due share of representation in the
House, most likely the leaders of such a movement would be as liberally
dealt with. The "battle of freedom," as the great Reform movement came
to be called, has often been described, and honour been given to all who
took part in it. The old soldiers of the campaign should be allowed, if
they choose, to "fight their battles o'er again," as long as they live,
but it is about time that the hatchet of party spite, (hitherto so
freely used in local political warfare) was buried out of sight, and all
sides be as willing to give equal rights as their fathers were to fight
for theirs. Birmingham, however, was not without _some_ friends in
Parliament, and on the occasion of the disfranchisement of the borough
of East Retford in 1827, it was proposed by Mr. Charles Tennyson that
the two seats thus voided should be given to Birmingham. Mr. George
Attwood was High Bailiff at the time, and he at once called a public
meeting to support Mr. Tennyson's proposition by petition. The Public
Office was not large enough for those who attended the meeting (June 22,
1827) and they adjourned to Beardsworth's Repository, where speeches
were delivered by the leading men of all parties. Petitions to both
Houses were drawn up and signed, the county members, Dugdale Stratford
Dugdale and Francis Lawley, Esqrs., being asked to introduce the one to
the House of Commons, and Lord Dudley and Ward (Baron of Birmingham) and
Lord Calthorpe to support the petitioners' prayer in