|
At the hustings held on Penenden Heath,
a poll was demanded on Austen’s behalf and, six days later, the result
was declared in front of Maidstone Town Hall. It was a close run thing.
Filmer topped the poll with 3,219 votes, but Hodges’ 3,127 supporters
gave him second place. The Colonel was only forty- five votes behind. It
took a local worthy, William Masters Smith of Camer, to avenge his
defeat by pushing Hodges into third place at the election of 1852.2
An interesting feature of the 1847 election, as indeed of
other elections around that time, is that although there was a
diminutive electorate overall and in country parishes the number of
voters could not infrequently be counted on the fingers of two hands, or
sometimes of one, the geographical pattern of voting, as between right
of centre and left of centre, seems not greatly dissimilar from that
found in days of universal franchise. In the Gravesend district,
for instance, Hodges led Filmer and Austen, whereas in the Sevenoaks
district |
|
Austen and Filmer led Hodges. Something of the
same kind can sometimes be discerned in individual parishes.
Twenty-one of Ash’s twenty-eight voters went to the poll.
They split thirteen for Filmer and Austen and eight for Hodges. That was
less whole-hearted than Meopham, from whose forty-three registered
voters, twenty-six were for Filmer, twenty-five for Austen and eight for
Hodges. On the other hand, nine of those who voted in Stansted were for
Hodges, as against four for Filmer and Austen, while in Kingsdown Hodges
swept the board by eleven to two.
By and large, the Conservatives did proportionately better
in the small parishes. In Fawkham, where six out of nine possibles
voted, Hodges found no support at all, nor did he in Ridley, where only
one of three people on the register bothered to vote for anyone.
Hartley’s six electors all voted, five for Filmer and Austen and |