User:Lord Cornwallis/1805 County Down by-election

Image of Castlereagh by Lawrence, 1809

The County Down by-election was a by-election held in 1805 in the Irish county constituency of Down to elect a member to the House of Commons at Westminster. The Irish incumbent of the seat, Lord Castlereagh had recently been appointed by Prime Minister William Pitt as the new Secretary of War during the Napoleonic Wars. The convention of the era required newly-appointed government ministers to contest a by-election in their constituency.

Castlereagh had sat for his native County Down in the British Parliament since 1801 having previously held the seat in the old Irish Parliament from 1790. He had last won the seat at the 1802 general election. Voting in Irish county constituencies was open to all male Forty-shilling freeholders of both Protestant and Catholic background, leading to a high number of eligible electors in a First-past-the-post voting contest. Much of the electorate were Irish Presbyterian farmers.

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A major electoral force in the area were the Downshire family headed by the Marquess of Downshire but effectively led in the county by his widowed mother the Dowager Marchioness of Downshire. Part of the Protestant Ascendancy the late Lord Downshire had been sharply opposed to the Act of Union leading to his dismissal as Lord Lieutenant of County Down. Castlereagh as Pitt's Irish Secretary was instrumental in steering the measure through the Irish Parliament. The Union was a major issue during the by-election. Castlereagh had been a pro-Catholic figure who resigned from government in 1802 along with Pritt when the pledge they had made in Ireland for Catholic Emancipation had been blocked by George III.

The Whig Downshires backed a rival candidate the young Colonel John Meade. There was a well-orchestrated campaign of personal attacks against Castlereagh with large numbers of handbills distributed mocking him.

William Drennan, an Irish Radical and an opponent of the Union nonetheless thought many of the attacks on Castlereagh were unfair.

Castlereagh conceded defeat.

Aftermath
In order to permit him to serve in Pitt's cabinet, Castlereagh was quickly found a seat in the government-controlled Yorkshire constituency of Boroughbridge. He subsequently switched to represent Plymouth in Devon. . Only in 1812 - after an agreement with the Downshires - did he return to sit for his native County Down. By then he was Foreign Secretary, his career having recovered from a notorious duel with his cabinet colleague George Canning. He then oversaw Britain's foreign policy during the Defeat of Napoleon and subsequent peace conferences. While accompanyingGeorge IV on his 1821 Visit to Irelans in 1821, Castlereagh was unexpectedly cheered and carried through the streets as a successful Irishman - in sharp contrast to the celebrations that had greeted his 1805 by-election defeat.