T&F Proofs: Not For Distribution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 5 The Burcot Bear Gender, Power and Belonging in the Wells Election of 1765 Elaine Chalus In 1765, Peter Taylor (1714–77) was a man to be reckoned with in Wells, Somerset; for the members of the local political elite, he was also a force to be feared, for he embodied a threat to the established political order that had to be resisted at all costs. There is a great contest at Wells but I know no particulars, I sent some venison there lately all the news my keeper brought back was that all the Ladies & women & tradesmen were for Peter Taylor but the Bishop & Dean & Mr Tudway against, as none of the women have votes & many of the tradesmen are not freemen I imagine it will go hard with Mr Taylor. 1 So wrote Lord Ilchester to his brother Lord Holland in August 1765, four days after their nephew, Henry Digby, one of the two MPs for Wells, was elevated to the Lords, thus opening the way for a parliamentary election. The outcome of this ‘great contest’, as Ilchester termed the election, would not be settled until January 1766. In the intervening months, the contest would disturb the peace of this small cathedral city, spawn an increasingly nasty shoal of squibs, fascinate the regional (Bath) press and cause the Fox brothers (Ilchester and Holland) to break conclusively with Taylor, Holland’s erstwhile political agent and client. While Taylor would eventually lose the election on petition to the House of Commons, on a legal interpretation of the city’s Charter, the campaign would be close and bitterly fought. It would also come to be dominated by issues of gender and class, most notably in the ‘Paper War’ which flourished between October and Decem- ber 1765, as each side drew upon its understanding of masculinity to make and refute claims of belonging and citizenship. Gender is, as Joan Wallach Scott wrote, ‘a primary way of signifying power relationships’ and ‘a con- stitutive element of social relations’ 2 —and both took on added importance during hotly contested eighteenth-century elections. While recent research by women’s and gender historians has done much to reveal the shape and extent of women’s involvement in Georgian political life, 3 few historians of masculinity have yet heeded Matthew McCormack’s call to turn their attention to Georgian politics, where, as he has maintained, ‘gender was Cowman et al. 1st pages.indd 77 Cowman et al. 1st pages.indd 77 3/14/2014 10:04:19 AM 3/14/2014 10:04:19 AM