Beginnings:the 1865 Cardiganshire election
David Davies first sought election to Parliament at the 1865 General Election when he ran for the Cardiganshire county seat. Prior to the election,the sitting member,Colonel Powell of Nanteos,had indicated his intention to retire and Sir Thomas Davies Lloyd of Bronwydd,a Whig landowner,had announced his intention to stand as a Liberal. However,when Powell reversed his decision,Lloyd issued an address stating that he would not oppose the sitting member. The result was that both Davies and Henry Richard offered themselves as alternative Liberal candidates. A selection meeting was arranged to be held at Aberaeron,but shortly before this took place,Powell again announced his retirement. Lloyd now stated that he would now fight the seat after all and Richard withdrew in his favour. David Davies did not withdraw. Lloyd won the seat with a majority of 361 votes.
Davies had a number of advantages,including the fact that his railway building enterprises benefited the county and created additional,if temporary,employment opportunities. However,his defeat was attributed to the strong opposition of landowners,including the overwhelming influence of the Pryse family of Gogerddan at Aberystwyth,and the failure of nonconformists to unite behind his candidature. However,his intervention represented a direct challenge to the traditional hegemony of the county's landed gentry over the political representation of the county. Ieuan Gwynedd Jones describes the election as 'a contest between two kinds of wealth,the affluent railway contractor pitting his ready cash and ruthless commercial methods against the sedate and comfortable but strained resources of the rural gentry." This was symbolised by Davies depositing £10,000 in an Aberystwyth bank as "ale money for the battle". Davies presented himself as a businessman who brought employment to the county and scarcely referred in his speeches to radical policies,including the secret ballot.
As a Calvinistic Methodist deacon,Davies had envisaged strong support from the nonconformist community. However,there were numerous examples of prominent nonconformists who were lukewarm,or even opposed,to Davies's candidature. The reasons included a reluctance to offend landowners who held the leases to land on which some chapels had been built.
When the result was announced,Davies had polled 1,149 votes against 1,510 for Lloyd. [10] Davies had a large majority in the Tregaron area,which was attributed to the coming of the railway and his Calvinistic Methodist connections. He was also ahead in the Lampeter district. However,he lost the other four districts,including Cardigan,where Lloyd polled 360 votes against a mere 65 for Davies.
Following his 1865 defeat in Cardiganshire,it appears that Davies initially intended to contest the seat again. After the election,he made significant contributions to chapels in the north of the county where Lloyd had won by a small margin. During the months leading up to the 1868 election became clear that Sir Thomas Lloyd did not wish to bear the costs of another contested election. A meeting of prominent Liberals at Aberaeron in late May saw an invitation issued to Davies to contest the county seat if Lloyd declined to do so (with Lloyd been offered the Cardigan Boroughs constituency where he was likely to be returned unopposed). [12] However,Davies declined the invitation and appears to have offered Lloyd,his erstwhile opponent,a gift of £500 to contest the seat.
Member of Parliament
In 1874,however,Davies was elected as Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardigan Boroughs and held the seat until 1885, [13] when the county and borough seats were merged under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. He was then elected MP for Cardiganshire county seat in 1885. [13] Davies was a poor public speaker,and his speech was described as untutored,but his support in Cardiganshire was nevertheless considerable owing to factors including his patronage of the new university college at Aberystwyth and his connections within the Calvinistic Methodist denomination,which had over 13,000 members in Cardiganshire. His success in 1885 was also underpinned by a particularly effective Liberal Association,organised by H. C. Fryer,an Aberystwyth solicitor,and which set up mechanisms to ensure the registration of voters. Trains were even organised to convey voters who had migrated to the South Wales coalfield back to their native county to cast their votes.
Break with the Liberal Party and the 1886 General Election
In 1886,however,Davies broke with Gladstone over home rule for Ireland and at the 1886 general election he stood as a Liberal Unionist candidate,having initially indicated that he would retire from politics. A number of his associates such as Robert J. Davies,Cwrtmawr followed him into the Liberal Unionist camp. [15] The election split the Liberal Party in Cardiganshire and the election was hotly contested with almost all the landowners,including those previously regarded as having Liberal sympathies,supporting Davies. He also received the support of several prominent Liberals,especially from his own Methodist denomination. Eventually Davies was defeated by William Bowen Rowlands,the Gladstonian Liberal candidate,by a mere nine votes,a result which was largely attributed to the influence of nonconformist ministers over their congregations. [17] Rowlands served until 1895.
Although he withdrew from political life after his defeat in 1886,Davies became a member of Montgomery County Council in 1889 and was a long-standing member and chairman of the Llandinam School Board. He was also a JP for Montgomeryshire. [18]
