Henry Labouchère and Market Harborough post office

Husbands Bosworth

You can now find Hansard from 1803 online. It is fully searchable, which means you can find all sorts of interesting bits of local political history.

Here is the radical Liberal MP Henry Labouchère asking a question in the Commons on 1 August 1889:

I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that a printed placard, announcing that a Primrose and Conservative demonstration will take place at Husbands Bosworth on 8th August, at which there there will be addresses from two Conservative Members of this House, dancing, a dinner, a donkey race, and other similar amusements, is exhibited in a prominent position in the post office at Market Harborough; and whether he will issue orders forbidding such placards to be exhibited in post offices in future, and will see that this particular placard is forthwith taken down?

The postmaster general Henry Raikes replied:

I have given directions that the placard in question, if exhibited in the Market Harborough post office, is to be taken down at once, and a notice will be issued forbidding the exhibition of such notices in post offices.

The Primrose League was an organisation set up to obtain the support of the people for Conservative principles. It was founded in 1883 and mentioned in Richard Jefferies' 1887 essay "Primrose Gold in our Village". I was amazed to discover that it was not wound up until 2004.