The Lambeth Freehold Land Society enjoyed as its patron one of the most persistent campaigners for electoral reform , Locke King .sx The brightest constellation of Liberal patrons was to be found on the board of the National Freehold Land Society .sx It was originally conceived in 1849 as an offshoot of the Metropolitan ( later National ) Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association , a body which had involved both Francis Place and Feargus O'Connor in its early months .sx In practice , the council of the Association became dominated by former Anti-Corn Law League activists .sx It was this body which delegated twelve of its members to form the initial steering committee of what , following the style of the parent organization , was at first titled the Metropolitan and Home Counties Freehold Land Society .sx Among the twelve were Sir Joshua Walmsley ( president of both the Association and the Society ) ; Cobden ; Joseph Hume , the promoter of 'the Little Charter' ; Samuel Morley ; and Gilpin .sx John Bright joined as director a year later , having initially devoted his energies to an abortive 'Commons' League' ( whose objectives likewise included the exploitation of the forty-shilling freehold franchise) .sx The freehold land movement thus gave the impression , as George Thompson remarked , of being " a confederacy mainly of Liberal politicians " .sx By any standards the contingent of Liberal parliamentarians involved was both sizeable and important , and it provides perhaps the fullest index of the movement's initial political seriousness .sx For Cobden especially , freehold land societies were more than merely a vehicle for stiffening the Liberal spine of county electorates :sx " In proportion as this 40s .sx freehold movement made progress , in the same proportion would they find the votes of the House of Commons on all liberal questions would make progress .sx " Their presence , and especially that of Cobden , should be seen in the context of that sense of isolation and frustration experienced by Anti-Corn Law Leaguers in the decade following repeal .sx As McCord some time ago observed , " the disappearance of Corn as an immediate political issue put the initiative in British politics back firmly in the hands of the established parties .sx " It was this cadre which pushed for the formation of an umbrella body , the Freehold Land Union , and for a newspaper , The Freeholder , which like The League before it was distributed gratis to the influential as well as sold to the faithful .sx Yet these moves to place the freehold land movement on a professional footing similar to the Anti-Corn Law League were also an indication of a failure of political imagination .sx Cobden especially was incapable of thinking in terms of a wider reforming movement :sx his lukewarm response to the Commons' League , with its broad parcel of reforming policies , suggests a loss of political nerve , whilst his fixation that the freehold land movement could reinstate him and his followers at the pivotal point of political action reveals a misreading of both the mood of the working class and its capacity for action on the issue .sx " The forty-shilling scheme alone will not do the work , and alone it will not work extensively , " wrote Bright to Cobden , " I think you exaggerate the extent to which people will adopt the system , especially as no definite object or battle is before them .sx " In a private letter , the Sheffield MP John Arthur Roebuck was more forthright :sx " Cobden is a poor creature , with one idea -the making of county voters .sx He is daunted by the country squires , and hopes to conquer them by means of these votes .sx " .sx If Cobden intended the freehold land movement to absorb political energies largely baffled since Repeal , he also meant it to serve the same function as the League in clothing an attack on the landed interest :sx I want it as a means to all that we require , and upon my conscience it is , I believe , the only stepping-stone to any material change .sx The citadel of privilege in this country is so terribly strong , owing to the concentrated masses of property in the hands of the comparatively few , that we cannot hope to assail it with success unless with the help of the propertied classes in the middle ranks of society , and by raising up a portion of the working class to become members of the propertied order ; and I know of no other mode of enlisting such co-operation but that which I have suggested .sx .sx The requisite " portion of the working class " Cobden defined as " teetotallers , non-conformists and rational Radicals " .sx Whatever its shortcomings as a grand political strategy , the participation of prominent advanced Liberals in the movement visibly set a seal of approval on the working - class ethic of self-help , whilst avoiding any offensive suggestion of charity or patronage .sx Much of the movement's significance lay in its extending that code of self-improvement , which had hitherto been largely confined to the labour movement , into the new context of liberalism .sx " The citadel of privilege " was assailed both at the polls and through the routine functioning of the societies .sx Their very modus operandi advertised the virtues of free trade in land .sx Supporters argued for the social necessity of the sale and dispersal of landed property unhindered by the laws of settlement , primogeniture , mortmain or entail .sx In the counties , though few electoral victories could positively be ascribed to the movement , societies formed the nucleus for constituency organization and broadened awareness of Liberal policies and personalities .sx There are also grounds for suggesting that the movement to some extent did undermine the confidence of landed interests .sx At its simplest , evidence of this can be found in proceedings before the revising barristers' courts , where the franchises created through theses societies were vigorously contested by protectionist interests .sx The quality of land , building construction , and services such as mains drainage , were all disputable when a franchise was initially registered , and most societies took care to retain the services of both builders and surveyors to attest on such issues .sx Still more indicative of Tory disquiet was the formation in 1852 of a " defence Society ( for it really was a defence movement on our part , and we were driven to it ) " .sx The Conservative Land Society copied the very procedures of the societies it opposed , and like the National and other municipal societies developed large suburban estates , similarly evolving into a permanent building society :sx FREEHOLD LAND SOCIETIES have done good service to the Radical cause at the late election .sx Lancashire has long since been secured through their means , and the West Riding all but converted into the pocket borough of the Cobden family .sx In East Surrey and Middlesex the Conservative candidates were defeated solely by their means , and in many other counties there would not have been a contest , much less a hard battle , had it not been for the exertions of radical Freehold Land Societies .sx .. Why should not the 'CONSTITUTIONAL PARTY' have their LAND SOCIETIES , and raise up a counteracting body of intelligent freeholders to poll against those of their destructive rivals ?sx This course ought to have been pursued years back .sx .sx The most realistic attempt to counteract the impact of the freehold land movement was made in the form of proposals for legislative intervention to curtail the scope of its political activity .sx Disraeli discussed such a project , " which will probably be the key to future power " , as early as 1850 .sx It was the end of the decade , however , before he presented a package of reforms to Parliament which would , if passed , have nullified the movement's additions to the electorate .sx The 1859 Reform Bill was the most eloquent testimony to the impact of the freehold land movement .sx It is now largely remembered as the occasion of the collapse of Derby's second ministry , and for what Bright contemptuously described as " fancy franchises " - electoral qualifications based upon educational criteria , and on savings bank investments .sx However , the Bill also proposed the abolition of the forty-shilling freehold county vote , transferring existing voters to the boroughs in which their property was situated , but disenfranchising those whose qualification lay in a county constituency alone .sx The ministry's defeat came with the division on Russell's amendment that it was " neither just nor politic to interfere " in the forty-shilling freehold franchise .sx The contemporary Tory response to the freehold land movement suggests that Cobden's enthusiasm for it may not have been as tactically inept as his recent biographers , and before them Roebuck and Bright implied .sx None the less , it failed " to effect a breach in that fortress of landlordism , the county representation " , as the 1852 Reformers' Almanac had predicted .sx The political appeal of the movement depended heavily on its being seen as a cognate organization within a concerted campaign for reform .sx The steady decline of 'Liberal' interests in the counties ( from a peak of 71 in 1835 to 36 in 1847 ) was hardly arrested by the movement at the general election of 1852 , which saw a total of only thirty Radical Liberals returned for the English counties .sx Parliamentary patrons reassessed their support in the light of both the election and the difficulties experienced by the Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association that year .sx Bright was the first to decline re-election to the board of the National Freehold Land Society ( by 1858 only Gilpin remained) .sx A careful estimate of the allotments created by freehold land societies , made by Thomas Beggs the following year , put the total at 19,500 - an impressive figure but , diluted over forty-four counties , unlikely to force a rout at the polls .sx Seven years later , in a speech opposing Disraeli's Reform Bill , Bright estimated the total votes created at 36,000 .sx The only specific victories ascribed to the movement by its supporters were East Surrey ( where the National Society consolidated Locke King's thin majority ) , Middlesex ( " though by the hair of his [the Radical member's] head " ) , and North Warwickshire .sx If election results disappointed parliamentary Liberals , they only reflected the experience of the Freehold Land Union and the Freeholder in trying to marshal the constituent parts of the movement .sx The Union had no coercive powers , and it was a frequent complaint that societies' officials failed to take it seriously , or provide statistical data to enable the movement's progress to be monitored .sx Cassell , editor of the Freeholder , another casualty of 1852 , voiced similar complaints .sx Middle-class liberalism had failed to hijack what was essentially a working-class movement .sx As such its aims and aspirations differed form those of its patrons , as the authors of Progress of the Working Classes observed :sx Freehold Land Societies started with the intention of manufacturing forty-shilling freeholders .sx .sx .. That objective is now quite a matter of secondary consideration .sx The shareholders may not care less for the freehold , or the political power it confers ; but their leading desire is to add a house to the land , and thus secure free homes .sx .sx From the mid-1850s the direction of freehold land societies' literature increasingly emphasized the building function .sx This was not an abrogation of their pedigree , since mutual improvement had always shared with radical politics the shaping of the movement .sx Even the most commercial societies continued to advertise an intention to help " prevent .sx .. the evil operation of those laws that fostered the possession of large estates , and gave to the few an undue influence over the many " .sx If this was bravado , it was none the less bravado that seems to have sold shares .sx Likewise , the Freehold Land Times , which commenced in 1854 and was , in contrast to the earlier Freeholder , a strictly commercial venture , maintained a policy of editorial and news coverage of a Liberal bent , in support for example of land reform and free trade , and attacking the conduct of the Crimean War .sx What militated most against the ambitious agenda parliamentary Liberals tried to impose on the movement , was the range and character of the societies it awkwardly embraced .sx Not only were certain societies uninterested in Liberal parliamentary aspirations ; some were actively hostile .sx There was little in common between the National and even the larger provincial societies , and still less between the latter and the small groups , based on local and workplace communities , which were the typical form the movement took , for example , in Sheffield .sx These contrasts themselves reflected the often sharply-differentiated experience of labour in the major industrial cities .sx To a significant extent Chartism had exposed such differences rather than reconciled them :sx it was hardly likely that a modest venture like the Freehold Land Union would succeed .sx