[PB: Surtees's 1845 novel Hillingdon Hall is "humorous" but thoroughly objectionable stuff — doubtless popular among country gentlemen in its time (and now? There is after all a fanclub). "Although the election issue at stake — the question of repealing the Corn Laws — is treated farcically, Surtees was in earnest about the matter in his personal life. A staunch conservative, he feared that a rising middle class would destroy the privileges of wealth and the stability of country life..." Vol 1 of 3 (and perhaps others, I haven't checked) includes a lot about Anti-Corn Law agitators, including how they learnt their manipulative craft from the anti-slavery movement. I wonder if Buckmaster is alluded to?]
[Wikipedia: Robert Smith Surtees.]
V interesting account of an election...features Corn Law...
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VjdjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT714&lpg=PT714&dq=R+S+Surtees,+Hillingdon+Hall+and+anti+corn+law&source=bl&ots=tbYEX5c-oI&sig=ACfU3U36QhAgyzAAlffrbvTV063cdTQcxQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiFkLyN44XoAhUhkFwKHffnBfcQ6AEwD3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=corn%20law&f=false
Hillingdon Hall consists of a series of humorous episodes depicting the London native's encounters with rural culture. Unlike its predecessors, however, it has a loosely organized plot, the central thread of which involves the electoral campaign conducted by the Duke of Donkeyton, a Whig lord whose son, the Marquis of Bray, gets maneuvered by the Anti-Corn Law League into supporting repeal and loses the election to Jorrocks, who has taken up the cause of protection on behalf of his farming tenants. One could thus make the case that Surtees invented the scenario in which his rich Cockney grocer retires and purchases a country estate in order to satirize those among the Whig aristocracy, in particular members of the recently established Royal Agricultural Society of England, who advocated free trade and repeal of the Corn Laws.
Like Disraeli, Surtees envisions social agency in terms of landed property and a finely graded hierarchy that displaces the agency of the Whig oligarchy, but he differs in his depiction both of the land itself and of the nature of the hierarchy. As we have seen, Disraeli envisions a hierarchy in which the reformed aristocrat establishes a set of reciprocal relations of responsibility and deference between himself and his "peasantry" (Coningsby 3.5.173). By contrast, Surtees depicts a hierarchy that occupies a much narrower range, comprising the country squire as landed proprietor and yeoman farmers as his tenants, both of which share an interest in protecting the value of the land. Whereas Disraeli's novels treat the landed estate as a figure for the nation governed by a reformed aristocrat, Hillingdon Hall remains resolutely, albeit comically, focused on the ins and outs of working the land. Disraeli would reform the nation by reforming Parliament, but Surtees would do so by reforming agriculture. Finally, while Coningsby and Egremont embrace middle-class self-culture as a means of reforming the aristocracy, the role of the squire is to provide capital necessary to the reform of agriculture. [103-4]
[Victorian Web: "Agricultural Improvement and the Squirearchy in Surtees's Hillingdon Hall", Chris Vanden Bossche.]
Hillingdon Hall
Jorrocks arrives as the new squire of Hillingdon Hall to the great excitement of the local gentry. They describe him as 'a regular, steady old gentleman', at first blush and for five hundred pages he disabuses them. You will see him at barn dances with a Marquis, who is dressed as a coquette fighting off the libido of his local farmhands; you will catch him pink-cheeked and effortful upon excitable old matrons; see him up to his great neck in political shenanigans with the Duke of Donkeyton and dispensing Old Testament justice to anyone who comes before him at the bench, "Take that bigger boy to Betsay.. I'll thank er to flog him well." Hillingdon Hall is a glimpse of early Victorian country life, through the lens of the ridiculous but with plenty of truth in the view.
Of course it is rough stuff. The result of the all-too-recognisable portrait of the Duke of Northumberland had Surtees and all his kith and kin struck off the invitation lists for good and all. Jorrocks and Pigg are a confirmed double act by now, comfortable in and out of each others many secrets and mischiefs, reliant — as far as hard men can be — on one another. The novel goes at the gentle but unstoppable pace of Jorrock's prize bull on its way to St Boswell Fair — occasionally veering off course to serve a heifer, but ultimately achieving its end.
"I've been brought here," continued Mr. Jorrocks, "by a great lot o' farmers; they came and 'unted me out at my 'ouse at 'ome, and would have me. That shows the hopinion they 'ave of me. I never axed to be made Parliament man of. The farmers came and said that they were like to be beggared, and axed if I would stand quietly by and see 'em ? (Loud applause.) I said, the farmers and I rowed in the same boat that wot was had for them would be had for me, and wice wersa (cheers). The Captain talked as if the guano and nitrate o' sober dodge was all the Duke's; but I appeals to those around me, if guano, nitrate o' sober, or any of them hartificial compounds 'ave a more hardent a more enthusiastic supporter nor myself! "
"Upon the who-o-o-le, I should say not," drawled Johnny Wopstraw.
"MUCK'S YOUR MAN! "roared Pigg.
" Nay, more," continued Mr. Jorrocks, "I did wot the Duke never did I inwented a machine of a most wonderful capacity. A machine that I really dirsn't set a goin' for fear it should swamp field labour altogether. I mentions that to show that I'm a practical farmer and a friend to the poor. My friend the Markis," continued Mr. Jorrocks, "has made you a werry beautiful hoily oration one wot called forth the applause both of pit and boxes," Mr. Jorrocks looking towards the carriages and balcony in which the ladies were ranged.
https://www.rssurtees.com/product/hillingdon-hall/
[Search: R S Surtees, Hillingdon Hall and anti corn law.]