The Tories had adopted the name ‘Conservative Party’ in the 1830s and it had replaced, at least officially, the term ‘Tories’ as from the 1867 Reform Act by which Benjamin Disraeli had substantially increased the size of the electorate, and it was universally used from 1885 onwards. Here’s some pen portraits of the Conservative MPs (and one Liberal Democrat!) who have been elected to represent the Dorchester area over the years
- HENRY RICHARD FARQUHARSON 1885-1895.
Henry Farquharson inherited Langton House in Langton Long, south of Blandford, together with its estate, from his father James John Farquharson who had built it in the 1820s (Photo1). 
He also inherited a love of dogs and of hunting from his father who was known as ‘The Hunting Squire’ and who spent a fortune on his pack and had hunted throughout Dorset. His father is reputed to have even chased a fox into the centre of Dorchester and to have given it the coup de grace outside the Plume of Feathers public house in Princes Street (now occupied by the BBC). He had refused to stand as the Tory candidate in the 1831 by-election (described in my December post) because attending parliamentary sessions in Westminster would have interfered with his hunting programme!
Henry Farquharson was first elected in the General Election of 1885 with a small majority against a candidate from the new Liberal Party, which had been founded in 1859 by a merger between the Whigs, radicals and Peelite Tories. He was re-elected in the General Elections held the next year and in 1892, with steadily increasing majorities against Liberal opponents.
He is reputed to have claimed that Jack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer of East London, was the London barrister Montague John Druitt, the second son of a prominent surgeon practicing in Wimborne Minster. His allegation was never tested because Druitt drowned himself in the Thames before the allegation was made. Druitt is however no longer considered to be a likely suspect.
In the 1892 general election he libelled one of his opponents, Charles Tindall Gatty, who stood on a Home Rule for Ireland ticket, by alleging that he had been expelled from Charterhouse School for immorality. This time he was taken to court and lost.
Henry Farquharson died in 1895 on board ship in the Red Sea whilst returning from a visit to Ceylon.
2.ROBERT WILLIAMS 1895-1922.
Robert Williams, of Bridehead House near Little Bredy (Photo 2), 
was the fourth member of his family of bankers to be elected to Parliament, his great-grandfather, his grandfather and his father, all called Robert, having served as MPs for the Borough of Dorchester.
He was elected as a Conservative with a substantial majority in the by-election in 1895 which followed the death of Henry Farquharson, against George Wood Homer, a local landowner who had briefly owned Athelhampton House, and who stood as an Independent Farmer.
He was the re-elected unopposed in the 1895 and 1900 General Elections, and against a Liberal opponent in the 1906 and January 1910 General Elections; and once more unopposed, in the December 1910 and 1918 General Elections when the Liberal Party was in melt-down. He retired in 1922.
- SIR PHILIP COLFOX 1922-1941.
Philip Colfox was born to Colonel Thomas Colfox in Bridport in 1888.
He joined the army as a professional soldier some five years before the outbreak of the First World War, was twice wounded in 1917 and awarded the Military Cross. He was invalided out of the army with the rank of Major and then taught classics and mathematics at Eton College, his old school, until the end of the conflict.
He was first elected to Parliament for North Dorset as a Conservative in the 1918 General Election with a slender majority.
Following the retirement of Robert Williams, he was selected to stand for West Dorset in the 1922 General Election, and again in the ensuing 1923 and 1924 General Elections; in all three cases with comfortable majorities against representatives of the recently formed Labour Party, the Liberals having failed to nominate candidates for those contests.
In the 1929 General Election he was opposed by both Labour and Liberal candidates and his majority suffered. He probably also lost votes as a consequence of disobliging comments made by him against the Liberal candidate, the Welsh Methodist the Reverend George Chappell.
Finally, he won against Liberal candidates in the 1931 and 1935 General Elections, once more with substantial majorities. He was created a Baronet in 1939.
After retiring from Parliament in 1941 he commanded the West Dorset Home Guard, with the rank of Colonel, whilst also managing his farm.
After the War he farmed on organic principles, taught the classics and mathematics to children in Bridport and served as Chairman of the Colfox School in that town. He was reputed to be a dreadful driver! As a Unitarian he worshipped in the Unitarian Chapel built in Bridport by an ancestor in 1797. He died in 1966.
- SIMON WINGFIELD DIGBY 1941-1974.
Simon Digby was born in 1910. His father, a wealthy man, had inherited Sherborne Castle and its estate which had belonged to the family since the reign of James 1st (Photo 4) 
and had set up a very profitable business in Canada.
He had joined the Territorial Army before the Second World War broke out in 1939 when he was incorporated into the regular army. He had been selected to stand for the constituency in 1937 and, following Sir Philip Colson’s retirement in 1941, was elected unopposed as a Conservative in a by-election. Nevertheless, he continued to serve in the army in staff roles until the end of the war.
He was re-elected with substantial majorities in three-way contests in the two General Elections which followed in 1945 and 1950, then with an even more substantial margins against a Labour opponent in the General Elections the following year and in 1955.
In the 1959, 1964, 1966 and 1970 contests he was once again opposed by candidates from both the Liberal and Labour parties and his majority gradually declined in the first three, although remaining comfortable, before he achieved a substantial increase in the 1970 election. In all eight of the three-way contests he fought the Labour party outvoted the Liberals each time.
Simon Digby served for a total of 33 years as the M.P. for West Dorset, the longest serving member since the creation of the constituency. He was dedicated to the service of his constituents and used his wealth on promoting local charities, most of his donations remaining anonymous. He also found time to restore the Castle and develop its estate which was opened to the public from 1969. As from the date of his retirement he lived in a small house on the estate. He died in 1988.
- SIR JIM SPICER 1974-1997.
James (Jim) Spicer was born in 1925. He joined the army on reaching the age of 18 and was rapidly commissioned. He fought in the Ardennes and other encounters in northwest Europe after D-Day until the close of hostilities against Germany and then stayed on in the army as a professional soldier, serving in Egypt, Kenya and Cyprus and finally as a Major with the Parachute Regiment in the attack on the Suez Canal in 1956. He resigned his commission shortly thereafter in protest against that expedition.
He moved with his family to Beaminster to farm. On the retirement of Simon Digby, he was selected by the Conservative Party to fight the West Dorset constituency at the General Election of February 1974 after failing to get elected in previous general elections for a seat in Southampton Itchen. He was elected, with a reduced majority to that achieved by Simon Digby in 1970, again in a three-way contest. This time the Liberal candidate displaced the Labour representative as the runner up. His majority was confirmed in the further election held in October of that year.
In the next General Election held in 1979 both the National Front and the Wessex Regionalist Party fielded candidates in addition to the representatives of Labour and Liberal Parties. Nevertheless, James Spicer increased his share substantially.
He was a strong supporter of Margaret Thatcher but a committed European and from 1979 to 1984 he also served in the Strasbourg Parliament as the MEP for Wessex.
In the three following elections of 1983, 1987 and 1992 James Spicer’s vote share gradually declined from 60% to 51%, whilst the Liberal share rose from 29% to 36% and Labour from 11% to 13%.
As a young man he was a talented fencer and pentathlete and for many years the star of the Parliamentary swimming team. When 69 years of age he swam the Thames from St Thomas’ Hospital to Westminster for charity, and celebrated his exploit by drinking a pint of whisky to kill any germs he may have ingested on the way! He opened a gym in Parliament in 1978 (Photo 5) 
and campaigned for the importance of health to be recognised by business.
He was knighted in 1988, retired from Parliament in 1997 and died in 2015.
- SIR OLIVER LETWIN 1997-2019.
Oliver Letwin was born in London in 1956. Both his parents were American academics from Chicago, his father William being an emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics. His grandparents, on both sides of the family, were Jewish refugees from Kiev who had emigrated to the USA to escape persecution.
He gained a double first in History at Trinity College Cambridge where he went on to gain a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1982. He continued an academic career by becoming a Procter Fellow at Princeton University in the USA and a Research Fellow at Darwin College Cambridge. He also graduated from the London Business School.
After his marriage to Isabelle, a government lawyer, they moved into a small cottage in Dorset at Kingcombe in 1984. They had both enjoyed summer holidays in Dorset in their childhood.
He had become a member of the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Policy Unit from 1983, on which he served until 1986. Subsequently, he obtained employment with NM Rothschild, investment bankers in London, a long association which culminated in his becoming Managing Director of their Corporate Finance Division from 1986 to 2003.
After standing unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate in London constituencies against Diane Abbott in the 1987 General Election and Glenda Jackson in the 1992 General Election, he was selected to fight West Dorset in the 1997 contest and was given extensive coaching in rural affairs in Dorset by Michael Spicer.
He faced representatives of both the Liberal and Labour parties together with a UKIP candidate, who took a 3% vote share. In line with the national trend, which gave Tony Blair his first win for Labour with a landslide majority, the Conservative vote share declined by ten points to 41% and his majority was a slender 1,840 votes.
He served in the Shadow Cabinets of William Hague (Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury), Duncan Smith (Shadow Home Secretary) and Michael Howard (Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and then Shadow Secretary for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).
He backed David Cameron in the leadership race which resulted when Michael Howard stood down following the 2005 General Election and was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by the new leader.
He took a leading role in preparing the Conservative manifesto for the 2010 election and then in the negotiations with the Liberal Party leading to the formation of the Coalition Government, after which, as Minister of State for Developing Government Policy, he was responsible for hammering out an agreement for a common programme for government. He was also appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
After the 2015 General Election David Cameron put him in charge of the Cabinet Office and gave him a full seat in Cabinet Meetings. He voted ‘remain’ in the 23rd of June 2016 Brexit Referendum. Once the result had been declared the Prime Minister appointed him Minister for Brexit and, after resigning, put him forward for a knighthood in his Resignation Honours List.
The following month the new Prime Minister Theresa May terminated his post as Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster and appointed the Brexiteer David Davis as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Oliver Letwin returned to the back benches.
Theresa May’s decision to call a General Election in June 2017 produced a hung parliament and she was only able to form her second Government by entering into a Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. This gave her a tiny working majority to transact routine government business but was insufficient to enable her to obtain a majority for her successive attempts to frame legislation to implement Brexit.
In January 2019 Oliver Letwin tabled a Cross-Party Motion to empower members to hold ‘indicative votes’ on various alternative methods of implementing Brexit. None of the options obtained a majority. In May 2019 the Premier resigned and she was replaced by Boris Johnson in July, following his successful bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party.
Oliver Letwin, who was not a supporter of the new Prime Minister, announced in the following August that he did not intend to stand again for Parliament. In September he proposed a further Motion to enable members to take control of parliamentary business to prevent the Government from leaving the EU without an agreement if none had been reached by 31st October. As a result, he lost the party whip, together with twenty other Conservatives, and thereafter sat as an independent member.
Finally, in October 2019 with the help of a coalition of anti-Brexit MPs and the connivance of the Speaker John Bercow, he successfully managed to pass, by 322 to 306 votes, an amendment to the Government’s Brexit legislation designed to prevent the country leaving the EU automatically if no agreement was reached on the terms of withdrawal by 31st of that month. This confirmation of the stalemate in Parliament on the implementation of Brexit led directly to the calling of the General Election in December of that year.
In the four General Elections held in 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2017 Oliver Letwin increased his vote share each time culminating in 55.5%, despite UKIP standing again him in the first two contests. Over this same period the Liberal vote share declined, in particular in 2015, down to 23.5% in 2017.
During his tenure of 22 years, he built up an important personal following amongst constituents of all political persuasions because of the time and effort he dedicated to assisting them when they encountered difficulties in their lives. He estimated that he received and replied to some 20,000 letters and emails a year from them. He also enjoyed debating contentious issues with his constituents and I remember fondly the occasions on which I crossed swords with him. He was blessed with a formidable intellect and during the course of his career published a total of seven books.
On a more humorous note, during the 2001 General Election he participated, together with his fellow candidates, in a Roman Style Hustings organised by the Dorset County Museum, next to the recently reopened Roman Town House in Colliton Park. During the course of it he was harangued by Billy Bragg, history does not record whether in Latin or the vernacular! This photo shows him dressed in a toga standing next to Rodney Alcock, one of the members of our Society who worked at the County Museum at the time (Photo 6).
- CHRIS LODER 2019-2024.
Chris Loder was born in Sherborne in 1981 and spent his childhood in Folke where his parents are tenant farmers.
He attended Gryphon School in Sherborne and at the age of eighteen joined SW Trains, where he started as a guard and worked his way up the ranks to become Head of Service Strategy in 2012 delivering a multi-million upgrade of Waterloo Station. In parallel, he commenced a career in public service in 1998 by becoming Parish Clerk for Bishops Caundle, a councillor on West Dorset District Council in 2013 and Chairman of West Dorset Conservative Association for over three years until the summer of 2019.
At the December 2019 General Election Chris Loder maintained the Conservative share of the vote at 55.1%, whilst the Liberal share won by Edward Morello increased to 32%, by reason of the collapse of support for Labour. The Conservatives polled a total of 33,589 votes, the highest personal vote ever achieved by any West Dorset MP.
In Westminster he championed West Dorset, for example by securing secured additional funding for NHS services in the County and achieving an acceleration in the installation of broadband, and also by campaigning for improvements in water quality. He highlighted the needs of rural communities and farming and campaigned for a ban on live animal exports which led to the passing of the Livestock Exports Act, after he secured an increase in the penalties for cruelty to animals in the Animal Welfare Sentencing Act 2021, which he initiated as a Private Members Bill. He was a member of the Common-Sense Group of backbenchers which opposed ‘progressive’ social policies.
He also actively supported STAND’s campaign to halt the project to build 4000 houses on the farmland immediately north of Dorchester and advocated affordable small-scale developments in villages throughout the County where new affordable housing is required.
He was very approachable and, following the example of his predecessor, he was an assiduous constituency MP. In his spare time, he enjoyed bell ringing and playing the church organ.
- EDWARD MORELLO 2024-PRESENT .
The Liberal Democrat victory at last year’s General Election brought to an end the 139 years during which the Conservative Party had held the constituency of West Dorset.
It was also the first time that a candidate has been elected who had no previous connections with the County when first selected. Very little is known about him other than that prior to his election he was employed by the English subsidiary of Brookfield Renewables, a Canadian group which invests in renewable energy, and was resident in Milton Keynes. He now resides with his wife and dog in Bridport.
The election was marked by abstention of Conservative inclined voters, mirroring the national trend, which reduced the votes cast in favour of the outgoing MP to 19,210 votes, and the vote share to 36.5%. Edward Morello’s vote share correspondingly increased to 51.3% with 26,999 votes cast in his favour. He also benefited from support from electors who had previously voted for Labour.
What does the future hold in the light of the new Labour Government’s difficulties and the rise of the ‘populist’ Reform Party?
IAN GOSLING,
CHAIR OF DORCHESTER CIVIC SOCIETY
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