Chapter 4: New Horizons, 1832-7

Item 45a
Election address, 8 July 1837: - I
Dep. Hughenden 28/4, fol. 5

Disraeli was finally elected to the House of Commons in July 1837, when he was returned as one of the two Conservative candidates for the Kent constituency of Maidstone, in the General Election called after the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne. The fact that the other candidate, Wyndham Lewis (1780-1838), was the husband of Disraeli's future wife, Mary Anne, imbues the event with longer-term emotional significance. More prosaically Disraeli was finally beyond the reach of his creditors, though not the necessity of rescheduling his debts. This address drafted, with very few revisions, by Disraeli (see 45b), includes references to upholding the Protestant constitution, opposing the Poor Law and the freeing the Monarchy from the 'trammels' of the Whig Government.