Lymington

The representation of Lymington was shared by the Powletts, dukes of Bolton, lords lieutenant of Hampshire, with the Burrards, a local family who managed the borough, packing the corporation so successfully that in 1722 Paul Burrard said ‘all the old burgesses now alive (except one) from the year 1686 to 1701, were made by us’. When in 1722 Lord William Powlett attempted to secure the second seat, Paul Burrard successfully objected, pointing out to him:

Your Lordship cannot imagine that I have lived so near the town all my life without expenses. Or, do you think it possible that you (coming for a few days, once a year) could singly support the interest, when there are so many adversaries round us who deal with the trading people?

In 1745 a further attempt by the 3rd Duke to obtain sole control of the borough was defeated by an alliance between the sitting Members, his nephew Colonel Charles Powlett and Harry Burrard, who secured a majority on the corporation by calling a surprise meeting and creating new freemen.1S. Burrard, Annals of Walhampton, 26, 30-31, 55-80. After an unsuccessful appeal to the courts against the legality of these proceedings, the Duke of Bolton, in a last minute attempt to prevent the return of Powlett and Burrard in the 1747 election, wrote to the Duke of Newcastle’s secretary on 19 June:

If his Grace will send me any two names that he desires to be chose, either two servants of the King’s or any two that he shall name, I’ll recommend them to be chose. ... The greatest treachery is the occasion of this.2Add. 32711, f. 413.

He was informed that ‘things were so far settled and the time of the election so near that it was impracticable to make any alterations’.3Ibid. f. 415. In Burrard’s words, he and Powlett

established our interest, which we kept up in mutual harmony, without again adding to the number of our burgesses, during Colonel Charles Powlett’s life. Nothing transpired in any matter relative to the borough till we had agreed between ourselves on the point. He left the management of everything to me, and never suffered anybody else to interfere with the business of the borough.4Burrard, 78.