Stockbridge

At Stockbridge, a notoriously venal borough, elections depended on securing the bailiff, who was the returning officer. In 1715, when two Whigs, Thomas Brodrick and Martin Bladen, were returned, their opponents petitioned on the ground that the bailiff, ‘a known agent’ of the sitting Members, had polled a number of unqualified voters for his clients.1CJ, xviii. 35. The petition was not heard. On 6 Feb. 1720 Brodrick wrote:

I bought yesterday another little thing in Stockbridge after the same manner I did formerly, by giving a moderate price and setting a lease at the interest of my money to the vendor, by which method I shall in all probability make it pretty difficult (at least during my life) for any person to carry an election there against my will, though I have no thoughts of standing myself on any future choice.2Brodrick mss.

Brodrick did not stand again for Stockbridge but his partner, Martin Bladen, a placeman, shared it till 1734 with another placeman, John Chetwynd, whose seat at Fullerton was about three miles from the borough. In 1727, when the Chetwynds were out of favour, Richard Edgcumbe wrote to Walpole:

Saturday I lay at Stockbridge, where there was a new chap just arrived from London, one Mr. Turner a citizen, and said to be a very rich man, as one would believe he was, by the offers I was told he makes. His errand there is to oppose John Chetwynd, but desirous to join with Bladen, who have declared an united interest, and Mr. Snow (of famous memory) is factor to them both; he supped with me, and told me he was a man of honour, and that he would serve both or none and absolutely refuses Turner. I send you this to let you know the state of that election in case Mr. Turner should happen to be a man worth being concerned for, at the price of brother John [Chetwynd]. If so, Mr. Snow, who alone can manage there, is a custom house officer [inspector] and if he attended his duty, it may be things might go at Stockbridge otherwise than now they are like to do.3Rich. Edgcumbe to Walpole, n.d., Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss 3240.

Humphrey Monoux was brought in by the Duke of Marlborough4G. Scott Thomson, Letters of a Grandmother, 114. in 1734; in 1741 one seat was ‘hired’ by Matthew Lamb, the money-lender; and in 1747 Daniel Boone and William Chetwynd were returned on the recommendation of the Prince of Wales.5HMC Fortescue, i. 115.