Lichfield

There was no predominant influence at Lichfield. Contests were frequent and sometimes turbulent owing to a strong and aggressive Jacobite element in the town. In 1715 Chetwynd, a Whig, and Hill, a moderate Tory, defeated two high Tories. At a by-election caused by Chetwynd’s appointment to office in 1718, a Tory was successful, Chetwynd’s supporters being ‘kept out of the Hall and barbarously beaten and abused, and their lives endangered by a very great mob with papers in their hats resembling white roses’, the Pretender’s emblem.1Keatt’s Weekly Jnl. 3 May 1718. Chetwynd was subsequently unseated on petition. In 1722, a Tory reported:

there will be a right majority at Lichfield but the returning officer, who was always thought a Tory and an honest man, has been bought and will certainly return the others.2HMC Portland, vii. 318.

Two Whigs were returned. In 1727 the Whig Members were again returned, according to their opponents’ petition by paying the corporation £800, and by threatening the tenants of the dean and chapter with eviction and even ‘with ecclesiastical censure for incontinency’ if they did not support them.3CJ, xxi. 46. At a by-election in 1731, however, a Tory was returned, William Chetwynd, the brother of the previous Member, desisting when he found the returning officer entirely in his opponent’s interests.4Read’s Weekly Jnl. 1 May 1731. In 1734 and 1741 two Tories were unopposed. But in 1747 Lord Anson, who had been laying out part of his prize money on buying up freeholds and burgages at Lichfield,5Staffs. Parl. Hist. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc.), ii (2), pp. 265-6. joined interests with Lord Gower, the former Tory leader, who had recently gone over to the Government. After a bitter contest at which ‘the whole Jacobite party made their push to sacrifice Lord Gower for having quitted his party’, Anson’s brother, Thomas, and a son of Lord Gower were successful at a cost of £20,000.6Ld. Anson to Sir Peter Warren, 23 July 1747, Lichfield mss.

At a by-election in 1753, the Tory candidate,

Sir Thomas Gresley Bt., entered the city attended by upwards of 200 gentlemen and 500 freemen. The ribbons worn on this occasion were blue [Tory] and white [Pretender], with the mottoes of ‘No Jews’ [against the bill for the naturalization of the Jews], ‘No venality and corruption’, ‘Christianity and the English constitution for ever’.7Staffs. Parl. Hist. ii (2), 254.

He was successful, only to be unseated on petition.