Wilton

Though predestined to fall under the influence of the Herberts, earls of Pembroke, the lords of the borough, who owned the surrounding property, Wilton was still independent in 1715, when the corporation re-elected the former Members, John London, a Blackwell Hall cloth factor, and Thomas Pitt, later Lord Londonderry, whose father, Governor Pitt, owned the neighbouring estate of Stratford sub Castle. From 1722 one seat was filled by Robert Herbert, the 8th Earl’s second son, who shared the representation successively with Pitt and Thomas Martin, a London banker, till 1734, when he was joined by his younger brother. The 2nd Lord Egmont in his electoral survey, c.1749-50, describes Wilton as ‘in Lord Pembroke’.