Stafford

Stafford was an expensive and difficult constituency, with an electorate composed mostly of tradesmen.See the analysis of the poll book of 1765 in J. C. Wedgwood, Staffs. Parlty. Hist. ii. 278-9. About 1754 it was under the patronage of the Chetwynds of Ingestre Hall, but by 1774 they had lost all their interest. ‘No Cornish borough is more venal’, wrote Josiah Wedgwood, the potter, in 1780;Ibid. 301. and Robinson in 1783 described the borough as ‘very open’.