Coleraine was the property of the London Society, whose agent was John Claudius Beresford, and by 1799 his cousin Lord Waterford had ‘purchased’ the corporation, possibly by the admission of 35 select freemen in 1797, the last to be admitted before 1830.Sheffield mss, Foster to Sheffield, 8 Dec. 1799; Parl Rep. [I], H. C. 1831-2 (519), xliii. 33-34. Consequently the Beresfords, headed by Henry, 2nd Marquess of Waterford, controlled the borough and returned different members of the family to suit their convenience. Thus Hill replaced Jones in 1806 because he was thought to be in danger of a contest at Londonderry, while Lord George Beresford came in in 1812 to avoid a contest for the county. The Beresfords’ support for each administration in turn strengthened their hand, for as Lord Howick put it apropos of Lord Waterford, 4 Dec. 1806, ‘if not assisted by government ... it is very doubtful whether he might not have been beaten at Coleraine’.Grey mss, Howick to Bedford (copy), 4 Dec. 1806.
