‘The idea I gave Lord Rockingham of this county’, wrote Sir George Savile in 1769,Rockingham Mems. ii. 138. ‘was four dukes [Newcastle, Portland, Kingston, and Rutland], two lords [Willoughby and Howe], and three rabbit warrens [Nottingham, East Retford, and Newark], which I believe in fact takes in half the county in point of space.’ And Oldfield in 1792:Boroughs, ii.
Berwick ranked as an open borough, but Government had considerable influence through the Customs, Excise, and Taxes, the Post Office, and the garrison, navy, and Ordnance.
At Morpeth there were seven trade guilds, each of which had the right to elect a certain number of freemen. These were then admitted at the court leet of Lord Carlisle, who owned the manor. To an increasing extent during the eighteenth century the Carlisle family exercised control by restricting the number of freemen, and in 1747 the fourth Earl persuaded the guilds to pass a resolution that no freemen should be elected without his consent.
In 1754 the Whig-Tory antagonism in Northumberland politics was beginning to break down. ‘The Whig interest ... is now established for ever in this county’, wrote the Earl of Northumberland to Newcastle on 5 July 1753.Add. 32732, ff. 174-5. ‘Sir William Middleton and Sir Harry Grey were this day unanimously declared joint candidates by the greatest number of gentlemen that ever appeared at any meeting for this county.’ They were returned unopposed, and subsequent elections until 1774 were not contested.
Northampton had a very wide franchise, comprising about two-thirds of all resident adult males. The labouring class, except those in receipt of poor relief, were entitled to vote; and there was a large Dissenting element in the population. Yet its politics were mainly personal in character and subject to aristocratic influence. ‘I have always understood’, wrote the Duke of Newcastle in 1768, ‘that when my Lord Halifax and my Lord Northampton agreed ... their interest was secure’;Add. 32989, f.
The most important interest at Peterborough was that of the Fitzwilliam family who owned large estates in the neighbourhood and almost invariably returned one Member. But it was ‘by no means ... a commanding interest’;Matthew Lamb to Ld. Fitzwilliam, 28 Dec. 1767, Fitzwilliam mss, Northants RO. it always required attention, and was expensive to maintain. Richard Terrick, bishop of Peterborough, wrote to Lord Hardwicke, 6 Oct. 1762:Add. 35607, f. 2.
Higham Ferrers was a pocket borough of the Marquess of Rockingham, and after his death in 1782, of his nephew and heir, Earl Fitzwilliam.
Northamptonshire was free from aristocratic control and its representation was securely in the hands of the country gentlemen. No election went to the poll during this period and expenses were small: Sir Edmund Isham in 1768 paid just over £180, most of which went in drink for the freeholders.Election accounts, Isham mss, Northants. RO. Until 1784 political issues played little part in elections.
Brackley was always counted as a pocket borough of the Duke of Bridgwater. In 1754 Bridgwater, a minor, was on the grand tour, and his affairs were managed by his uncle the Duke of Bedford. At Brackley a complete stranger, Thomas Humberston, bribed a majority of the corporation into promising him single votes. Bedford, with Dickinson and Vernon, the Bridgwater candidates, went down to try and retrieve the situation.
In 1754 Norwich was the third largest city in England and the fourth largest urban constituency, a cathedral city of great dignity and antiquity and the centre of the Norfolk woollen industry. Its municipal constitution resembled that of London, with a court of aldermen and a court of common council; and municipal politics were fiercely contested. There was a large body of Dissenters; and since the franchise included freeholders as well as freemen, a considerable rural vote.
